[NLA] Policy regarding the use of AELS

[Catherine B. King]

Tom:

At the risk of feeding a fury, I think you missed my point--
actually, four points, about AELS, our field, inferences from
the name, and the movement of meaning.  Here they are again:

1.  Education is not a "flat" factory, a corporation or a natural
     science lab; it's based conscious human beings in a dialogue
     and is, therefore, "dynamic"--it constant changes.

2.  As such, at least two groups may be carved out of the
     dialogue (a) theoreticians, statisticians, technicians, and
     other groups of professionals; and (b) other intelligent
     folks who read (and infer) meaning into what they read--
     quickly and reasonably most of the time, especially
     teachers.

3.  The first group rightly defines things (as you have with
     the AELS) for clarity <within the dialogual field you are in.>
     But because the field of education is itself developmental
     and organic--it's dynamic--subgroups of this group, like the
     NCSALL, often find the need to move meaning around to suit
     WHAT THEY MEAN by some term or another--again, its not
     natural science--even though in NS many terms change
     meaning also--and this works as long as the scientist clarifies
     what they happen to mean.

4.  The second group may be called "generalists" who are not
     at all interested in what a technician may mean by a term, but
     rightly read a generalist's meaning into language and go on,
     but neither will they go into and endless list of what "adult"
     may mean in AELS as you have in your note--it's a quick read
     and go on.

My point to you is that if you take the above into consideration, you
will understand that the term AELS is very general and therefore
has (a) "quick read" inferences, and (b) others in specialist fields
may use the term with their own meaning assigned to it.  It's not
like calling Ford by the name Chevrolet.

You say:  "According to Catherine King the reason why people
have reacted this way is because the name 'infers' a much broader
application and so people cannot be satisfied with such a focussed
use of the name."   You misunderstand me here.  If people from one
field of discourse want to know what you mean by AELS (as Debbie
Yoho did earlier), they can ask--otherwise, they usually go with what
the terms generally infer.

To push the analogy, AELS's (adult education's) inference to these
folks is more like "automobiles" to Ford. If you want the "first read" to
be more accurate, then you have to clarify it in the terms you use.
Otherwise, get over it.

Tom, perhaps I am wrong here, but you seem to be rightly calling
for distinctions and clarity in your area of discourse, but failing to
understand (a) that yours is not the only area of discourse and
(b) that other discourses do not and should not read the same way
a technician or specialist in one area does--it was the same
problem when you complained about the web sometime back.
We don't want everyone to be specialists in the same field.

But more importantly I think, you seem to be struggling with a
fundamental view of the field of education, as well as common
discourse, as a corporation, a factory, or a scientific laboratory
(where the "data" is non-conscious and non-dialogual, and
relatively "fixed,") instead of a conscious and dynamic field
with its own sets of distinctions, and where you fit into one of
the distinctions.

And, of course, I am doing (above) technical philosophy where
distinctions in consciousness, discourse and meaning are the
issue and where clarity on these grounds is key.  Because both
our fields are dialogual, and because they are both related to
education as a field, and because you seem to have some
unerstanding of theoretical discourse, I have some hope that you
will understand <what I mean>.  But, under the circumstances,
and considering the "air" in your last note, I doubt it.

Happy new year to everyone,

And by the way, I spend time and write here because I think it's
important and worth my time.  Let us hope this year will see
some positive movements in adult education--whatever you
might mean by that.

Catherine King




----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Sticht <tsticht at znet.com>
To: <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 5:06 PM
Subject: [NLA] Policy regarding the use of AELS


