[Reading-hall-of-fame] Fwd: September Adult Literacy Highlights

Tue Sep 17 15:29:54 BST 2024

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: tgsticht <tgsticht at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: September Adult Literacy Highlights
To: AAACE-NLA <aaace-nla at googlegroups.com>

9/16/2024

Remembering Ruth Colvin (Dec. 16, 2016-Aug. 18, 2024)

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

Ruth Colvin passed away on August 18, 2024, at 107 years of age! She began
her adult literacy work in 1961 when she began a project which became
Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA). She directed LVA into a national
organization with over 400 affiliates and thousands of tutors offering
one-on-one tutoring and small group instruction in literacy for both native
born and immigrant adults.

In 2002, I got a Christmas card from Ruth noting that LVA had merged with
Laubach Literacy to form the world’s largest adult literacy education
organization, ProLiteracy Worldwide. In 2012 ProLiteracy moved into new
headquarters in Syracuse, New York, and I was invited to present two
inaugural workshops on adult literacy education.To my surprise, and great
honor, Ruth attended both these workshops.

Having worked for adult literacy education in numerous nations, Ruth
continued her adult literacy work into her 11th decade of life. She
received the Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States, the
Presidential Medal of Volunteer Action, nine honorary doctorate degrees,and
the gratitude of thousands of adult literacy learners throughout the world!

The Proliteracy organization provides a web page where you can learn more
about Ruth Colvin and her many contributions to Adult Education and Family
Literacy. Online at:
https://www.proliteracy.org/news/in-remembrance-of-ruth-j-colvin-1916-2024/
###
On Monday, September 9, 2024 at 2:42:11 PM UTC-7 tgsticht wrote:

