It is time to review the schedule for the placement of your session in the AAACE Agenda. This is the final draft of the Schedule. When you look up your name, use the detail listing to check what days/times you asked to be placed. This is a huge program and we can accommodate necessary changes in day and time now, but may not be able to do so after September 1, 2013 except in emergencies. Please carefully check your placement and send any requests to Ginger Phillips, AAACE Conference Planner with AAACE Session Change Request in the subject line. We will respond to your email, but it may take us up to a week to do so. Thanks for your help in "fine tuning" this agenda!
Adult Literacy Learners: Partners Not Problems
Type of Presentation
Shared
Session Abstract
This presentation explores the negative language often used to fuel and frame literacy educational efforts and considers how terms like "crisis" and "disease" affect partnerships between sponsors and adult learners.
Target Audience
This session is designed for those who are interested in matters of persistence, retention, and attrition. Tutors/ Instructors in adult literacy programs, staff coordinators, tutor mentors, curriculum developers, program directors, policy makers, and counselors should attend. This session will be useful for anyone involved in drafting adult literacy policy, wording mission and vision statements, establishing goals, writing curriculum, and proposing literacy initiatives. Attendees will learn how negative language has shaped policy and practice and how that discourse has affected the representation of adult learners. Also, they will explore how focusing on the negative affects the ways learners see themselves.
Learning Outcomes
This session aims to challenge the discourse about adult literacy education and the ways we frame the issue of adult literacy. Focusing on illiteracy as a motivator for action has the unfortunate consequence of assigning adult learners the label of “problem” and sponsors and their programs as “solution” rather than partners working together with common goals. Participants will confront their own views of literacy/illiteracy, reconsider their perceptions of adult learners, and propose ways to change the negative language of the conversation so that future literacy initiatives reflect a more positive approach to learning.
Session Description
Sponsors of literacy, including the federal government and private organizations, have often framed literacy/illiteracy as a problem to be solved. Literacy/Illiteracy has been linked with various crises such as unemployment and poverty (Stubblefield and Keane, 1994), and it has been labeled a crisis itself (Kozol, 1985). It has also been compared to disease and enslavement (Stewart, 1922; Newman & Beverstock, 1990).
These negative associations and labels are counterproductive. First, heightened rhetoric may lead to action, but after the hype and attention, the momentum often fades (Sticht, 1988-1989). Second, adult literacy educators adopt and perpetuate a crisis mindset, influencing the ways they relate to learners, comparing them to diseased patients or military enemies (Sticht, 1999). Adult learners become conflated with the pejorative terms and sometimes even adopt the problematic language, negatively influencing motivation and participation.
Efforts are made to try to schedule sessions on the day preferred by the Primary Presenter, though this cannot be guaranteed. Please check your preference.
Thursday November 7
Primary Presenter
Randall Pinder, PhD, College of The Bahamas
Work Title
Assistant Professor of English