NLA Discussion: Meeting the Needs of Out-of-school Youth

[gdemetrion]

Excellent message from Walter Wallace.

Let us hope that what Walter views as the primary values of adult
education--dialogue, refelection on experience, meaningful content, etc.,
not become diminished over time with the increased pressure to produced
measurable "outcomes," as if they are discreet things that can be measured
by counting up check lists or the increased impact over standardized testing
which tends to drain resources that could be better placed in teaching or in
the provision of auxillary resources for students.

It is the interconnection between literacy, the learning process, individual
consciousness, and the broader socio-cultural context that interact in any
educational setting.  Let us hope that these interactions will continue to
be fruitful, vigorous, awe inspiring, and meaningful within our ABE/literacy
teaching environments. For what it's worth, it's the perservation and the
strengthening of such space which compels me to fight against policy
mandates which I believe are disempowering.

This discussion on out-of-school youth is excellent.

George Demetrion
Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford
Gdemetrion at msn.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Walter Wallace" <wfwabe at vermontel.com>
To: <nla at world.std.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 11:19 AM
Subject: NLA Discussion: Meeting the Needs of Out-of-school Youth


>
>
> In addition to the reasons suggested by David, Daphne, and Andrea, from
what
> I've observed many young people are not challenged intellectually or
> spiritually in most public school environments.
>
> Perhaps this is reflected in the acting out behaviors suggested by David
> (e.g., involvement with the law).  Many young people whom I've observed
over
> the years who relish being outside of society (be it a young Jackson
Pollock
> or Patti Smith or the 16 year old teen who, while on school vacation and
> hanging with friends, picks up the phone and calls the local ABE office to
> inquire how to get a GED so they can leave school and get on with their
> lives) are folks who find it difficult to function within the narrow
> confines of public education as it has evolved.
>
> I think part of this reflects the dark side of high stakes testing and
> "standards" that David refers us to.
>
> Education has become a commodity.  The more the student produces the less
> the student has to consume.  The more value the student creates, the more
> worthless the student becomes.  The school becomes -- to use Patti Smith's
> words -- a piss factory where one clocks in and clocks out and where
success
> is measured by test scores.  Save for those young folks who have an
> opportunity to experience a dialogic education -- increasingly, I fear,
less
> and less available in the public sphere and more and more through the
> private -- I suspect we will be seeing more and more young people knocking
> at ABE's door.  Much of what adult educators pride ourselves in (student
> centeredness, the value of experential learning, education conceived as
> dialogue over time rather than accumulating interest based on what is put
in
> the bank, honoring a spectrum of learning needs and modalities) I believe
is
> simply not part of the public education experience (rhetoric to the
> contrary).  Accountability as it has evolved wants us to focus on the
> quality of widgets, not on where the person is in the scheme of things.
> Many of the young people I have encountered in the ABE world in the past
few
> years are bright, energetic, and wanting to move on with their lives.
They
> have had it with a system that forces their measuring self worth based on
> false assumptions and hopes.
>
> Walter Wallace
>
>
>
>
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