> Everyone Belongs in the GAELS!
>
> Responses to my messages about the name and acronym Adult Education and
> Literacy System (AELS) as I had earlier defined it have chastised me for
> using the name/acronym in such a narrow manner. According to Catherine
> King the reason why people have reacted this way is because the name
> "infers" a much broader application and so people cannot be satisfied with
> such a focussed use of the name. Some have thought I have been too
> exclusive and have argued for a use of the name/acronym to include a wider
> range of programs and educators.
>
> Now I have seen the light and have come to recognize the fallacy of my
> thinking. I have thought about the meaning of adult education and literacy
> and have come to the enlightened view that ALL education is about adult
> education and literacy development and ALL educational experiences belong
> in the AELS.
>
> 1. Early Head Start, Head Start, Even Start and the entire K-12 system
> belong in the AELS because as everyone knows, though in my earlier narrow
> perspective I had ignored this, the purpose of pre-school, kindergarten,
> and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th,8th,9th,10th,11th, and 12th
> grades of elementary and secondary school is to prepare children to grow
> up to be educated, literate adults. So all of these programs for children
> are actually programs of adult education and literacy development and are
> hence appropriately referred to as members of what I will call the Greater
> Adult Education and Literacy System (GAELS) of the United States.
>
> 2. My earlier mental myopia caused me to fail to recognize that community
> colleges, four year colleges, and universities, serving both
> undergraduates and graduate students,  are obviously educating adults and
> developing their literacy so they, too, should be included as members of
> the Greater Adult Education and Literacy System (GAELS) of the United
> States.
>
> 3. Shamefully, in my narrow minded attempt to define the AELS as a third
> system of publicly funded education I left out the funds from TANF, the
> programs of the Job Corps, numerous job training programs, and all the
> proprietary vocational training schools which obviously improve adult's
> education and literacy in numerous vocational fields and hence should be
> included as part of the Greater Adult Education and Literacy System
> (GAELS) of the United States.
>
> 4. Of course programs run by labor unions such as the AFL/CIO, UFW, etc.,
> business programs such as those run by the Motorola University, and
> numerous other corporate-sponsored education programs for employees were
> excluded by me and yet they clearly provide programs of education for
> adults which qualify them as members of the Greater Adult Education and
> Literacy System (GAELS) of the United States.
>
> 5. I am guilty also of leaving out thousands of programs for senior
> citizens operated by such groups as OASIS, the AARP,  Elder Hostel, and
> numerous programs in hospitals,  rest homes, hospices, and other venues.
> These organizations and venues are obviously engaged in adult education
> and hence they, too, should be included in the Greater Adult Education and
> Literacy System (GAELS) of the United States.
>
> 6. Of course, thousands of Community Based Organizations such as the Cub
> Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boys and Girls Clubs, the YMCA, YWCA,
> Salvation Army, Goodwill Industries, 4H Clubs, ProLiteracy America, and on
> and on provide education for both children-who- will-become-adults and
> adults and hence should not be excluded from the Greater Adult Education
> and Literacy System (GAELS) of the United States.
>
> 7. As the present Bush administration has recognized, tens of thousands of
> religious organizations, including churches, synagogues, mosques, temples,
> cult headquarters,  and so forth offer educational and literacy
> development opportunities for both children-who-will-become-adults and
> adults across the life span and I regretfully excluded them from the
> Greater Adult Education and Literacy System (GAELS) of the United States.
>
> 8. In a serious omission, I left out thousands of movie theatres, hundreds
> of TV channels, thousands of newspapers, thousands of magazines, thousands
> of book stores and books, and other media that inform, educate, and make
> more literate millions of adults each year.  All these deserve a place at
> the table of the Greater Adult Education and Literacy System (GAELS) of
> the United States.
>
> 9. Of course, total institutions such as jails, prisons, military
> organizations such as the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force offer
> numerous opportunities, both formal and informal, for adult learning and
> it was a serious oversight for my not having specifically included all
> these institutions, their students, and programs in the Greater Adult
> Education and Literacy System (AELS) of the United States.
>
> 10. Finally, showing an egregious lack of sensitivity to the educational
> and literacy development power of everyday conversations and dialogues I
> omitted family discussions in millions of homes, dialogue and conversation
> in hundreds of thousands of coffee houses,  restaurants, bars, subways,
> airplanes, trains, cars, and numerous other places, as integral to the
> education and literacy development of the nation. I now recognize that all
> talk, interaction, experience in the world, and so forth deserve a place
> in the Greater Adult Education and Literacy System (GAELS) of the United
> States.
>
> To partially atone for these sins of commission and omission , I offer the
> foregoing list so that anyone wanting to refer to the inclusive education
> system of the GAELS may do so, and, if they want to refer to one of the
> specific categories they can use the simple approach of designating the
> particular sub-system by using the acronym GAEL and a designating number,
> such as GAELS-1 (pre-school etc.), GAELS-5 (senior citizen programs),
> GAELS-10 (conversations etc.). Using this simple approach, others may add
> categories such as GAELS-11, GAELS-12, and so on until no one can think of
> anyone or anything else that should be added and a state of complete
> inclusiveness is attained.
>
> Happy New Year!
> Tom Sticht
> A proud member of the GAELS (rhymes with jails)!
>
> PS: I hasten to add that I do not mean to imply that the foregoing
> categories and numbers must necessarily be labeled as I have them or
> include the components I have included. Some may wish to refer to GAELS-3
> as GAELS-7, or GAELS-4 as GAELS-2 and so forth. Each person is entitled to
> his or her own preferences in how they name any or all of these
> educational sub-systems and what they include in them. That's what makes
> America great (among other things!)!
>
>
>
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