[Reading-hall-of-fame] September Highlights for Adult education

Fri Sep 1 18:39:05 BST 2023

09/01/2023

September Highlights for Adult Education and Family Literacy

Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Education (Ret.)

The month of September offers two special days and one special week for
celebrating adult literacy educators and learners in the United States and
around the world.

*September 4 Labor Day:*  On Labor Day we celebrate the workers of our
Nation and thank them for providing the abounding plenty enriching the
lives of the large majority of adults and children living in the United
States of America. We also recommit ourselves to helping those who are not
sharing in this plenty, as was done some six decades ago when President
Lyndon Johnson initiated a national “war on poverty”.

A decade later I wrote about reading and career education in military and
civilian job contexts  and discussed skirmishes in the “war on poverty”
aimed at helping low literate adults qualify for work in both of these
functional contexts (Sticht, 1975). This work helped stimulate the passage
of the National Workplace Literacy Program (NWLP) by the U.S. Congress
(Rosen, 2008). The NWLP was later discontinued but workplace literacy and
career education programs have continued to operate. Later, Rosen (2017)
served as Program Management Moderator for a webinar on creating career
pathways for Adult Basic Education and English Language Learners featuring
examples of integrated education and training workforce programs.

Interestingly, in 1990 I chaired the California Workforce Literacy Task
Force established by the State Legislature that called for greater
investments in workforce literacy education. Now, over three decades later,
California’s  Employment & Training Program (2023) is funding educators to
create or expand workplace literacy training in the State. Hopefully this
will enable many more citizens to celebrate Labor Day with better
education, income, and civic engagement.

*September 8 International Literacy Day.* From 1979 through 2003 I served
on UNESCO’s International Literacy Prize Jury. Upon my retirement from the
Jury in 2003 Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, then Director General of UNESCO, noted
that I had “…consistently… maintained that the literacy prizes should focus
upon adult literacy education.”

However, nowadays the literacy prizes may be awarded for educational
programs for children, adolescents, or adults.  UNESCO (2023) reports that in
2020, at least one out of seven youth and adults aged 15 years and over
worldwide (763 million) lacked basic literacy and numeracy skills. In
addition, a significant number of children, including those who are
enrolled in school, are not acquiring basic literacy and numeracy skills,
while 244 million children and young people between the ages of 6 and 18
are not enrolled in school.

Given the tough financial times of nations around the world and the massive
needs of literacy education to boost economic and social development of
nations, I still think that greater investments in adult literacy education
offer a cost-beneficial way to boost the educational achievements of both
adults and their children. As I noted over a decade ago (Sticht, 2011),
“Educating those who are, or about to become , parents offers the
possibility of obtaining payoffs for future generations even before
conception occurs. And, if we focus our limited resources on reaching
first-time parents, then one “dose” of parenting education could also
benefit succeeding children”.  International Literacy Day 2023 will focus
on ‘Promoting literacy for a world in transition: Building the foundation
for sustainable and peaceful societies’. I add: Invest in the education of
adults to improve the educability of their children.

*September18 to 23 Adult Education and Family Literacy Week (AEFL**)*: A
focal idea for this week is family literacy and the intergenerational
transfer of cognitive skills from parents to their children. Almost 50
years ago, in a book on Reading for Working, I presented data showing that
as education levels of parents increased so did the literacy skills of
their adult children (Sticht, 1975). Thirteen years later, in 1988,  I
convened a national conference in San Diego, California on The
Intergenerational Transfer of Cognitive Skills wherein family literacy
programs were described  in which the education of both parents and their
children in literacy and other abilities took place (Beeler, 1992). It was
also reported that the federal government would soon be providing funds for
a family literacy oriented program called Even Start.

            *National Follow On*-The Even Start program championed by
Congressman William Goodling provided funds for family literacy programs
from 1988 through 2011 (Clymer, et al., 2017).  However, post-2011  many
states and foundations kept family literacy programs funded and upon Rep.
Goodling’s retirement the Congress honored him by establishing the Goodling
Institute for Research in Family Literacy at Pennsylvania State University.
Clymer, et al., (2017) present a comprehensive report on the status of
family literacy programs. A 2021 infographic with additional information
about the national status of family literacy programs in the United States
is available on the Goodling Institute web site.

            *International Follow On-*Four years following the 1988
Conference on the Intergenerational Transfer of Cognitive Skills, working
in 1993 as a member of UNESCO’s International Literacy Prize Jury at UNESCO
Headquarters in Paris, I proposed that UNESCO’s forthcoming International
Year of the Family 1994 be celebrated in part by the convening of a World
Symposium on Family Literacy. This idea was accepted and UNESCO convened
the Symposium in Paris on 3-5 October 1994.

The 1994 World Symposium was followed-up by UNESCO and numerous member
states and  some two decades later  the  UNESCO Institute for Lifelong
Learning produced a report on “Learning Families – Intergenerational
Approaches to Literacy Teaching and Learning” (Hanemann, 2015).  A sample
of more than two dozen programs from six different regions of the world
illustrate the widespread flourishing of intergenerational skills programs
since the San Diego conference of 1988.

References

Beeler, M. (1992). Introduction to Part II: Intergenerational Intervention
Programs. In: Sticht,T., The Beeler, M., & McDonald, B. (Eds.). The
Intergenerational Transfer of Cognitive Skills: Volume I: Programs, Policy,
and Research Issues. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.Corporation.

Clymer, C., Toso, B., Grinder, E., & Sauder, R. (2017). Changing the Course
of Family Literacy.

Policy Paper. Online at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED574448.pdf

Employment & Training Program. (2023). Workplace Literacy Program. Online
at:
https://etp.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/70/2022/10/ETP_WorkforceLiteracyPilotProgram-Guidelines.pdf

Hanemann, U. (2015). Learning Families: Intergenerational Approaches to
Literacy Teaching and Learning. Online at:
https://uil.unesco.org/literacy/learning-families/learning-families-intergenerational-approaches-literacy-teaching-and

Rosen, D. (2008). International Workforce Literacy Review › United States A
report prepared for the Department of Labour. Online at:
https://thehub.swa.govt.nz/assets/documents/International%20Workforce%20Literacy%20Review,%20United%20States.pdf

Rosen, D. (2017). Webinar: From Policy to Practice: Designing Career
Pathways for ABE/ESL Online at:
*https://community.lincs.ed.gov/sites/default/files/9.11_ABE%2BESL_CP%20%284%29%20%281%29%20508%20%288%29_0.pdf
<https://community.lincs.ed.gov/sites/default/files/9.11_ABE%2BESL_CP%20%284%29%20%281%29%20508%20%288%29_0.pdf>*

Sticht, T. (2011). Getting it Right from the Start: The Case for Early
Parenthood Education. Online at:
https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/Sticht.pdf

Sticht, T. (1975). Reading For Working: A Functional Literacy Anthology.
Online at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED102532.pdf

UNESCO (2023) Concept Note for International Literacy Day 2023. Online at:
https://www.unesco.org/sites/default/files/medias/fichiers/2023/08/ild-2023-cn-en.pdf

<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
Virus-free.www.avast.com
<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.nottingham.ac.uk/pipermail/reading-hall-of-fame/attachments/20230901/09a833e7/attachment-0001.htm>