[NLA] No need for evidence, just get personal

[Andres Muro]

Tom writes:

"Of the people in
> his list, I am only familiar with Paulo Freire's work to actually
> develop and deliver a literacy program. I don't recall seeing any
> evidence demonstrating that his program was more effective than programs"

Evidence that literacy programs are effective is hard to produce beyond passing a standardized test or immediately getting a job or transitioning to college as a direct, reported result of attending a program. 

Some have argued that literacy has an impact in quality of life. This is even harder to measure since there is no easy way to measure quality of life. Moreover, this is very subjective. An improvement in quality of life may mean that a person gets a better job or that a grandmother writes a birthday card to her grandchildren for the first time. 

With Freire, it gets even trickier. The purpose of Freirian Pedagogy is to conscientisize communities. In very simple terms conscientization is the ability of being able to understand the structural nature of economic forces that shape society (base/superstructure). In other words, the purpose is for the learners to understand the economic forces that shape their conditions and to use literacy to bring about structural change. I am not sure how to measure this either. 

With Dewey the purpose of education is to develop through a constructivist process that occurs through experimentation in our environment and cultural context through a communicative process. Again, how do we measure this?

Therefore, determining if a literacy program is effective or not is virtually impossible beyond some mechanistic aspects. Our problem has been that since we have been ask to measure efficiency form a mechanistic, reductionist eye, we have made every efforts to reduce complex, contextual, subjective and culturally based concepts such as quality of life, conscientization,  constructivism; and the pedagogies associated with these concepts to measurable, objective evaluation instruments. I don't think that this can be done, nor that we should stop doing what we are doing. 

Andres 



>>> adaliner at prodigy.net 04/01/02 09:59PM >>>
Paulo Freire's work is a standard worthy of striving for. He crosses the
traditional barriers of cultural orientation with ease and humor without
sacrificing depth of understanding or compassion.
a r
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Sticht" <tsticht at aznet.net>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Cc: <tsticht at aznet.net>
Sent: Monday, April 01, 2002 10:24 AM
Subject: [NLA] No need for evidence, just get personal


> Some thoughts upon reading comments about the OERI and reduced
> enrollments to improve quality of AELS services.
> Tom Sticht
>
> Regarding David Rosen's, John Coming's, and George Demetrion's comments
> regarding changes at OERI. Perhaps NCAL and NCSALL could put together a
> report that presents evidence showing that their research has improved
> services for adult learners somewhere in some way. The evidence should
> be of a nature that the R & D centers think the policy makers
> considering changing OERI would find convincing. George might
> demonstrate how those people he listed ( Dewey, Mezirow et al) showed
> that they could design, develop, and implement an adult education
> program teaching literacy or other important subject matter, that was
> more effective in some ways than an existing program. Of the people in
> his list, I am only familiar with Paulo Freire's work to actually
> develop and deliver a literacy program. I don't recall seeing any
> evidence demonstrating that his program was more effective than programs
> others had developed. Perhaps such evidence exists but I am unaware of
> it.
>
> Regarding Bob Bickerton's comments about reducing numbers served and
> thereby improving quality of instruction for those fewer served,   I
> think it would be important to know why the AELS lost over a million
> enrollments in two years and whether this had any thing to do with
> showing some improvements in programs in the AELS.  Having lost  large
> numbers of enrollments, and then showing that adults peristed longer in
> programs, does not actually demonstrate improvement in the quality of
> instruction. It could be that sample bias was introduced and that those
> adults who would have left early were not enrolled and those adults who
> would have stayed longer actually did enroll. This would increase
> average hours of instruction but not because those enrolled were staying
> longer than they would have but because those who would have left early
> and lowered the hours of instruction were not enrolled. I don't know if
> this is the case, of course, because to my knowledge no one has yet put
> out a report showing why so many adult enrollments were lost from the
> AELS, nor am I knowledgeable about any reports from Massachusetts
> demonstrating the efficacy of the use of the "reduced enrollments to
> improve quality of service" strategy.
>
> Overall, it seems that if we are to make a good case for continued
> support of research in adult education and literacy development, we need
> to put forth some pretty convincing evidence that past research has made
> some payoffs in improved services for adults.
>
> But I am likely wrong about the importance of trying to show that our R
> & D has been effective in some ways. Probably there only has to be some
> political contacts made to congress people in the states where research
> centers are now located and then have these congress people go in and
> fight for "their" R & D centers. Don't bother them with data, just get
> personal! I've seen it work many times before.
> _______________________________________________
> NLA mailing list: NLA at lists.literacytent.org 
> http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/nla 
> LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
> http://literacytent.org 


_______________________________________________
NLA mailing list: NLA at lists.literacytent.org 
http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/nla 
LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
http://literacytent.org
_______________________________________________
NLA mailing list: NLA at lists.literacytent.org
http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/nla
LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
http://literacytent.org