>
> Greetings all! I'm pleased to note that the International Adult and
> Continuing Education Hall of Fame Newsletter for September 2024 was
> published today and includes a copy of the September Adult Literacy
> Highlights. The newsletter goes out to members of the IACEHOF in a number
> of nations. You can read a copy of the newsletter online at:
>
>
> https://halloffame.outreach.ou.edu/Portals/1415/Assets/Documents/newsletters/HOF%20Sept%202024%20Final.pdf?ver=NcMlW9DZZiuztlN87ZYN2A%3d%3d
>
> And thanks to all of you for your birthday wishes for me you have posted
> here or sent directly to me. I'm deeply touched by all these well wishes!
>
> Tom Sticht
> On Sunday, September 8, 2024 at 6:08:55 AM UTC-7 djros... at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Sharon for re-posting part of Tom Sticht's recent message here as
>> a COABE International Literacy Day message. As you and others here may
>> know, Tom's international work over the years on behalf of UNESCO is as
>> impressive as his domestic research.
>>
>> Tom, thanks for this post, and your many informative posts here. I
>> especially appreciate that this message reminds us that our field needs to
>> address a wide range of adult learner education needs to help them in their
>> roles as worker, parent (e.g. providing knowledge and skills needed to
>> prepare pre-school children to enter school, help them achieve in school,
>> encourage them to stay in school, and increase their opportunities to
>> enroll in higher education), community member, healthy adult and patient
>> (and parent of healthy children as patients), as well as to provide a wide
>> range of adult (foundational) education program services that include help
>> to address social exclusion and increase social justice by providing adult
>> learners with advocacy and political action skills.
>>
>> Along with Sharon, I would like to wish you a happy 88th birthday!
>>
>> David J. Rosen, founder and Moderator
>> National Literacy Advocacy (NLA) group, now in its fourth decade
>> ======================================
>> From the COABE International Literacy Day post:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Happy International Literacy Day!
>>
>> In the United States, just over 82,000 devoted adult education teachers,
>> state staff, and administrators continue to work tirelessly in a field of
>> education that is generally marginalized among the education systems of the
>> nation.
>>
>> In honor of #InternationalLiteracyDay
>> <https://coabe.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=84fcd2a6e9eb5844378433df6&id=cb33d6b736&e=0a23394e5f>,
>> we are proud to share components of an update that was sent out on a
>> national listserve  by famed researcher, Tom Sticht. The findings were
>> highlighted by a 2023 UNESCO report which confirmed his decades long
>> research that adult education truly breaks barriers and creates pathways to
>> prosperity.
>>
>> UNESCO
>> <https://coabe.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=84fcd2a6e9eb5844378433df6&id=577ce00b1a&e=0a23394e5f>
>>  reports that adult education continues to:
>>
>> 1. Improve productivity at work, at home, and in the community leading to
>> higher tax bases for communities, decreased violence at home and in the
>> community, and greater participation in citizenship activities by a larger
>> segment of the adult population.
>>
>> 2. Improve self-confidence and other psychological and physiological
>> aspects of health of adults, including activities that will help the brain
>> grow throughout adulthood and contribute to reduced medical costs for
>> adults as they age.
>>
>> 3. Improve health of adult’s children due to learning in adult education
>> programs leading to better prenatal and postnatal care, reductions in low
>> birth rate infants, and better home medical care, thereby contributing to
>> lowered medical costs for children and fewer learning problems in school.
>>
>> 4. Improve social justice from providing literacy education for
>> marginalized populations to permit them to acquire skills and knowledge
>> needed to take political action that allows them to achieve their civil
>> rights and to overcome social exclusion and join in the mainstream of
>> society.
>>
>> 5. Improve productivity in the schools by providing adults with the
>> knowledge they need to better prepare their children to enter school, help
>> them achieve in school, encourage them to stay in school and increase their
>> opportunities to enroll in higher education, thus breaking
>> intergenerational barriers.
>>
>> These findings were first published in 1994 by famed researcher, Tom
>> Sticht and confirmed in a recent UNESCO report.
>>
>> On International Literacy Day we at Coalition on Adult Basic Education
>> <https://coabe.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=84fcd2a6e9eb5844378433df6&id=76a948d72b&e=0a23394e5f>
>>  express appreciation for and solidarity with the work of adult
>> education teachers all around the world!
>>
>> On Saturday, September 7, 2024 at 2:10:49 PM UTC-4 tgsticht wrote:
>>
>>> 9/7/2024
>>>
>>> *A Message for September 8: International Literacy Day*
>>>
>>> Tom Sticht, International Consultant  in Adult Education (Ret.)
>>> UNESCO reports that since 1967, some 512  International Literacy Prizes
>>> have been awarded. Studying these awards I have observed two main important
>>> streams of effects produced by adult literacy programs around the world:(1).
>>> Multiplier Effects in Adult Literacy Education. An examination of
>>> research reports and several hundred applications for UNESCO literacy
>>> prizes revealed that governments can expect multiple returns on investments
>>> in adult literacy education in at least five areas:
>>>
>>>  1. Improved productivity at work, at home, and in the community
>>> leading to higher tax bases for communities, decreased violence at home and
>>> in the community, and greater participation in citizenship activities by a
>>> larger segment of the adult population.
>>>
>>> 2. Improved self-confidence and other psychological and physiological
>>> aspects of health of adults, including activities that will help the brain
>>> grow throughout adulthood and contribute to reduced medical costs for
>>> adults as they age.
>>> 3.  Improved health of adult’s children due to learning in adult
