[At a session of our most recent "Orientation for New Adult Education Staff," participants discussed the report from NCSALL that focuses on the factors which can help support student persistence in attending class and also heard from a couple of guests--two current/former ABE students, who spoke about their own experiences as learners. Participants were asked to write their responses, and here are portions of what a few of them had to say.--Ed.]
One of the students discussed in the NCSALL report had ambitions to become more than just a laborer, and the rut of dead end jobs prompted him to return to school. He was motivated to stay because his family and friends were very supportive. I think the saying "encouragement is half a man's pay" worked in his case. The fact that the learning center let him work at his own pace and also encouraged him and other students to play a major role in implementing programs for their benefit and to have a say in how the school operates also played a big part in encouraging him to stick with the program. Being a peer leader and helping to share information with fellow students were also incentives to remain in the program. The disappointment of his children if he was to quit was strong encouragement for him never to quit.
My student who I would parallel with this case is not motivated to attend because of the job situation, but rather because of the situation at home where he is the only member of his family who does not speak, read and write English well, and in his eyes he feels he loses control as a father. His male and/or fatherly pride motivates him to attend class regularly, because he does not want to feel like the outsider who only feels included as the head of the household when he speaks Creole.
--Gloria Riley, Perkins Community Center
Our adult learners in the Literacy Program at the Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) are juggling jobs, family responsibilities, and acculturation with language learning--a formidable task. Our teachers are likewise juggling their professional and personal responsibilities. One of the impressive factors in the academic success of the female adult learner [we heard from] was the incredible devotion and unlimited support of the staff at her school.
At JVS our teachers and bilingual counselor are also committed to our students' success. The relationships between the students in the class and in the program as a whole are equally important. The students really listen to each other and share in each other's good times and bad. When one student expressed an interest in becoming a fireman, another student found an article in her Chinese newspaper and brought in the information for her Latino classmate. Students literally applaud each other's successes and encourage their peers as they engage and struggle to become more fluent in English. In the computer room, more advnaced students help the less advanced. In our program-wide health unit last year, the upper level students made presentations and translated for their lower level peers.
Volunteers have also given a lot of support to individual students and the program as a whole. In the future I would like to see more one-on-one support by volunteers or peer buddies. I would also like to see more time allotted to staff sharing and reflection.
--Jane Ravid, Jewish Vocational Service
The experiences of the two visitors and two of the students in my communication skills ABE class will serve as examples of motivating and impeding energy. The visitors--as do all adult learners--had to overcome inertia. One of them is now a known, liked, and respected Spanish radio talk host. But I infer that his world when first in the U.S. was a construction world, a world of more physical than academic competition, a world less supportive of personal growth in the English speaking culture. I recall working as a cabbie myself. Had I expressed to other drivers goals of mine which challenged the acceptability of being a cabbie, I'd have been at least verbally roughed up. Our guest experienced, I believe, this critical atmosphere in his construction trade. But he had the desire to achieve, to use his talents more creatively. He had had a positive experience in schooling in Guatemala. So his movement was sparked by his rekindled desires to learn and previous successes. He was aware of the danger of fear of growth which possessed workers in construction. But having moved to another industry, he felt support from the radio world, and he certainly appreciated his growth as a voice of his community. He was able to see the opportunities and move to them and away from negative influences.
Our other student visitor tells a story very different in detail, but in kind the same. That is, an awareness of how to move with the current of her life and avoid the eddies and backwards forces that bring many to immobility. She had had a childhood with a non-supportive family. For that reason, perhaps, her early and secondary schooling was unmotivated and erratic. She had no self-esteem. In her twenties, though struggling through a broken relationship and sometimes suporting her child, she came into the aura of a positive, inspiring, supportive counselor. She returned to school, she progressed, she achieved an award and recognition. This forward movement has lit her flame of growth. She, too, has been conscious of the forces around her who have nourished and inspired. And, as well, conscious of those, unfortunately, her family, who in fact were destructive to her.
Both our visitor adult learners developed a perception of their necessary path using positive contacts. It is this awareness of support and impediment which surrounds us that I hope to bring to my two students. Each, though a native speaker of English, is caught in a work world of "Hey, man, you taking 'communication skills'? What, you dumb or somethin'? Didn't ya do that in school? Com'on, wha's it? Readin', writin', rithmetic?" With modest elation they have told me of their discoveries in the few classes they've attended. But that has not been enough for them to challenge their peers and those voices, not enough to bring them back, for them to hear their own voices, the voices of discovery.
--Wattie Taylor, SEIU Worker Education Program
The area of support that I believe leads to successful persistence in adult learning is the area of self-efficacy. Strong self-efficacy support allows for the other three support areas--awareness/management of positive and negative forces, goal establishment, and goal progress--to flourish.
Reflecting on my personal learning experiences, much of what I believed to be so about learning had to be reconsidered and eventually discarded. In order to do that, I had to be shown how to confront the fear and shame that permeated my earlier education. These emotions paralyzed me for many years, causing lengthy delays in my college completion. These feelings also ran rampant in other areas of my life, which made goal-setting excruciating. The mere thought of failure was more than I could endure. Needless to say, my persistence in accomplishing anything worthwhile was short-lived. I could not focus on the tasks at hand because I automatically anticipated that they were beyond my comprehension. The more I was coached to challenge this ingrained perception, the more I understood the rationale that underlined this damaging and false idea. The rationale was that of a scared kid who was bullied by her educators to accept that there were only right answers and wrong answers, and, of course, the teacher had the right answers. When my answers and the thinking behind them did not conform to this formula, they were declared just plain wrong. Eventually, I interpreted that feedback to mean that I was wrong, which got further interpreted as there must be something wrong with me. Ironically, even to this day those feelings and ideas resurface.
As I listened to our female visitor speak to our class, I empathized with her tormented educational and personal journey and admired her courage to face such overwhelming feelings of inadequacy. I could also relate to her thirst for knowledge and the elation she felt when doors of opportunity began to open. I now wish I could have worked with a mentor like her when I decided to go back to school, because I would not have felt so alone for so many years. If there is one sure predicament that results from long-standing fear and shame, it is surely isolation. Our visitor was someone who broke free from its grip. She was able to find people who could help her establish goals, how to break them down into manageable parts, and how to rejoice in the completion of each task.
As an adult educator, I envision establishing mentorship programs consisting of previous adult program participants. I would work with the instructor during curriculum development in the hope of forming groups that include the current adult learners and one program graduate as a mentor. With the instructor's permission, the mentor would convey both the positve and negative experiences she encountered while attempting tasks as an adult learner. Both the mentor and the instructor would break a task down so that each student would deal with just one component. The task would be one that could be completed within the class timeframe. My experience has shown that anxiety levels are greatly reduced when the adult learner's initial tasks are accomplished in class and represent a part of a larger group project. Initial course work that requires outside focus can be counterproductive. Many may argue that this position is just unrealistic in the "real world." Certainly over a long period of time this approach would prove to be unrealistic. However, many adult learners, especially women, tend to think that we are responsible for the outcome of just about everything. This mindset quickly produces overwhelming feelings that remind us of everything else in our lives that feels overwhelming. Our knee-jerk reaction is to eliminate any task that is non-essential. Often our own educational advancement ends up in that category, and we retreat even before we really get started. This is where the group, the mentor and the instructor can be very effective in our support and retention in the program. We start small and collaborate as a group on how we can maintain focus in light of our other responsibilities. I have experienced that as adult learners continue to forge an identify with the group, the stronger our confidence becomes in completing tasks outside the group in environments that are, more often than not, unsupportive.
--Brianne McCarthy, Paulist Center Adult Education