[NLA] participation and resistance

[Eileen Eckert]

Andres,
I agree with much of what you say about not recognizing/thinking about the 
ideology behind the teaching practice, and therefore having no idea how that 
is affecting learners. Since most of this is going on beneath the surface, 
never verbalized, most of the time students who leave are not going to say, 
"I'm leaving because you're pushing your ideology on me and I don't see any 
way to stay and fight it!" even if that is a reason for their discomfort and 
resistance.

Going to El Salvador during and after the civil war, even for a short time, 
made me aware of some of my biases--the people in the teacher's union there 
were very kind, but not shy about confronting American attitudes. Those 
experiences, among others, changed the way I look at things, <but> I can't 
change the fact that I'm a middle-class white woman. It is always easier to 
stick to "the basics" and tell myself that politics are not my job than it 
is to jump into the civic, political, economic, social, and, yes, health 
issues that affect the lives of people in my classes--and affect my own. 
It's always safer to stick to Steck-Vaughn's idea of ABE/GED content than to 
find and/or generate material that reflects what people in the classes are 
already engaged in or that engages them around critically important issues. 
I've done it, it's gotten me in trouble, and because I have the luxury of 
choosing, I also have the sense of going out on a limb when I choose 
authentic engagement over "neutral" material. Maybe it would be better never 
to have known what I could/should be doing?

Lots of teachers help students change their lives by opening up a vision of 
life without violence or a life of "self-sufficiency," and while these 
visions can lead to personal transformation and happiness for the 
individuals who choose them, if that's the end of the spectrum the teacher 
is aware of, s/he is still teaching in service of the status quo. Individual 
transformation is, after all, part of the traditional American dream. It is 
more even distribution of the plenty that is threatening, and therefore of 
which it is safer to be unaware. But I bet many of those who resist ABE 
already don't buy into preserving the status quo as a good thing.

I heard a story on NPR a couple of years ago now that talked about how it is 
not poverty alone that causes the stress that leads to so many chronic 
illnesses in poor populations in the U.S. After all, many people around the 
world are poorer, and healthier, than poor Americans. According to the 
story, the chronic illnesses poor Americans have in disproportionate numbers 
have more to do with being poor in the midst of prosperity than with poverty 
alone. If the conclusions drawn in the story are true (and they make sense 
to me), how do you "teach health in a systematic way" when so much of health 
has to do with socioeconomic and political conditions, not just with 
individual lifestyle choices? And what does it mean to "teach" health, or to 
"teach" anything?
Eileen



>From: AndresMuro at aol.com
>Reply-To: nla at lists.literacytent.org
>To: nla at lists.literacytent.org
>Subject: Re: [NLA] participation and resistance
>Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2002 14:25:52 EDT
>
>Some thoughts that came to mind while reading your posts:
>
>I was reading an article yesterday in which the author argued that there is 
>a
>disconnect between theory and practice in teaching. she argued that 
>teachers
>could practice teaching, but they did not know the ideology behind what 
>they
>were teaching. According to her, this prevented teachers and students from
>getting into meaningful discussions as to why they are learning something.
>they can only discuss the answer to a problem, but not the reason why the
>problem was chosen. Is it possible that this is what the students resist?
>
>It seems to me, that possibly the students perceive that the ideological
>reasons the students learn what they learn are not for their benefit, but 
>for
>the benefit of someone else. Recently I was invited to the office of 
>minority
>health conference to talk about health and adult education. I have been
>thinking about this for a while. to me, schools are supposed to be teaching
>important things and health is one of the most important things there is,
>period. Why are schools not teaching health in a systematic way, for 
>example.
>  To me, this is the most clear evidence that schools don't teach what is 
>most
>important to the students.
>
>Andres


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