>>> education programs leading to  better prenatal and postnatal care,
>>> reductions in low birth rate infants, and better home medical care, thereby
>>> contributing to lowered medical costs for children and fewer learning
>>> problems in school.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 4. Improved social justice from providing literacy education for
>>> marginalized populations to permit them to acquire skills and knowledge
>>> needed to take political action that allows them to achieve their civil
>>> rights and to overcome social exclusion  and join in the mainstream of
>>> society.
>>>
>>> 5. Improved  productivity in the schools by providing adults with the
>>> knowledge they need to better prepare their children to enter school, help
>>> them achieve in school, encourage them to stay in school and increase their
>>> opportunities to  enroll in higher education.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *(2). Intergenerational effects of adult literacy. *Item number 5 above
>>> is especially important because it reveals the effects that educating
>>> adults can have on the educational opportunities and achievements of
>>> children. This intergenerational effect of adult literacy education was
>>> discussed extensively three decades ago in 1994 at UNESCO’s World Symposium
>>> on Family Literacy during the United Nations Year of the Family (Sticht,
>>> 1994).
>>>
>>> Over a quarter century later, in 2023, a UNESCO report confirmed the
>>> foregoing thoughts and states, “ Research evidence indicates a strong
>>> association between parents’ education levels and their children’s level of
>>> literacy acquisition. Different studies have therefore stressed the
>>> importance of intergenerational approaches to literacy learning …The desire
>>> to help their children with school readiness and schoolwork often motivates
>>> parents to (re)engage in learning themselves…” (Hanemann, 2023)
>>> ConclusionThrough their efforts, thousands of devoted adult literacy
>>> teachers working in a field of education that is generally marginalized
>>> among the education systems of nations, adult literacy teachers have often
>>> worked under the most arduous circumstances, at times in fear of their very
>>> lives, to serve the earth’s disenfranchised, socially excluded, illiterate
>>> or marginally literate adults.On International Literacy Day governments
>>> and individuals express appreciation for and solidarity with the work of
>>> adult literacy teachers all around the world. And the work to bring
>>> literacy to close to three quarters of a billion adults continues.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> References
>>>
>>> Hanemann, U. (2023). UNESCO International Literacy Prizes 2023,
>>> Promoting literacy for a world in transition: building the foundation for
>>> sustainable and peaceful societies: analytical study. online at
>>> https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000388129)
>>>
>>> Sticht, T. (1994). Family Literacy: A World Movement. In: UNESCO: World
>>> Symposium on Family Literacy. Online at:
>>> https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000125234/PDF/125234engo.pdf.multi
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 2:43:04 AM UTC-7 sharonmbonney wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thank you for assembling and sharing all of this, Tom! I have so
>>>> appreciated your many contributions to our field over many decades.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> And on a personal note, I hope you have a wonderful 88th birthday!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *Sharon Bonney*  *|*  Chief Executive Officer  *|*  Coalition on Adult
>>>> Basic Education
>>>>
>>>> PO Box 14400 Bradenton, FL 34280  *|*  www.coabe.org * |*  888-44-COABE
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> [image: A blue and gold logo Description automatically generated]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *From: *aaac... at googlegroups.com <aaac... at googlegroups.com> on behalf
>>>> of tgsticht <tgst... at gmail.com>
>>>> *Date: *Monday, September 2, 2024 at 12:23 PM
>>>> *To: *AAACE-NLA <aaac... at googlegroups.com>
>>>> *Subject: *September Adult Literacy Highlights
>>>>
>>>> 9/2/2024
>>>>
>>>> *September Highlights Adult Learners and Educators*
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Education (Ret.)*
>>>>
>>>> With five major causes for celebrating adult learners and educators, I
>>>> note that September kicks off a new academic year for adult literacy
>>>> education across the Nation.
>>>>
>>>> *On September 3rd* in the United States we celebrate Labor Day to
>>>> honor the workers of the world. Adult educators especially recognize those
>>>> workers who have sought out help in raising their literacy skills to meet
>>>> the needs of modern workplaces. Writing for the International Labor
>>>> Organization (ILO), Barbee (1986) developed guidelines for developing and
>>>> delivering literacy programs for workers, including the recommendation that:
>>>>
>>>>  “Literacy training should be built into vocational and technical
>>>> skills training. Literacy and knowledge go together. Literacy cannot be
>>>> taught without building on existing knowledge and it seems reasonable to
>>>> use job knowledge as the content of further literacy development for
>>>> adults. The research in "functional context" and other competency-based and
>>>> individualised training clearly bears this out. It seems likely that this
>>>> would also hold true in most societies. This would mean that in planning
>>>> vocational and technical skills training programmes a literacy component
>>>> should be built in using "functional context" principles (p.32).”
>>>>
>>>> Today, adult educators in the U.S. are following this guidance and
>>>> helping thousands of labor force members increase their basic skills with
>>>> support from the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, Title 2: The
>>>> Adult Education and Family Literacy act which provides financial support
>>>> for integrated vocational and basic skills education.
>>>>
>>>> *On September 8th* the world celebrates International Literacy Day,
>>>> the day the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
