Return-Path: <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id j3DK3eG23261; Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:03:40 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:03:40 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <1E3E8663.27DE0748.0A349A3F@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: AWilder106@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2954] Re: New NCSALL Website X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Mailer: Atlas Mailer 2.0 Status: O Content-Length: 5795 Lines: 33 Hi All, First, I need to apologize to George for not putting something out sooner: George, this is a very dense book! You say you have worked on it a long time, and I believe you. Anyone who is familiar with George's writing will already have an entree into this book. Before I get to EFF, some preliminary remarks. 1) George relates a paradigm to a metaphor, a paradigm being a large shift in thinking, say from the sun going around the eearth to the earth going around the sun. A metaphor would be --the industrial revolution, that is, the use of machinery in production was like a revolution in how the world changed. this metaphor could be elaborated in several ways, like the relation of industry to intimate household relations between people, the changed use of natural resources, the growth in schools of engineering, and so on. Metaphors have implications for not only what we do in the world, but for how we relate to each other, and how values change, for instance, speed becomes important in putting together car parts. Now maybe it becomes a paradigm, the words can be very close in usage. 2) One paradigm is the changing nature of work, from industrial to post industrial, industrial equaling machine manufacture, post industrial being an age of knowledge. These terms are actually somewhat precarious (my interpretation) but they are widely used and understood to mean changes in what jobs will require, from physical heft to mental dexerity. The SCANS report and the WIA represent governmental understanding of the changing work environment and the changing skills that people must have. The NRS is actaully a throw back, as it is constructed on paper, to an industrial standardized model. How it is constructed on paper is not how it is used in the field, however.(This is George's postpositivist research paradigm) 3) Ths above paradigm crashes up against one of participatory literacy, essentially an idea of community-building through alternative assessment and programs from the bottom up. This thinking would make any return on investment person itch, with its emphasis on social inclusion as a guiding light, and the importance of achieving individual student goals. How can individual performance be judged in a standardized way that aims towards simple accountability? (This is George's emancipatory paradigm.) 4) The third paradigm draws from ethnographic studies which look at adult students as residing in cultures; to teach these students, you mentally enter their universe in order to expand their literacy practices, in their own key, as it were. (This is George's interpretive/constructivist paradigm.) George expands on this typology through the social criticism of Giroux, for example, and from a bouquet of other researchers who emphasize in their own work a variety of methodologies which support a variety of interpretations of literacy. However, it is his section on EFF that drew me first, as I have never been able to understand it, though I feel sure I am in favor of it. EFF relates to the constructivist paradigm. There is a problem here which T.Sticht picked up on, and I do too. Is it very important? Probably not. The whole EFF effort srikes me as fairly daring, actually, an attempt at teaching through ethnography within the federal bureaucracy: heavy duty! The problem is that ethnography really and truly builds from the ground up, with vocabulary and concepts that have meaning for the peoople who use them, without prompting. EFF designers took educational Goal 6, to build literacy for the future through civics and job skills, and ran with it. The framework was pre-structured. EFF sent mailings to many sites, many people to create a reasonable sample, and constructed (with help from many it sounds like) a framework to be used to achieve three roles: worker, community member, and family member. (You really should read this for yourself to get the full flavor of what the EFF people did.) Anyway, respondents' answers sorted themselves out into what could reasonably be called the 3 roles. The EFF people then moved beyond and unerneath the three roles, discerning in fact 4 purposes that linked them all together: 1) Access and Orientation, 2) Voice, 3) Independent Action, and 4) Bridge to the Future. As constructed, anyone, even you and me! could fit in somewhere. NIFL published this as "Equipped for the Future: A Reform Agenda." The word "customer" replaced adult student/learner. Now...into a veritable swamp of problems....this is where I fall off the edge of the map. We (George) have Broad Areas of Responsibiity and Key Activites, moving toward (generative) skills, knowledge (domains) and standards. I need examples, something to hold on to. I can't figure out what these terms mean, they become very abstract, without easy reference. On a lighter note: John Comings suggested on Monday that the Chicago Trib had an article on EFF and by gum it did! I read it, it was about a work readiness program in NYC, and it was terrific. I knew I liked EFF, and the article tells me why: it takes the customer from high school to job training, only this job training also includes aspects such as speech and behavior needed and expected on the job. It sounds as though Sondra Stein, the originator of EFF is now working herself with the US Chamber of Commerce. The paper product will be a work readiness credential, available in spring 2006. To finish up here--George segues into pluralist democracy via Dewey, Bellah, Rawls, and others. If you want to rehash and reread some of the more choice dialogues on NLA issues, you will find members of the group here--Andres Muro, and Catherine King among others. Check the index for names. That's it for now-- Andrea
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