Here's my 3 cents on the question of excellent leadership in adult literacy. 

 

Throughout my 17 years in the field of adult literacy I've had some excellent and some very good leadership.

 

I view my practice as a learning experience. Having recently completed my MA at CCNY's Language and Literacy program (a composition and rhetoric degree pioneered by Basic Writing pioneer Mina Shaughnessy) I was privileged to have worked with such excellent adult educators as Dr Barbara Gleason, Dr Lynn Troyka and Dr Kate Garretson, who not only were well informed in androgogical theory, but also modeled for me how to educate by dealing with me as a seasoned adult professional educator. I think that the modeling was and is so very important. 

 

Barbara makes it her business to mentor all off her students: sending numerous e-mail reminders for us to get all of our programmatic paperwork submitted in a timely fashion, troubleshooting any and all areas of concern related to bureaucratic issues, advising us of scholarships and part-time and full-time work opportunities, and searching for opportunities for any and all of the Masters in L and L students to team teach and present at conferences.

 

Lynn Troyka does likewise, and truly understands that adult students are people with full lives. Each and every one of her course outlines and e-mail reminders include detailed instructions and reminders that demonstrate that we have lives (she reminds us to be properly hydrated and to have had some form of protein before being in class - when you're attending a class from 6:50 to 8:30, that is not a light statement!) 

 

Kate Garretson models by firmly pushes her adult students to draft and draft (even when we think that what we're submitting is good enough). If her grad students are studying the literacy theories of oralacy vs. print literacy and textual analysis, they are going to DO the activity by jigsawing the reading, creating a one page summary or doing a presentation about a theory. She understands that less is more.

 

I was also very impressed by Dr J. Elizabeth Clark of LaGuardia, who taught our Introduction to Language (How to Teach Grammar course). Liz modeled scaffolding and Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development theories by asking us how best we wanted to cover the curriculum. If we said we found Powerpoint presentations most helpful, that's what Liz created. If we expressed that we weren't grasping the material, she came an hour early and/or stayed an hour later to run small study groups. If we felt we weren't happy with our grades on grammar tests, she allowed us to retake them. In some ways, I think she worked harder in the course planning than I did as a student.

 

I've also experienced good leadership in the field with more than one coordinator.

 

Eric Rosenbaum, at Bronx Community College's BEGIN Program (a tough program to manage), fostered creativity in the staff while managing a welfare to work program. We kept teacher logs and he offered copius feedback. I remember going into his office to chat and regularly leaving with arms filled with materials and ideas. He would regularly invite me to sit in on whatever courses he was teaching at BCC so that I could glean ideas and adapt them. He also shows great leadership in consistently hiring people who are talented and then letting them go and grow, looking out for excellent staff and professional development opportunities.

 

 
 


From: djrosen at TheWorld.com
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:41:03 -0400
Subject: [SpecialTopics 1408] Leadership mentoring




Leadership discussion colleagues,
 
The questions for Monday are:

Have you been formally or informally mentored by an experienced adult education leader? If so, was that a positive experience? If so, what made it especially beneficial? 
Have you mentored a potential adult literacy education leader? If so, was that a positive experience? If so, what do you think was especially effective?
Reminders:

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David J. Rosen
Special Topics Discussion Moderator
djrosen at theworld.com 		 	   		  
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