Learning To Drive - One Good News Story

One of my learners who reads at a lower level came in the other night and said, "I got my driver's permit. I passed the test."

Really? Oh, that's great!

"Yeah, I wrote it again."

How did you do it? What happened that you were able to pass this time?

"Someone went with me to read it."

Yes? You mean read the questions?

"Yes."

I thought they read them to you last time.

"Yes, but this time I passed."

So, why do you think you passed this time?

"I listened to the tapes again and again."

The tapes?

"The tapes you made me."

Oh! The mp3 files of me reading from the book.

"Yeah. Sometimes I listened to them when I was at work. Then I went and wrote the test and passed."

Yay! Is it okay if I tell people about that?

"Of course. They can use the tapes too."

Original story here. The "tapes" contain parts of the New Brunswick Driver's Handbook, which is available online here, have been read aloud and saved as .mp3 files in my Windows' Skydrive folder. (Be aware of the underscore issue if you download into Firefox 3: you may need to rename the extension. More here, at the bottom about that.)

Side note: this noteworthy adult-learning success can't be registered or tracked using NB's performance accountability tools. We have ineffective tools, and everybody in the field knows it, except those civil servants who authored them and then imposed them upon us.

Remembrance Day 2009

I have a learner reading The Death of Isaac Brock. This small book was written by Pierre Berton specifically for students, and is part of his History for Young Canadians series. The content for this book comes mainly from his book The Invasion Of Canada about the war of 1812. The former book is short and entertaining, but not "low level" by any means. Still, I wish I had the full set. (While we're wishing, I also wish I had a complete set of Gwynne Dyer's The Defense of Canada CBC mini-series from 1985. I don't like using films in class, but this might be the exception.)

And that's it for Remembrance Day related activity. We talked a little in class. Some people didn't know what the word cenotaph meant. The 11th hour of the 11th day bit and its origins in WW1 was something else some of them hadn't heard before.

I think the most challenging part of these conversations is when my adult learners ask about our present involvement in Afghanistan. Like many Canadians, they wonder why we went there, why we're still there, what we're doing there, and what we're trying to do there. Like many Canadians, I don't feel able to answer any of those questions to my own satisfaction.

As for my own remembrances I'll watch the ceremonies from Ottawa, and spend part of the day with David's Halberstam's history of the Korean War titled The Coldest Winter. Though, really, the day isn't that special to me. It's impossible to talk about Canadian history, as I do each day in class, and not talk a little about one of the wars. Too, news from Afghanistan - slender as it is - makes up part of my daily online reading. So, every day I think and worry about the Canadian Forces and the generals and politicians who use them.

We're a democracy, which means we the people are responsible for our leaders. We're a democracy, and we have troops in the field.

How could anyone forget?

Writing Errors of Fact and Fancy

Originally, a torch was a portable source of fire used as a source of light, usually a rod-shaped piece of wood with a rag soaked in pitch and/or some other flammable material wrapped around one end. Torches were often supported in sconces by brackets high up on walls, to throw light over corridors in stone structures such as castles or crypts.

Wikipedia

I didn't know that about the "sconces" though I've heard and read the word "ensconced" often enough. I kind of knew about the pitch bit. That is, I knew torches had something to do with pitch, and that pitch (pine especially) burns hot and smoky, and that pitch was used for a bunch of stuff in the old days.

Nonetheless, it was a throw-away line when I wrote about Liz smelling the pitch on the torches in The Black Castle.

I've since heard from two facilitators about "pitch" becoming a minor point of conversation in their classes after reading the book. One wrote me:

Ch. 3 led to a discussion about pitch. Not everyone knew what it was, but many knew the term "pitch black." Most had seen torches in movies, but had wondered how they stayed lit.

The other told me she didn't know what pitch had to do with torches, but one of her learners knew about it and explained it to the rest of the class.

Nice. And pretty small beer, as these things go.

But here's what I'm thinking: I could have been wrong. Does it matter? I don't know.

