[NLA] Policy regarding the use of AELS

[Catherine B. King]

Hello Tom:

I already answered your question in my previous note:

"If organizations like NCSALL or CAAL or individuals want to identify some
> other adult education system, why shouldn't they come up with a unique
> name for their newly defined system? Why must they insist upon using a
> system name that has already been in use for the last couple of years and
> which has a well defined referent? Why is coming up with a new name for
> newly identified systems a problem?"

However, the short answer is:  Because terms like
"Adult Education and Literacy System" <<already infer>>
a general inclusivity and comprehensiveness that you are
not affording it by defining it within the parameters you
suggest.  In other words, your term already infers a larger
area of data than your limited meaning imports to it.

To put it in more colorful terms, you are trying to put a big
shoe on a small foot--it doesn't fit--and it rubs allot of us the
wrong way, probably for good reasons.

If you don't like it that (a lot of) people have struggled with this
 mis-match of  meaning and terminology, then perhaps you
should find another name that infers a subset of "adult
education and literacy" and that more closely reflects what you
mean by it--a perfectly legitimate project--and then normal
intelligent people won't find it so confusing and disconcerting to
have to jump from inferred meaning in AELS to the limited
meaning that what Tom Sticht wants "AELS" to project--but it
doesn't, in fact, project it on its own if you take the responses
on this posting to be evidence for that claim.

Finding a more suitable term--one that infers your more limited
meaning--will help you avoid allot of problems that, my guess is,
won't go away anytime soon.  Either that, or get used to the
fact that generally intelligent people read meaning into words
as they take them--it's not unreasonable to either move meaning
around (like NCSALL did) or to interpret quickly from the
terminology used.   It's two different worlds of discourse--
theoretical and common.  When you are in Rome, you don't
expect everyone to do as you do in America.

Happy Holidays,

Catherine King


----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Sticht <tsticht at znet.com>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 12:50 PM
Subject: [NLA] Policy regarding the use of AELS


> Jay Cretella recently posted a message saying : "The use of "adult
> education and literacy" is not the creation of any one  person. By simply
> adding "system" does not make it so. For the last 3 decades  many
> advocates have used this terminology. If one person wants to take credit
> for putting it all together into one acronym, so be it. But let's not
> worry  who gets the credit or how one person defines it. It belongs to all
> of us."
>
> My response: Jay's comments seem to me to miss the point of the ongoing
> discussion regarding the policy for using the name and acronym of the
> Adult Education and Literacy System (AELs). I believe his comments are off
> base in three ways.
>
> First, I believe he is incorrect in asserting that "For the last 3 decades
>  many advocates have used this terminology." I have not found advocates
> from 3, 2, or even 1 decade ago using the name Adult Education and
> Literacy System (AELS) to refer to the programs organized by and funded
> wholly or in part by the WIA Title 2 Adult Education and Family Literacy
> Act of 1998. In fact, the naming of the AELS is something I did after
> noting that the set of programs organized by WIA Title 2 had no common
> name. In naming the AELS I used the name of the USED OVAE/Division of
> Adult Education and Literacy and I made no claim to inventing the phrase
> "adult education and literacy." If Jay has references to someone using the
> name Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) for the WIA Title 2
> programs from  1, 2 ,or 3 decades ago I would be pleased to acknowledge
> this precedence.
>
> Second,  I believe Jay is wrong to think that adding the word "system" and
> then using this new name/acronym, Adult Education and Literacy System, to
> refer to the WIA Title 2 programs, does not contribute something new to
> the advocacy effort for adult education and literacy. It changes the
> entire understanding of the AELS to name it and to recognize it as a
> national adult educational system similar to those systems for K-12 and
> higher education, rather than simply as a federal funding program for the
> disadvantaged, a remnant of the War on Poverty,  called the State Grants
> program. As I have noted earlier, I have written a number of papers about
> the AELS considered as an adult educational system which include data on
> the history and rise of the AELS, multiple outcomes (ROI) resulting from
> investments in the AELS, cultural beliefs retarding the growth and
> development of the AELS, and future directions for the AELS in the 21st
> century. All this aims to provide a foundation for advocating for the
> future of the AELS as a lifelong adult education system. I have also
> advocated for removing the AELS from the WIA and the creation of a new law
> called the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) Act of 2003 which
> would further clarify the meaning of the Adult Education and Literacy
> System  (AELS) of the United States.
>
> Third, unlike what Jay seems to think, I do not think that the issue being
> discussed is about who gets credit for the phrase "adult education and
> literacy system"  because in and of itself that phrase has little meaning.
> It only takes on significant meaning after the system that it refers to is
> defined. What is at issue is to what the phrase "adult education and
> literacy system" refers. In this case I have argued that because the
> phrase "Adult Education and Literacy System" and the acronym "AELS" has
> been extensively used as a new name and acronym  for the set of programs
> organized and funded by the WIA Title 2 state grants,  this use should be
> recognized and reserved for this purpose.
>
> My point is that if anyone else wants to identify and name some other set
> of programs as adult lifelong learning programs or as a system of adult
> education programs then they should invent some other name and acronym
> besides the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS). The latter has
> already been used to define a certain set of adult education and literacy
> programs and it is confusing to use the same name and acronym with several
> different meanings.
>
> If organizations like NCSALL or CAAL or individuals want to identify some
> other adult education system, why shouldn't they come up with a unique
> name for their newly defined system? Why must they insist upon using a
> system name that has already been in use for the last couple of years and
> which has a well defined referent? Why is coming up with a new name for
> newly identified systems a problem?
>
> Tom Sticht
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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