[NLA] participation and resistance

[Andres Muro]

Eileen, Art, et al:

The question of professionalism and mainstreaming is something that interests me very much. I don't think that these two things are necessarily related.

I have always been an advocate for the professionalization of adult literacy and have been very heavily criticized for my stance. People relate the idea of professionalization of adult literacy with k-12 as a good argument against professionalization.

To me, professionalization does not have anything to do with mainstreaming. Professionals, to me, are people that devote a significant amount of time to a job and get adequately compensated for this. At the same time, they have a responsibility to study, learn, conduct research and increase their knowledge of their field. As people become more knowledgeable of their field, they become independent thinkers and they choose what paradigms they may want to subscribe to, what approaches, strategies and ideologies they may want to embrace and what efforts they may want to engage in to change the nature of their fields. In Gramcian terms, they become organic intellectuals. It is up to them to become organic intellectuals for the mainstream, or for other streams. 

To me, k-12 teachers are mainstreamed for sure. However, they are hardly professionals or organic intellectuals. Instead they are technicians. Intellectual growth, independence, and creative thinking are not something encouraged of teachers. While I am sure that there are a few teachers that devote time to grow professionally, it is not the general rule. This is because teachers are not part of an intellectual tradition. 

Of course, some teachers would argue that they are encouraged to and study strategies and ways to improve on their practice. In other words, they study how to teach the curriculum better, how to manage the students and the classroom, etc. However, they study how to do their jobs better, but not the why of their jobs. I am talking about questions such as why was this curriculum selected? why are we doing SCANS? who decided that we should teach job skills instead of health? who came up with WIA or NRA? why do the EFF people talk about functioning instead of participating? what is the difference between functional literacy and participatory literacy? who benefits from the curriculum that we are using?  

An intellectual teacher, according to Giroux, researches these questions and when they find answers, they are forced to take a stance. A teacher may, for example, work for a workforce development literacy program. If the teacher would research the data, he would learn that these type of programs do not benefit the students in the long run, but they only benefit the corporations. Once they figure that out, they are forced to take a position, since they are aware of  the specific outcome of their work. 

Andres

>>> eileeneckert at hotmail.com 08/08/02 07:28AM >>>
Art wrote: ...we in adult lit are at a loss in
terms of how do we deal with the potential student's philosophy that we, as 
part of an 'educational' opportunity for them, will force 'values' that they 
haven't 'chosen'.

Thinking "out loud" here...When we identify with K-12, when we value 
"professionalization," how much do we align ourselves with the 
powers-that-be and by implication with the value of joining the "mainstream" 
ourselves and of "helping" literacy learners to become part of the 
mainstream? Do we give up the ability, or even the potential, to critique or 
even change that mainstream by positioning ourselves inside it?

And if we see our relationship with learners as helping them to "get" 
something, namely literacy skills, that we have and they don't, then is it 
implicit that we will also help them "get" the values they "need" (by our 
definition, and our definition must be right because we're the educators and 
we've already "got it")?

If our relationship with learners is one of mutual benefit, what do 
educators get from learners? Can learners immediately see their value to 
program volunteers and staff? Or do they feel like objects of literacy 
educators' efforts instead of co-subjects? Are we as willing to be changed 
by our contact with learners as we want them to be by their encounters with 
us?

Eileen


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