Need-to-Know

Recently, I was thinking about my adult students.  We picked them carefully: there was an interview for our program.  Invariably, they'd say:

"I want to study English to defend myself in society, help my children with their schoolwork, and get a better job" (in some cases, just "get a job"!).

Got me thinking: what are the ten most important qualities I possess?  And what the heck might that have to do with my adult learners?  If you'll pardon this tooting-of-horn moment, here's what I came up with:

1)    Bachelor’s degree
2)    Second language
3)    Writing skills in my first language
4)    Computer literacy
5)    Transportation know-how and access to my job
6)    Experience working with diverse folks
7)    Diligence
8)    Punctuality
9)    Networking skills
10)    Critical thinking

The results?  One credential (the diploma).  One concrete skill (the second language).

And eight--count 'em, eight!--of what I'll call "work skills."  I've got a further breakdown--if you're uneasy about so many divisions, rest assured--it's for the sake of the argument!:

Learnable soft skills:

• Writing
• Transportation know-how
• Computer skills

Experientially-based soft skills

• Working with diverse people
• Diligence
• Networking
• Critical thinking
• Punctuality

Most of what we learn, we learn by experience.  Equally important, though, may be a single credential.  So families in poverty--the kinds of families I see--would benefit from a range of experiences that give them access to model behaviors: punctuality, good family health and nutrition, parenting ideas, and so forth.  But they must be on track to a realistic, meaningful credential. 

And that’s the problem with some of those parent-volunteer positions.  The ones where you help out in the lunchroom or on the playground.  It’s experience, but it’s not likely to stretch you.  And it may end up being a dead end. 

Our adult learners want to be on-track to college.  They want to be on-track to good jobs--or at least some paying job!  We can help them get there.  But we've got to be honest about the skills they really need--and help them build those skills.

Why Are We Funding This Stuff??

"Why Are We Learning This Stuff??"

When I was in K-12 education, a colleague of mine who taught biology posted that on his wall.  Beneath it he stapled up articles on "science in the news."  Whatever you needed to do to sell 15-year-olds on the wonders of mitochondria, right?

In my own adult-ESOL teaching, I've done a similar thing, less explicitly.  After a few weeks, our students start setting goals.  "Ha!" you might say, "'Goal-setting.'  Three syllables.  Can't be that hard, right?"  Well, it was three syllables like "debt ceiling" or "health reform" were three syllables.

Actually, it was really hard (I know, because many of my fledgling lessons in this area flopped).  What is a goal?  What is a realistic goal?  An academic, professional, or personal goal?  How do you make it specific?  Not too vague ("help my family"--whatever that means) ... but not near-term either (brush my hair tomorrow).

Once students had worked through several lessons, they wrote their own goals.  Different types of goals went on different-colored sticky notes.  These were affixed to a poster.  Every day I saw it.  Every day the students looked at.  Why are we learning this stuff??  That was why.

But if you're a funder, an agency head, an elected official, you have a different question: Why are we funding this stuff??  Sure, ESOL matters to the everyday happiness and prosperity of students, but how does it fit in a bigger policy framework?

• 28 percent of Boston's population is made up of foreign-born individuals
• In the last two decades, Boston's immigrant population has increased more than 50%
• Forty-five (45!) percent of children 0-17 in the city are children of immigrants
• One out of two adult immigrants in Boston struggles with English or lacks a diploma
• In the early years, how parents interact with their children, read to their children, manage their children's behavior has a big impact on whether those kids are passable or great students years later
• In the school-age years, parental engagement is HUGELY important to student learning
• Adult ESOL classes can help parents in two areas: First, how to enhance their young children's literacy.  Second, how to speak English they can use to stay in touch with teachers, principals, tutors, and coaches.
• There's demand.  Parents are tremendously eager to help their children.  They'll engage with most who want to help them do this.  Those parents who aren't working (and it's a lot these days) often crave classes to improve their literacy skills.  The waitlist in Boston for ESOL class stretches into the thousands.  

In other words, for many parents, especially immigrant parents, I think you can draw a line from the education they receive in their new country to the educational outcomes of their children.  Are there a thousand other factors?  Yes.  Are there a million exceptions?  Yes.  But that's why we need to fund ESOL programs--especially in family literacy.  And sooner rather than later.

Ed Reform, The Autumn of the Patriarch's, and more: The Week's Links

Over at Reuters, Steven Brill gets into some of the weeds of the ed-reform debates.  Check your facts, everyone!

