[NLA] Re: Toward a "Foundational Understanding"

[Eileen Eckert]

Catherine and others,
I continue this conversation because I think the example we're discussing is 
a "micro" level example of an issue that exists on many levels in adult, 
family, and workplace literacy.

Responding to this excerpt:
>Eileen: "This is one incident in a larger context, and that same dean
>told my immediate supervisor that I was 'disloyal' to the
>college."
>
>Catherine: Perhaps you were disloyal to the college as a self-enclosed
>bureaucracy, but not to the education that the college is supposed
>to be involved in?

I didn't even see it as disloyalty to the college. If ABE/GED students have 
a good experience, they are more likely to go on to enroll in credit courses 
once they've finished the GED. And, it's not disloyal to ask the college to 
meet the needs of its students. Administrators were making their decisions 
based not on real knowledge of student needs but on their perception of what 
student needs were--which, conveniently, allowed them to do what they wanted 
to do! They were acting on mistaken assumptions about our students when they 
decided to relocate the program and not make parking available (they assumed 
our students all rode the bus or walked to class). I could have spoken on 
behalf of the students, but the administration could easily tell me "no". My 
"disloyalty" came in my refusing to be the wall between the students and the 
administration. They had to meet face-to-face with students, speak to them 
directly, and explain their decision. Given this direct contact, they had to 
consider what the students were saying to them, rather than considering 
their perception of students' needs and saying that was the same as 
considering their real needs.

I think each of us could probably find an example at the classroom, program, 
organizational, and policy levels where someone had a choice of whether to 
make decisions and act on "real needs" (i.e., needs that are defined with 
learners based on a critical examination of assumptions and circumstances) 
vs. perceived needs (i.e., needs defined by someone other than the learner 
and based on unexamined assumptions).

I also think that we've directed attention away from the relationships 
between students, teachers, tutors, and administrators by adding layer upon 
layer of bureaucracy and accountability measures that fail to do by proxy 
what we now do not have time to do directly--that is, make sure students are 
getting what they need by checking with them directly!


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