It shouldn't... maybe. I mean I'm just writing these things for fun, you know? This isn't history or cultural studies or something. Errors of fact aren't just possible, they're probable. (It is a book about a monster.)

Yet, yet...

So, I spent an hour and a half last night on Google trying to find out if there is an in-shore fishery (i.e., a near-coast sea fishery) off Scotland's northwest. And if so, what are the seasons for what type of fish. Oh, and if it's not too much bother, what the heck do the boats look like?

Why? Because in Book Three Liz and David are going to come up over a hill and look at some fishing... trawlers? smacks? who will be fishing for... whitefish? cod? And this in the fall of the year... er, if that's not outside the season.

Liz and David do this thing and somewhere some reader, maybe, is going to register that such and such a kind of fish is caught in the seas near Scotland in the fall. Perhaps there will be a class discussion. Maybe it will feature in a word-search. Maybe somebody will look something up.

Then what? It would be unpleasant and woeful to have people mocking me for being entirely wrong.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Google images of Scotland in the fall.

(Because you do know what an angry mob will do to writers who mislead them, don't you?)

On Ethics, White and Grey Areas, and Being Dense

Last month there was an international "science of reading" story carried by the South African Press Association, l'Agence France Presse and the Australian Associated Press based on a story in the British journal Nature (Subscription only link here) that reported, in part

.... Researchers from Spain, Colombia and Britain seized a golden chance to find out more, thanks to 20 former rebels in Colombia who took part in an adult literacy course to help them reintegrate society. After the volunteers had become literate, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of their brains were compared with those from 22 illiterates who were matched for age and cultural background. The new readers had a higher density of so-called grey matter, where information processing is carried out, in several areas of the left hemisphere of the brain, the investigators found. Previous research has already determined that these areas are responsible for recognizing the shapes of letters and translating the letters into speech sounds and deriving a meaning from them. Reading also boosted neural connections, known as white matter, between the different regions of grey matter. The team took the findings a step further by looking at the brains of people who mastered reading in childhood.

What?!?

Is it just me, or does anybody else wince at this Doctor Strangeglove style of pro-literacy research? I mean, I don't meet a lot of illiterate former Colombian rebels (most former Colombian rebels have been killed by current Colombian death-squads) so maybe I'm out of touch with the cutting edge here. Still...

I don't know what troubles me more: the first-world driven pseudo-science with inflated claims and faulty logic, the gross expenditure of money on something with no practical application, or the ethical framework of research done, if not in our name, then certainly under the banner of our field.

Professional Sharing Online - series post #1

I was posting something from Creekside to my Facebook profile* the other day - using a smooth working Fb plugin for Firefox - when I thought, as I often do - this is the wrong way to go about this.

Shouldn't I be sharing via twitter or del.cio.us or stumbleupon or stumblr or... something else badly spelt? I'm not at all sure the people I'm connected to on Fb would be interested in reading Creekside. For that matter, I'm not sure who I'm connecting with on Fb, or why we've friended each other or what happened to some people I used to be connected with.... What exactly am I trying to accomplish here, anyway?

The sad answer is, I'm trying to "share" with "the world" and I don't know how.

By now, sharing should be super-easy. We've been in a Web 2.0 world for four or five years. According to wikipedia (a fine example of 2.0) the term Web 2.0 "is commonly associated with web applications which facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web." It's a change from earlier style "non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them."

I'm guessing I'm not really at Web 2.0 yet.

Why not? My chief reason is this: extroverts.

You may know them as trolls, though that's only a subset. They're the shouters, the Fox News types, the attention-whores, who argue to win and not to learn.

They scare the begeesers out of me, and I don't want to be any place near them. I certainly don't want to open up my content to them.

So, I rarely join on-line discussions, I moderate comments here, I haven't yet learned to wiki or twitter, and I comment with only the greatest timidity.

Ah, comments....

K. Before I get ahead of myself, I better tell you I'm in the middle of a project here - I mean, a school-project type thingy. I'd be doing all this with markers and bristol board (and feeling better about it) except my conscience in these things (who looks and sounds like Brian Kelly) won't have it. It's not 1990, he says, cryptically. These days, we do our presentations with 1s and 0s. Create on the desktop, share online.