God knows what the future holds for Libya.  But here's Christopher Hitchens on the Qaddafi endgame, including a little backhanded compliment to the Administration for its "leading-from-behind" strategy.  And an interesting piece in The New Republic on the Colonel's oil-money propping-up of wretched insurgents the world over.  Spread the filth.

And a tantalizing sample of Lewis Hines photos here.  It's can sometimes seem easy to dismiss the idea that Obama often channels from MLK, of a moral universe gradually "bending" toward justice.  But in looking back at all the tiny, laboring, urchin-like children, you've got to appreciate how far we've come in that regard.

A Thousand Points of Light ...

Or at least the promoters of Harlem Children's Zone-style anti-poverty programs would hope.  As a tentative fan of the HCZ approach, I was heartened to see the Feds launch the Promise Neighborhood Initiatives granting process in 2010.  A remarkable number of organizations applied for planning grants.  But what is more remarkable is the number of much smaller programs trying to replicate parts of the HCZ.

To take greater Boston as an example, there are three actual PNIs that got grant funding: the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, Community Day Care Center of Lawrence, and the United Way of Central Massachusetts.  Beyond that, Cambridge launched Baby U, and I hear that a housing project in Somerville has something similar in the works.

Needless to say, this raises at least two immediate questions:

1) Does the HCZ approach work?  If not, then the rapid rate of replication seems misguided.
2) Let's say it does work.  Then, where does it work?  Under what settings?  Should it reproduce rampantly, or is it simply one among many anti-poverty approaches?

Not sure anyone's asking those questions.

In Session

Something that will become familiar in This Space over the next few months will be the classes I teach.  So that you're not dropped in unawares, here's a quick tour of what I do.

For the past few years, I've been an adult educator, teaching ESOL.  When I introduce myself at social occasions that way, I can pretty much guarantee to be asked: "What the heck does 'ESOL' stand for?"  Given a minute to guess, most people come up with "E" and "L," but the whole bit is "English for Speakers of Other Languages."  (The old name was "ESL," or "English as a Second Language," and why it changed is a discussion for another day.)

A few nuggets:

• I've taught beginning, intermediate, and advanced speakers--though mostly the first
• Before I worked in a small educational program, but I'm hoping to move onto something larger
• My students are immigrants
• Most are women
• We cover language basics, plus things like setting life goals and visiting the public library
• Sometimes we've even had time (or, ahem, grant mandates) for other themes: career awareness, literacy, how to engage with the school system

Why does this matter?  Two reasons:

First, my students and classes are my looking glass.  Working with them shapes how I view most  much anything else when it comes to education and poverty.

Second, I'm going to be talking about it in This Space.  Disclaimer: Privacy matters, so I will fictionalize.  At the very least names and neighborhoods.  Circumstances, too. 

Summer Reading

This summer has brought, among other things, National Park vacation, a few MLB ballgames, and so on.  But what's a long, hot, lazy summer without a book list (and thirty-eight Web sites telling you what should be on that list)?

My recent reads from the ed/policy end of things:

Teach Like a Champion (Lemov)
Proust and the Squid (Wolf)
In Schools We Trust (Meier)
The Death and Life of the Great American School System (Ravitch)
When Work Disappears (Wilson)
Rules for Radicals (Alinsky)

Sitting next to the proverbial beach-chair, gathering sand:

American Project (Venkatesh)
The Flat World and Education (Darling-Hammond)

Justice for All? (Galloway)
 
Give me my iced tea back!!

First Pitch

Why am I here?  I've been writing for a while, but most of it hasn't been made public.  Publicly, I've been prowling other people's blogs and posting when I'm moved to.    After much prodding, I've decided to start this blog, open up this space.

What can you find here?  A few things:

• Reflections from the ground: I'm an adult educator (most recently coordinating an ESOL program for low-income immigrant parents).  I work with the exact adults that people are talking about when they reference "parental engagement" and start programs like The Baby College.  
• Links of interest: There is SO much info and SO many discussions out there re: education and policy.  I'll link to what's piquing my interest.
• Explorations: My number-one interest are programs like the Harlem Children's Zone.  And the Promise Neighborhood Initiatives (PNIs--get ready for a lot of that acronym coming your way).  Such programs raise as many questions as they answer, or at least they ought to.  I'll dive in where I can.

I'd be impressed if this fledgling space led to vitriolic comment wars, but, hey, you can never be too sure, right?  Thus, when you comment, please keep it thoughtful and constructive.

Welcome and happy reading!