[NLA] Government Misinformation - Summing Up

[Catherine B. King]

Hello Andrea:

On your point (1) in your note, I don't understand what you
mean, or what the disagreement is.  So I am speculating--
and correct me if I am wrong here--when I say that, instead
of disagreeing, you seem to prove my point.

That is, you say:  "Tom often but not always talks about
statistics.  He is not talking about statistics when he
questions the meaning of 'learning the skills to succeed
in family, work and community life today.'"

Yes, Tom is talking about "learning," etc., but he is saying
that if it has no known methodology, it is misinformation.

But the known methodology for such a statement--a statement
that is not a statistical report but is used on a website to
mediate to the public--is not a scientific or statistical method,
but rather the method of common discourse--which stands on
a huge mountain of common understanding without which
there would be no discourse or communication AT ALL,
including scientific or statistical.

Here is Tom's point in his note:  "Why is this statement
misinformation? Because there is no known methodology
for determining what the skills and education needed to
succeed in family, work, and community life across the
nation are. It is even more difficult to identify what it means
to 'succeed' in family, work, and community life."

So though you are right that Tom talks about other issues, it is
in the vein that this discourse is "misinformation" on the
grounds it has no "known methodology."   My point is that he
overlooks the huge realm of discourse known as "common
language" aimed at the "general reader" that was the stated
purpose of the webpage.

In the "big picture," this feat of scientism, whether philosophically
naive or intended, is no small epistemological assertion, nor
does it carry with it happy overtones for policy and practice in
adult education, or any other human field for that matter.

And then you say:  "BUT that literacy can change lives I have
no doubt."   Unless I am misunderstanding you, you are proving
the point I was making about Tom's effort to hijack the entire
field of common discourse in favor of "known methodologies,"
meaning statistical science methodologies.  I suppose we
cannot  talk about such things without consulting a scientist
first, and their methods do not even reach into the full
complexity of the data.   Therefore, none of it "counts"?

In your paragraph above, your professional experience and your
statement has no ground or meaning, and less so if brought to
a webpage whose mission is to mediate adult education to the
common reader, whose known, but unstated, methods are
those that you happen to use in your everyday experience to
know anything.

You know that "literacy can change lives" without the benefit of
technical language, reporting, or any other scientific method.
Though science's methods and outcomes can add to the
refinement of our knowledge, that's not the same thing as
ruling general statements about your own knowledge, and
critical judgments drawn from your own professional
experience, out of existence and replacing it with the
"known methodologies" of the sciences.  "Hijack" isn't a
bad metaphor here?

Your own method of using your critical thought to check your
and others' ongoing experience as a professional underlies
all common communications; it is a common and known
methodology, and it is that method that, in fact, spawned all
other methods in their refinement, i.e., empirical methods of
the sciences where theory and the statistical sciences
emerged from that method.   And it is on that method
that a mediation into common discourse depends.   If that
wasn't a "known methodology" for making your own
common, wise, and professional judgments before, you
have Tom to thank for your knowing it now.

On your second point on EFF, you say:  "I just don't
think human experience can be reduced to role maps,
so EFF presents as an interesting puzzle.  If it succeeds
it must be succeeding on other grounds;  what are they?"

I don't work formally with EFF, but It is my understanding that
it's a generalized theoretical framework and a beginning
rather than a reduction and an end; and that it allows a
moving around of human concerns within the mapping
orders providing teachers and adult students the flexibility
to move within the particular and real dialogual and
developmental areas covered by the general framework.
Now in my view, that's a creative theory.

In short, it's human.  And that's probably why teachers like it.
By "human," I mean, flexible, developmental, dialogual,
and providing for open-endedness that human thought
needs to be both hopeful and creative.

Since you brought it up in the context of science, EFF,
rather than being unscientific, happens to follow one of the
most foundational tenets of science:   It matches the data.
As such, it has a better chance to manifest policy that will
serve to support rather than limit what teachers and adult
administrators all understand, in their own critical
capacities, as "best practices."

The assumption is, however, that what Daphne Greenberg
calls the messiness of education is grounded in the **fact**
that human beings are fundamentally oriented towards the
unknown.  As such, a theory must be broad enough to
account for that orientation.  In education, this is essential
if we are not to make schools into factories, trade
agreements, luxuries, or resources for corporate
development.

Most teachers I deal with (all?) recognize the "liberating"
(e.g., library, liberation, freeing, etc.) that goes on in the
classroom every day, and we know when it has NOT
happened.  Though all the other activities and aims that
go on in education are important, including the field of
statistics and its many contributions, without that
creative liberating that happens in the midst of the
dialogue between teacher and student, the whole thing
loses its meaning and begins its march towards
decomposition, towards closure, towards various
distortions, false limitations, and dehumanizations.
EFF accounts for, and leaves room for, this essential
human element of liberation.

EFF as a theoretical source of order behind policy can
also be easily related to the Preamble of our Constitution,
not to mention the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
i.e.,

Article 16.1:  Everyone has the right to education.  Education
shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental
stages. . . . 16.2:  Education shall be directed to the full
development of the human personality and to the
strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental
freedoms.  It shall promote understanding, tolerance and
friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups,
and shall further the activities of the United Nations for
the maintenance of peace.
(University of Minnesota, Human Rights Library)

Regards,

Catherine King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA







----- Original Message -----
From: <Awilderast at aol.com>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 6:55 AM
Subject: Re: [NLA] Government Misinformation - Summing Up


> Dear Catherine,
>
> I disagree with your latest post on two points.
>
> 1)  Tom often but not always talks about statistics.  He is not talking
about
> statistics when he questions the meaning of "learning the skills to
succeed
> in family, work and community life today,"  and also "achieve their full
> potential."  In my opinion, both the literature on adult literacy and
common
> sense (Am I achieving my full potential?  Are my friends?) don't, can't,
> support this.
>
> BUT that literacy can change lives I have no doubt.
>
> Another BUT, what about peole who live in extreme poverty....and are
> literate?  Taylor and Dorsey-Gaines took this question seriously enough to
> write an ethnography about some such people, "Growing Up Literate,
Learning
> from Inner City Families."  I think it's really necessary to question the
> assumption of poverty = illiteracy.
>
> 2)  The EFF program on its face sounds as problematic, and for the same
> reasons, language that is global and vague.  Because I have read posts
from
> teachers and administrators who are enthusiastic about the program,
though, I
> think the reasons for their enthusiasm must lie in some other area, not
> covered by a gloss of the EFF language.
>
> I just don't think human experience can be reduced to role maps, so EFF
> presents as an interesting puzzle.  If it succeeds it must be succeeding
on
> other grounds;  what are they?
>
> Andrea
>
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