So, the project: I'm trying to explain, if only to myself, how I use web-based communication tools. This will take several posting (fair warning) and may all come to naught. Such is life.

Pictured above is a first-draft table (created in Word, click to see it in full or here for the Google Docs version) of my on-line communications. It's mostly self-evident. Where there is more than one audience or goal I used bold text to signal the one most important to me. Also, this is a table about what I do right now, and about not what I think I should do or you should do someone else should do.

So... let's start with an easy one: column #5 - commenting on another's postings.

I don't know if it's common to think of commenting as self-publishing, but that's how I think of it. While I try to avoid bad manners and spam-commenting, I'm always aware and hopeful that other readers might find their way back to my blog(s). So, for example, when both the math and poetry blogs were as active as my literacy blog, I was always very mindful of associating one or another of them with my comment (in the "name field", not the text) depending on the post itself. In fact, I went looking for math blogs to comment on (though not so many poetry blogs because they're all so freakin touchy).

There are exceptions. There are four or five places I comment because I feel like I'm part of a long, casual conversation. The above mentioned Brian Kelly's UK WebFocus springs to mind or the I, Reader blog. As well, I also comment in order to promote or share ideas, or raise some questions ("advocacy support building") on the trade sites I visit as part of my on-going professional learning - Alphaplus or electro-textual or the Literacies Cafe.

But, by and large, my comments on sites outside my field are self-promotional. My assumed audience is either potential long distance associates or complete strangers. I'm guessing I comment about twice weekly - on average, it's more a feast or famine type thing - as part of a general goal of "taking part in the web to learn and to raise my own professional standing." Kind of a dorky goal, I know. But it keeps me up of the bars.

End post #1.

Um... Feel free to comment.

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* Note: I have a "public" Facebook for learners, friends, odd-bodies, etc. and another "private" for family and some closer personal friends. It's only the public or professional-me (vs. the private-me) that I'm talking about here.

Why Ask Learners Like Precious To Write

Give Precious a Calculator read the lead in to the article "Why can't kids in movies ever do the math?" This was Jennie Yabroff writing in a Newsweek Web Exclusive (wha?) from yesterday. (I'm not going to link because there's a pop-up ad associated with it: I'm sure you can Google it.) She goes on to say

Early in the movie..., Precious tells the audience how much she likes math class. She even shushes another student when he interrupts the math teacher. But then Precious is kicked out of school for being pregnant. Eventually she winds up at an alternative school, where her teacher encourages her to write daily in her journal. Math does not appear to be on the curriculum.

At film's end, Precious is living in a halfway house, raising an infant and a toddler with Down syndrome; she's also unemployed and HIV-positive. She is reading and writing on a seventh-grade level. It's possible, of course, that Precious will go on journaling her way to middle-class security. But watching the film, I wondered why her teacher kept insisting Precious write, write, write, instead of add, subtract, multiply. If Precious aspires to financial security and gainful employment, she's a lot likelier to get it as an accountant than a poet.

I agree with Yarbroff that the idea "every underprivileged young adult harbors the soul of a Rimbaud is a favorite trope of popular culture." I mean, I wouldn't have written that tripe about poetic souls, but I know what she means, and I doubt I'll ever be able to watch Freedom Writers without wincing. I don't know what to make of her rather snarky "Anyone who has taught adult-literacy classes knows that inexperienced writers' efforts are more often clichéd, vague, and confusing than searingly original and profound." But I would cry "Yes!" to her musing that "writing in her journal allowed Precious to conceive of a better life for herself and her children; maybe creating a persona on the page enhanced her self-worth." (And began a visioning process that, with a different facilitator er... screenwriter might have led to different choices. More on that below.)

On the other hand, I have to disagree with her claim that "the world does not reward self-expression as readily or consistently as it rewards a good head for numbers." That's just... rhetorical bunk. It's also - in the absence of any hard numbers - a lovely example of an argument that proves itself false just by being (let my words convince you that words have less power to convince than numbers).