>>>> Organization (UNESCO) awards literacy prizes to institutions,
>>>> organizations, and individuals whose actions are dedicated to the struggle
>>>> against adult illiteracy throughout the world.
>>>>
>>>> Serving for 25 years as a member of UNESCO’s International Literacy
>>>> Prize Jury that selected the winners of these literacy prizes I  learned
>>>> two important lessons: (1) adult literacy programs generally produce
>>>> multiplier effects, meaning that important outcomes beyond the learning of
>>>> literacy are frequently forthcoming and (2) adult literacy programs often
>>>> have intergenerational consequences,  meaning that improving adult
>>>> literacy, especially that of women, increases the likelihood  that
>>>> children’s literacy and education will improve.
>>>>
>>>> Regarding the intergenerational effect of adult literacy education,
>>>> Rosa Maria Torres, a member of the UNESCO International Jury for Literacy
>>>> Prizes observed that  “To educate children, it is essential to educate
>>>> adults, not only (illiterate, poor) parents and caregivers (including
>>>> teachers) but adults in general. Because it is adults and the adult society
>>>> who make the critical decisions that affect children’s well-being and for
>>>> the sake of children, for the present and for future generations. … the
>>>> children’s right to education should include the right to educated parents.”
>>>>
>>>> *On September 10th * I celebrate my 88th birthday and honor the
>>>> numerous adult educators and learners I have had the opportunity to work
>>>> with for some 55 years in over half a dozen  nations around the world
>>>> traveling over a half million miles to advocate for adult literacy
>>>> education. See Sticht (2018) for an overview of much of this work in adult
>>>> education.
>>>>
>>>> *On September 11th*, we honor those whose lives were ended in 2001 by
>>>> the suicidal bombing by terrorists of the World Trade Center towers in New
>>>> York City. Seven months later, I was in New York to present a seminar at
>>>> the Literacy Assistance Center (LAC), one of the premier adult literacy
>>>> organizations in the nation, where I found adult educators struggling to
>>>> move forward (Sticht, 2017).
>>>>
>>>> Later, Jan Gallagher (2002) of the LAC wrote, "..at the Literacy
>>>> Assistance Center (LAC) — located six blocks from what we still call Ground
>>>> Zero — we continue to be affected by last year ’s  terrorist attacks and
>>>> their aftermath in ways large and small. We cannot escape the fact that the
>>>> adult education programs we serve — and, more to the point, the poor,
>>>> working-class, and immigrant students they serve — continue to be affected
>>>> by the economic, political, and social consequences of living in a city
>>>> that has been bombed and in a nation that is at war."
>>>>
>>>> Even now, adult literacy educators continue to serve adult learners who
>>>> suffer the terror that results from fighting chronic poverty,
>>>> marginalization, and social exclusion. But the educators know that adult
>>>> literacy education is a formidable weapon against terrorism in both war and
>>>> peace. It is a weapon still drastically in need at the present time.
>>>>
>>>> *On September 16-20*, we celebrate National Adult Education and Family
>>>> Literacy Week to recognize the importance of adult literacy education in
>>>> improving the overall literacy of families. This was documented over 30
>>>> years ago in a newspaper article in Education Week by Peter Schmidt (1991).
>>>> Entitled, “When Mothers Take Literacy Classes, Children Reap
>>>> Benefits,” Schmidt said, “Literacy and job-training programs for low-income
>>>> mothers appear to have a secondary benefit of improving the educability of
>>>> their children, a study by a women's employment group asserts. …After
>>>> taking part in the programs, the study found, the mothers were more likely
>>>> than before to read to their children, to take them to the library, to help
>>>> them with homework, and to take an active interest in their
>>>> schools--activities presumed to have contributed to the youngsters'
>>>> educational improvement.
>>>>
>>>> The study…was conducted by Wider Opportunities for Women Inc., or wow,
>>>> a Washington-based, nonprofit training organization. "What this research
>>>> tells us is that even very modest investments in the training of mothers
>>>> can have a positive impact on the educability of their children," said
>>>> Cynthia Marano, the executive director of wow. "Such investments can
>>>> contribute to ending the cycle of illiteracy," she argued. "Dollars spent
>>>> on such programs perform 'double duty.'"
>>>>
>>>> Today, adult educators in the U.S. are making these investments in
>>>> developing family literacy with funding from the Workforce Innovation and
>>>> Opportunity Act, Title 2: The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act and
>>>> tens of thousands of adults and their children are seeing the world better
>>>> through the lens of improved literacy.
>>>>
>>>> References
>>>>
>>>> Barbee, D. (1986). Methods of Providing Vocational Skills to
>>>> Individuals with Low Literacy Levels: The U.S. Experience. Discussion Paper
>>>> No. 1. International Labour Office, Geneva (Switzerland). (Available online
>>>> using a Google search).
>>>>
>>>> Schmidt, P.  (1991, September 4).When Mothers Take Literacy Classes,
>>>> Children Reap Benefits. Education Week. (Available online using a Google
>>>> search).
>>>>
>>>> Sticht, T. (2017). Fighting Illiteracy in Times of War. Available
>>>> online at:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320024840_FIGHTING_ILLITERACY_IN_TIMES_OF_WAR_An_anthology_of_brief_historical_notes_by_Tom_Sticht
>>>>
>>>> Sticht, T. (2018). Mainstreaming Marginalized Adults: The
>>>> Transformation of Adult Basic Education in the United States. Available
>>>> online at:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thomas-Sticht/publication/324604141_Mainstreaming_Marginalized_Adults_The_Transformation_of_Adult_Basic_Education_in_the_United_States/links/5ad8ba70a6fdcc29358632e6/Mainstreaming-Marginalized-Adults-The-Transformation-of-Adult-Basic-Education-in-the-United-States.pdf
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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