[Reading-hall-of-fame] Msg for ILD

[tsticht at znet.com]

Adult Literacy Education for Sustainable Development:
A Message for International Literacy Day, September 8, 2006

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

Each year, on September 8, the nations of the world celebrate International
Literacy Day. On this day, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) awards prizes to individuals, organizations,
and governments in recognition of their outstanding achievements in bringing
adult literacy education to the world’s millions of illiterate and poorly
literate adults.

In 2006 International Literacy Day is of particular importance because it
occurs in the third year of the United Nations Literacy Decade, which
ranges from 2003 to 2012, and the second year of the United Nations Decade
of Education for Sustainable Development, which ranges from 2005 to 2014.
For this reason, the theme of International Literacy Day this year is
Literacy for Sustainable Development. According to UNESCO "Education for
sustainable development has come to be seen as a process of learning how to
make decisions that consider the long-term future of the economy, ecology
and equity of all communities. Building the capacity for such
futures-oriented thinking is a key task of education."

In adult literacy education sustainable development has at least three
facets: one is the need for literacy provision that leads to the actual use
and further development of literacy by students outside the classroom or
tutoring session. The second is the idea of the need for the content of
adult literacy instruction to provide knowledge so that adults may
"consider the long-term future of the economy, ecology and equity of all
communities." The third is the understanding that adult literacy education
contributes to the education of the adults’ children and hence contributes
to the development and sustainability of literacy achievement of the next
generation.

In the United States, a leading pioneer of adult literacy education, Cora
Wilson Stewart, addressed these three facets in the Moonlight Schools of
Kentucky which she founded in 1911. First, she recognized that for adults
to continue their literacy development it would be necessary for them to
actually engage in additional reading and writing outside the classroom. So
she created materials with reading and writing activities that were related
directly to the lives of adults outside the classroom, such as life on the
farm, health, civic activities, parenting, and other topics, including
spiritual development, a topic no longer addressed in most adult literacy
programs in the United States. She prepared a newspaper so that adults
could learn to read "real life" materials at home to help them sustain the
literacy skills they learned in their classes. This is an example of what
today UNESCO calls "post-literacy" activities.

Stewart also addressed the issue of teaching for sustainable development of
the environment so that future generations could meet their needs. For
instance, in one lesson in her Country Life Readers: First Book, she
addressed the need for preserving farm lands. Using a dialogue approach she
wrote:

"Look at the little brook!
It runs down the hill.
See, it is full of mud."
"Yes, it is taking away the soil.
The mud in the brook is made up
of the richest part of the soil.
The land gets poorer and poorer.
It will  not raise a good crop."
"What can be done?"

Then, answering her own question, Stewart wrote:

"Run and tell the farmer that the
brook is stealing his soil."
"The farmer knows it."
"Then why does he not come and
stop it?"
"The farmer is too lazy and shift-
less. With care he could keep his soil.
He could sow this hill in grass and
use it as a pasture.
He could plant trees here.
He could fill these gullies with
brush.
There are many ways to stop the
brook from stealing the soil.
No brook shall steal my soil."

Third, in recognition of the importance of the adult’s literacy education on
the education and achievement of the adult’s children, in 1930 Stewart
published the Mother’s First Book in which literacy instruction was
contextualized in terms of parenting skills for mothers. This instruction
specifically aimed at promoting both the learning of literacy by the mother
and the intergenerational transfer of literacy and the appreciation of
schooling to the mother’s children.

This International Literacy Day is a good time to take account of how
today’s adult literacy programs can build on the history of adult literacy
education and ensure that they focus upon concerns for sustainable
development. This includes concern for both the design of programs that can
lead to the sustained development of adults’ literacy after they leave the
literacy program, and the use of content in programs that address not only
the present needs of the adult learners but that also lead adults to focus
their attention on the development needs of future generations.

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net