[NLA] Re: Toward a "Foundational Understanding"

[Catherine B. King]

Hello Eileen:

You ask: "How do you think that framing their practice
using the perspectives you describe would impact
individual teachers' and program directors' day-to-day
lives and careers? . . . acting on the perspectives you've
described within a larger system that still acts within the
current framework. What is/would it be like for the
'pioneers'?"

Much could be written and said about your question, and
I don't mean to truncate the dialogue by being so brief
and untheoretical here; however, I will relate an experience
I had at an education seminar funded by the State of Virginia
and attended by a host of adult education people in "regular"
programs, in libraries, in prisons, etc., when I worked there
as a regional liaison between the state and a set of
basically rural program directors and where the local
community college was the home base (probably in l994-5--
I'd have to look at my old resumes).

In this conference, one session was overtly about teachers
and administrators trying to "deal" with business owners who
saw themselves (some rightly) as community leaders.   The
point was to find subversive ways to teach what we knew was
needed, to "get around" the CEO's, in the oppressive context
of a business owner who only wanted to have teachers
employed by the state to  teach "skills" for them.

At least this session speaker was aware that there was a
difference and that the teachers--all of whom understood
exactly what she was talking about--were trying to walk a fine
but (as I saw it) untenable line, and that the effort involved
them in a basic dishonesty about who they were and what
they were up to.    Basically, it was showing how an authentic
educator could "cheat" the owner by "sneaking in" what
they recognized was real education.  Is that what you mean
by "pioneer"?

The point is that what they had always assumed--and some had
been in education for many years--was being challenged in a
way they hardly knew how to express or deal with.  They had
never been challenged to think about the foundations of their
field, and now the foundations were being uprooted, and they
were being asked to work without a net, as it were.

And, as most teachers (my own experience) do, they just
tried to "go with the flow" because they

(1) wanted to continue teaching at all costs, because

(2) they all KNEW the depth and breadth of the need, and

(3) they just didn't know how to address the foundational issues
         because they don't normally think or talk about such things
         and,

(4) they had always gone on the assumption (foundation) that
the state was working under the same assumptions they were--
that education for "their" adults is good as a general idea in the
heretofore unthought-out scheme of things and for many other
good reasons, but also because of the aching need they were
in the presence of every day.   At the conference, it was like they
were walking around in, "Okay, what now, another hoop" kind
of conscious order.

(But the front lines are rife with meaning.  Keeping track is good,
but it can't do everything, and it even hurts and deadens the
process when it continually encroaches on the field of student--
teacher relationships in either K-12 or AE.   There is what I call
the "metaphysics of teaching"--a place that is increasingly
being "peopled" by everyone's consciousness BUT the
teacher's and the student's who have both become means for
some other end.  It's killing teaching.  At some point, we MUST
work to leave that metaphhisical space open--to trust
these folks on this, regardless of the few who abuse this trust.)

(5)  None of these folks were rich--they needed to work and keep
making the $15 an hour they were making in the classroom--though
there is plenty of repeating evidence that money was hardly the
issue.   I  mean--$15 an hour?

Another session in this Virginia conference was a bit different.
That is, the speaker answered my question about corporate
teaching, where the Virginia teachers were actually going
out on the corporate sites to do education sessions with their
students with CEO supervision.  The question was, again,
about teaching things at these sites that don't directly
address "sponsor-specified learning," but rather the broader
issues that network deeply into this learning, but that are not
specific to it--like literacy?   Here's the drift of what she said:

"Those teachers can leave their bleeding hearts at the door of
the corporation.  Things are different now."  If that's not a direct
quote, it's close to it.

I got up and left the room of about 20 people, all of whom
remained silent on the issue in the other sessions, but at breaks
I was whispered to by several teachers, and one teacher
referred to one of the presentations--a professionally done
 "aren't the workers happy" video made by one of the
corporations working in a "corporate-education partnership"
--"slick."

I don't know what happened after I left the meeting.  But my
guess is, no one asked further similar questions.

But you ask:  "What is/would it be like for the 'pioneers'?"

I suppose you could refer to these teachers as pioneers.
But let's put this "education-to-democracy" thing in the context
of other political systems, that is, ones that not democratic.
The recent case of the Taliban is a case in point, or Hitler's
children, or the Cambodian KR, etc.

The "surrounding" contextural point is that, though most teachers
are rightly involved with the teaching of this or that specific subject,
skill, etc., we rarely have occasion to drag out our foundations--
the political and philosophical context in which all this teaching
sits.   Basically, we take it all for granted--until it is changed and
we feel our feet falling through the cracks, as it were.