Now, thinking that Hollywood (or cable television) is going to portray anything realistic about adult literacy is like, well, taking seriously something written in Newsweek. Still, I thought it was worth dropping off a comment on this piece. After all, I belong to that "Anyone who has taught adult-literacy classes" group she defers to. Alas, Newsweek wanted me to pre-register, and there was that pop-up, and I thought, "Naw, I'll write this on my own blog instead."

So, back to the question: "why her teacher kept insisting Precious write, write, write, instead of add, subtract, multiply?"

The answer (besides the obvious "it said so in the script") is because math is easy and easy to escape into. Math is typically non-reflective and a-contextual. Math can be taught - it's all about sharing information (you add fractions like this for this reason). Math is a sensible domain for teachers and students. But, beyond basic numeracy (which she apparently has) adult literacy is about a different skill-set entirely.

You see, writing can't be taught: it can only be learned, and by someone willing to become a learner. And we're facilitators helping people become independent learners, not teachers instructing students via a curriculum toward financial security.

As well, writing is a faster means of (at the same time) raising one's reading and speaking vocabulary. Never mind being an accountant: right now we're worried about Precious reading her bills and explaining herself in court. (I promise, as soon as Precious really is ready to learn to keep books, we'll move her out of the adult literacy class and into a GED prep or workplace essential skills program. Er... assuming that's what she wants. We believe in self-directed learning too.)

And, finally, yes, writing provides opportunity for reflection / discussion that might help adult learners make more effective life-choices outside the classroom. Sounds like Precious could use some of that as well.

So, yes, I agree that the merit (and beauty) of mathematics is rarely captured by Hollywood. Even a supposedly "isn't it cool to be good at math" movie like Good Will Hunting said math is not enough. So what if you're good with a hammer, and enjoy and excel at math in your spare time. Until you join the worthy class of managers, scientists and professors, says the screenplay, you're just one more unlucky working-stiff wasting your life away.

But if you're talking adult literacy - which is what the article talks about, I can't speak for the movie - then there's no substitute for the learning-power of writing.

On screen or off.

Supporting Self-Directed Learning

Do something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn’t, do something else.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

We were talking about ILPs the other night, and for a few minutes I experienced the sudden vertigo of a man without a plan.

Then I realized I was being silly. True, I don't often create conventional Individualized Learning Plans in chart form with focused objectives and time-lines. But I and my learners have a plans. Really.

It works like this: based on what I know about my learners (ever changing because I'm learning more all the time, and, anyway, we do continuous intake), I stock my room with various materials pitched to different learning styles and reading levels. Some materials I "promote" by displaying them more prominently, while others I hold back a bit (e.g. present spine-on on a bookshelf).

Then, I ask each learner, each session, what they'd like to learn or learn about.

I can't say enough about the power of that simple question. There are variants, of course: "What would you like to learn or learn about today?" "What's something in math you can't do that you want to learn to do?" "What's one thing you'd like to improve about your writing?" But the point is that it's the learner who, in answering, is taking responsibility for creating their own (immediate) learning plan.

Of course it only works out well if I've already prepared a wealth of effective resources and materials. This can be challenging. I'm learning that, not only do different learners need different kinds of help, but sometimes the same learner needs different kinds of help on different days.



I also fret - which is silly - and make assumptions - which is unhelpful - when learners can't articulate clear learning objectives or interests. This shouldn't surprise me. Being self-directed is not something we encourage in public schools or in entry-level jobs. It's understandable that some people come into class thinking they're going to "get an education" or "finish school". Then, it's my job to, gently, ask more questions.

