Discussion/Action? Re: [NLA] accountability?

[George E. Demetrion]

On Sat, 15 Mar 2003 13:42:07 +0000 "Eileen Eckert"
<eileeneckert at hotmail.com> 

(Snipit)

>We have to do everything we can to put the power and authority back at
the level of learners, teachers, and programs. That goes beyond expertise
in teaching subjects and comes back to Linda Hoover's argument for
structural analysis and Jose Cruz's and others' advocacy for
coalition-building. Again, though, how?


No one's going to have an easy answer here for sure and there's a looming
apprehension throughout the field that no matter what is tried, it
remains futile to operate against the grain of current dominant
tendencies. 

One alternative is to remain within our various local enclaves and work
issues out the best we can within the theaters of our various operations.


 Another alternative is to explore the feasibility of creating a very
strong progressive alliance as a force that at least can begin to carry
an agenda to other theaters.  To be effective, I believe this would have
to rise to the level of a policy think tank, and that's a tall order
these days.  Short of some public and sustainable form of legitimacy, the
only real option is to work within existing structures and to piece out
whatever spaces one can find, including gradual reform within given
structures, which I'm committed to, in any event.

Any such move toward creating a new structure,  obviously doesn't negate
the importance of working within various mainline sectors, but it does
point to the need to establish another basis than those that currently
exist.  As I see it, all of the major structures, with the obvious
exception of the NLA as a network, have in one way or another,  accepted
the framework of DC politics as an anchoring boundary of political/policy
reality.  As far as I know, there is no substantial entity related to the
field of adult literacy education that works outside that boundary. 
Should/could one be created?  Should/could this be a topic of discussion
and even possible organization?

Jurgen Habermas puts it this way:

Fate is fulfilled in the revelation of conflicting norms against which
the identities of the participants shatter, unless they are able to
summon up the strength to win back their freedom by shattering the
mythical power of fate through the formation of new identities."

Easy words, perhaps.

George Demetrion
sophocles5 at juno.com


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