That political and philosophical context ALREADY informs any
American classroom--at least at this point.  The foundations inform
the classroom like the Titanic informed its deckchairs, or like a
football field informs the game, or like the track informs the
train, or like any good theory about bridge-building informs a bridge
that hangs there in all its formative beauty.  In teaching, it is
specifically being able to help develop other human beings in a
way that is first and foremost dialogal--and not necessarily
prescribed in a regimental way--to engage in an open dialogue,
to speak about anything and, more importantly, to raise
questions, and to encourage the raising of them, about
anything in the context of teaching, WITHOUT worrying about being
severely punished, killed, or in our case, engaging in dishonesty
and perhaps being fired.

This is getting too long; however, to recall the note that Daphne
Greenberg send on OERI Updates, she says:

"Definitions Related to Research

"Title I includes several new definitions related to research. Both the
terms 'applied research' and 'basic research' are defined.  Applied research
means research 'to gain knowledge or understanding necessary for determining
the means by which a recognized and specific need may be met and that is
specifically directed to the advancement of practice in the field of
education.'   In contrast, basic research is defined as research 'to gain
fundamental knowledge or understanding of phenomena and observable facts,
without specific application toward processes or products and for the
advancement of knowledge in the field of education.'  The Institute is
authorized to conduct both applied and basic research."

The political foundations of your own study are determined
in terms of the political vision that drives your study, i.e.,
is the political vision one of

(1) the questions and research done in dialogue where the
participants include every group involved and where we-they are
open to where that dialogue takes us about what determines
"need" and what "advancement" means (democratic); or is the
research circumscribed and are the questions prescribed by,
for instance and in this case, a narrow view of "research" based,
namely, on some neo-social form of logical positivism, further
politically ordered around capitalism cum plutocratic ideology
covertly and by de facto inference aimed at keeping the poor
among us ignorant--except to work and off welfare.

(2)  is education understood as ongoing and for everyone in the
communities that make up this country and culture regardless of
income; or is it understood as only for those who can afford it,
or who have already reached an increasingly receding mark of
achievement.   What, in fact, will be "recognized and specified"
and deemed "specifically directed to the advancement or practice
in  the field of education."   Or better, **what will cease to exist** as
"recognized and specified," etc.

Understanding and stating one's political foundations is closer to
what is above called "Basic" rather than "Applied" research.  My
guess is it's stated somewhere in other parts of the literature?
Whatever it is, and if it is accepted, the question then becomes
are we doing it, i.e., in the broader aspects of our Constitution
where civil rights and the femininist movements could point to
it and say:  "Is that, in fact, what's going on here?"

But what throws me is the reference to "phenomena and observable
facts," because one's social, philosophical or political foundations
cannot be set on a table or put in a pocket like pencils or chalk.
Perhaps they mean by "observable" "intelligently understood."

In that case, BASIC is where you will find political foundations,
though, as the true story above infers, one can hardly "apply" the
act of raising questions and being open to dialogue with a
student when one is worried about being killed by the local tyrant
or, in our case, being chastised or fired for being a teacher when
what one is supposed to do is train workers and follow the
directions of a business owner.

Such atmosphere probably can't be called "brainwashing" but
it's not such a remote family member as we might have come to
think.

Briefly :0) the above reference to your OERI research speaks to
the same foundations that the teachers were dealing with in my
Virginia conference back in '95.  Also, this is an e-mail, and the
above is not theoretical, though everything I speak of has
theoretical roots.   If the teachers I speak of are pioneers, they are
pioneers of the empirical spirit and do not derive their "subversion"
from philosophical or political theory.  They come from having lived
in a democracy, and taken it for granted, since birth and before,
and were half-consciously trying to fit that foundation of
democracy and education into a new foundation of plutocracy
and capitalism and "education."

I hope this helps and is not too long for some to take on as an
e-mail.

Regards,

Catherine King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA
----- Original Message -----
From: Eileen Eckert <eileeneckert at hotmail.com>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 6:07 AM
Subject: [NLA] Re: Toward a "Foundational Understanding"


> Catherine, Tom, and others:
> Thanks for taking the time to address the issue of articulating a
framework
> for understanding adult education and literacy. Another question: How do
you
> think that framing their practice using the perspectives you describe
would
> impact individual teachers' and program directors' day-to-day lives and
> careers?
>
> This is not a rhetorical question. I'm asking you (and others) to think
> about the current practices within the AELS, the kind of activity that is
> supported and not supported, and what it is/would be like to be a teacher
or
> director acting on the perspectives you've described within a larger
system
> that still acts within the current framework. What is/would it be like for
> the "pioneers"?
>
> I want to address this question myself, but I'd like to hear your thoughts
> before answering my own questions.
> Thanks,
> Eileen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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