Sometimes a learner really can't say what they want to learn because they're in a state of protection, fearful of what's about to happen to them. That's a more serious challenge, and here I do fall back on a sort of mental checklist for building a positive relationship and helping them make an effective choice about coming:

• Give information in a variety of (effective) ways.
• Teach stress reduction techniques, choices, etc.
• Provide optional healthy snacks and drinks.
• Base plans on skills, not tasks.
• Give time, and then more time.
• Reinforce success: build on strength.
• Decline to take part in ineffective strategies.
• Ask and tell - share concerns and perceptions.
• Provide materials at their reading level.
• Provide a safe, friendly, positive environment.
• Model effective reading, writing, learning behaviors.
• Keep notes and reflect on / review my practice.
• When in doubt, try something else.

Along with this, there are questions I (try to remember to) ask myself during difficult times:

• What’s the goal - remediation or compensation?
• Is the learner willing/able to participate?
• Did the immediate plan work?
• Or did everyone stick to the plan?
• Is there progress and is more progress likely?
• Am I working harder than the learner at their plan?
• Are other learners being hindered?
• Is there a crucial problem outside my control?

Depending on how I answer these questions, I may need to throw everything out the window and improvise something radically different.

Or, I may have to help the learner realize this isn't the place for him or her.

Something that takes its own kind of planning.

The Framing and Values of Literacy Work

Well here comes the future and you can't run from it
If you've got a blacklist I want to be on it

Waiting for the Great Leap Forward
Billy Bragg (1996 CD re-issue)

I have a constant colleague who is a small "c" conservative (i.e., what we used to call "liberal") who believes more in private effort and individual initiative, than in government systems. I'm more of a small "l" liberal (i.e., what we used to call "socialist") who believes in social efforts and government intervention, and mistrusts private-property interests.

We get along just fine - you know, diversity is richness and all that - but the differences are there. (Ironically, it's the running-dog capitalist who coordinates with government and central committees, rather than the pinko-leftist commie. Who'dda thought?) We had a chance to talk about our different lens a few days ago, which started me thinking about sharing my lens here. You know, kindda explain what I mean when I say I'm mostly a post-marxist dependency theorist* sort of guy.

Then, I had the chance to read David J. Rosen explaining his lens in a blog post titled Advocating Smarter.

This Rosen bloke seems like a pretty smart guy, and I'd encourage you to take some time with his writings. According to the webpage I was on, he's been an executive director at an "Adult Literacy Resource Institute" which is part of the University of Massachusetts, and he's been a consultant with "education projects for adults and out-of-school youth in the U.S. and abroad." He's also been associated with some other state and federal adult-ed groups in the U.S. over the past couple of decades. Smart, articulate, and experienced.

He came to my attention (via Alphaplus) with this multipart post about how and why "adult literacy education advocates have been pushing a boulder up hill [which]... rolls down on us, and we just try to push harder." His suggestion is "maybe we don’t have to push up hill, and maybe we have more potential allies to help us push."

Literacy worker as Sisyphus? Hmm....


He tells us the blog entry is based on his paper called “Framing Literacy Values for Successful Advocacy” which appeared in the March 2006 issue of The Change Agent. By the way, I've had zero success getting at past issues of The Change Agent which appears never to have heard of OPEN ACCESS without registration and password systems that Never Seem To WORK (hello!! hello!!).... but I digress.

You can find his ideas pleasantly presented here: Advocating Smarter. In this post, he takes care to give us his lens up front:

My argument is based on three assumptions:

1. If adult literacy education – the work that teachers, tutors, and other practitioners and adult learners do – were well understood, it would be a bipartisan priority for Republicans and Democrats, and for conservatives as well as liberals or progressives;

2. The way we describe our work now, many conservatives, and the political middle-of-the-road, do not agree that it should get more government support; and

3. Our messages – what we project to the general public about our work — are flawed. They stereotype adult literacy education as “liberal,” “do-gooder,” or “noble work… for volunteers.”

Those are, indeed, happy thoughts. Would that the world worked that way.

Look, again, allow me to urge you to go read this piece. It's smart, thoughtful and thought-provoking.

