[NLA] Functional Context Education for National Security

[Thomas Sticht]

Research Note 2 Oct 01 
Tom Sticht

Functional Context Education for National Security

Since the tragic attacks of September 11, there has been a lot of
concern that security employees in airports and other sites are not well
trained for the jobs they are supposed to do. There has been talk of
replacing thousands of workers with government employees who will be
better trained. 

It seems likely to me that many of the adults who are at risk of losing
their jobs are immigrants with poorly developed language skills. Others
are likely to be undereducated adults with basic skills at what I call
the mid-level literate range, reading on standardized tests from about
the 6th to the end of the 9th grade level.  

Adult educators may find that they can offer expedient, cost-effective
help for adults to overcome the effects of losing their jobs or in
helping adults acquire skills needed for security and other related jobs
through the use of functional context education in which job skills
training and basic skills education are integrated. 

Now would seem to be a good time for the U. S. Department  of Education,
Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) to bring together
vocational educators and adult basic skills educators to initiate a
national program to develop intensive, short-term courses that could
help adults quickly acquire the job skills, language and literacy skills
that would permit them to fill much needed security  and other jobs that
may be created by an increased emphasis upon homeland defense. 

For additional information about functional context education, visit the
following web sites. 

Functional Context Education (FCE) Workshop
www.nald.ca   Full Text Documents
Search under authors names under the letter S for Sticht. This notebook
provides FCE principles and examples of FCE  programs that integrate job
skills and basic skills. 

The Center for Occupational Research & Development (CORD)
 Internet site: www.cord.org

Located in Waco, Texas, CORD has long been involved in developing
contextualized courses for students in the K-12 system. Recently, Dale
Parnell, former President of the American Association for Community
Colleges in the United States published a book with CORD entitled
Contextual Teaching Works.5  In this book he presents a review of
research on FCE in a chapter on What Research Says About Contextual
Teaching. The book provides examples of FCE programs in various high
schools in the U.S. and Canada.

Wider Opportunities for Women, Inc. (WOW)
Literacy and Functional Context Education
www.wowonline.org/Lit-pub.pub

With headquarters in Washington, DC, WOW has been involved for over 30
years in developing education and training programs for women, most of
whom are on or have been on welfare. In its work, WOW has drawn on
Functional Context Education principles as discussed in Chapter 4 for
almost a decade. Reports that WOW makes available include Functional
Context Education: A Primer for Program Providers (1992),  An
Introduction to Intergenerational Literacy (1992)  and Learning Faster,
Learning Smarter (1996), a hands-on manual that describes how to
transform from traditional adult education and job training programs
into integrated functional context programs which allow learners and
program providers to "do more with less."  

U. S. Department of Education, Office
Of Vocational and Adult Education
Contextual Teaching and Learning
 www.contextual.org

The Contextual Teaching and Learning project is a national project
funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and
Adult Education and the National School-to-Work Office. According to
this project,  contextual teaching and learning is a conception of
teaching and learning that helps teachers relate subject matter content
to "real world" situations and motivates students to make connections
between knowledge and its applications to their lives as family members,
citizens, and workers and engage in the hard work that learning
requires. In this project, which aims at teacher preparation in schools
of education, contextual teaching and learning strategies: 

-emphasize problem-solving; 
-recognize the need for teaching and learning to occur in a
variety of contexts such as home, community, and work
sites; 
-teach students to monitor and direct their own learning so
they become self-regulated learners; 
-anchor teaching in students diverse life-contexts; 
-encourage students to learn from each other and together; and 
-employ authentic assessment. 

National Institute for Literacy
Equipped for the Future (EFF) Project
www.nifl.gov/lincs/collections/eff/index.html

Equipped for the Future (EFF) is the National Institute for Literacy's
standards based system reform initiative aimed at improving the quality
and outcomes of the adult literacy and lifelong learning delivery
system. EFF starts from the recognition that the skills adults need as
parents, workers, and citizens go beyond the basic academic skills that
have traditionally been targeted by adult education programs. 

In a document that provides a review of the research base for the EFF
project, Merrifield states "When Sticht initially proposed the
"functional context" approach to adult education
 his intention was to
focus on use, not just situation. As EFF developed role maps in an
attempt to identify what adults need to know and be able to do in their
important adult roles, it became clear that application or use, not
possession of skills, was what mattered. Context came to be seen as the
reasons people have for learning, the use they want to make of it. In
this way, a context-based approach became linked with a purposeful
approach to learning (p.11)."

Additionally, the U. S. Department of Labor has sponsored demonstration
projects that integrate ESOL and vocational education. Information can
be obtained from David Stewart, (202) 219-6871 ext. 152. Ask about the
Contextual Learning Demonstration Program.
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