But, I gotta tell ya, sadly, my experience and my lens lead me to three very different assumptions:

1. What adult literacy educators do poses a threat, on two levels, for social and fiscal conservatives (one threat is the redistribution of wealth required to fund this particular social program, and the other is an increasingly empowered and literate electorate who may speak, act and vote contrary to established interests) and they know this threat exists even if we all pretend it's not there;

2. The way we describe our work (particularly in funding requests) can create fences around what we are allowed to do (for example, preventing us from scaffolding learner self-advocacy, and pushing us toward an employer-determined workplace learning curriculum), which means it is more important that, from the get-go, our self-descriptions be effective for learners than that they be palatable for business interests; and

3. Our messages are often flawed because we have allowed ourselves to be pushed into two small corners where we typically blame the victims of unjust or poor social policy and then over-promise results ("Too many people get sick or become criminals because they can't read, and literacy workers can fix that," "The economy's in trouble because too many people aren't educated enough to be good workers, and literacy workers can fix that too").

This is part of what I mean about my post-marxist lens.

You would think that with such a pessimistic outlook I'd be depressed all the time, and probably sick and badly dressed to boot.

But I'm not. Go figure.

Oh, by the way, here's my picture of uphill work. F**k a bunch of boulders.



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* A fun but mysterious slideshare introduction here.

By the way, the fact I find this slideshow "fun" probably says something tragic about my upbringing. If you've enjoyed it as well, go here and, well, party like it's 1996!

What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and moving
They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove them
While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells
Rally round the family, pockets full of shells

Bulls on Parade
rage against the machine (1996)

It may have been Camelot for Jack and Jacqueline
But on the Che Guevara highway filling up with gasoline
Fidel Castro's brother spies a rich lady who's crying
Over luxury's disappointment, so he walks over and he's trying
To sympathise with her but he thinks that he should warn her
That the Third World is just around the corner

Waiting for the Great Leap Forward
Billy Bragg (1996, CD re-issue)

Matching Inputs To Outcomes

This summer some colleagues and I shifted our direct adult learning support to 57 Maclaren. There wasn't any money, so we volunteered our time and paid for stuff out of our own pockets (i.e., from our pay for running the storytents - think of it as double-duty dollars.) The Crescent Valley Community Tenant's Association generously gave us use of additional space. This gave us a place to store things like our adult resources and files, key equipment (computer, printer/photocopier, etc.), and our circular table and chairs, as well as a place to meet with people or complete paperwork. We sometimes made use of the larger front room and kitchen area, bringing materials and equipment out as needed.

Oh, and I stuck a sign in the window.

Over the course of the summer and early fall, nine individuals approached us about help with their learning. Of these, seven followed up by meeting with us. Two learners did not keep their appointment, and declined to make an additional appointment.

Of the seven, two learners chose to stop coming early on in our relationship. Three needed information, ideas and help with a referral: one or two meetings was adequate to meet their needs.

Only two learners made on-going use of our services, and only one attended 57 regularly.

The learner who came to 57 had workplace literacy as a goal (background story here). As a result of his efforts through the summer, this worker received a promotion and a pay increase at his place of work. At this time, I'm still working with him, though in a different venue. (One of the oddities of adult literacy work is that facilitators and learners alike migrate among the same seasonal or short-term programs and projects: one major retention issue is with the retention of the funding and space to keep programs running.)

The other (our self-directed learner) received at-home support provided in conjunction with the bookwagon. This support resulted in reading gains, is on-going, and may take place at 57 during the winter months.

Although discouraging, this pattern of only about 50% of interested adults showing up for an appointment, and only about 25% following through long enough to experience success, seems to be consistent with most adult literacy work. At least, it's consistent with my experiences. Issues beyond literacy - poor health, abusive or violent experience, periodic employment, frequent relocation - often create barriers between potential learners and their classes or tutors.

Is a 25% follow-through rate enough?

Well, look at what happened. One learner is reading better, and feeling better about her reading. And one learner got a promotion and a raise because his reading skills increased.

Not bad outcomes from sticking a sign in the window and hanging around a few extra hours a week.

But I'll tell you what. If you want better outcomes, give me some money to promote, to obtain better resources, and to have a more consistent presence in the community.

You get what you give.