Despite the usual exile of adult basic education to the margins of educational thought, activity, and funding in this country (or maybe because of it), many people with little involvement in the field often feel perfectly comfortable weighing in with opinions on what adult basic education ought to be doing and how it should be doing it. One group, however, that certainly deserves a voice frequently gets omitted from this discussion--adult learners themselves. In Massachusetts a group of current and former adult basic education students has come together to form the Massachusetts Alliance for Adult Literacy, or MassAAL, to try to change that situation. With funding from the Massachusetts Department of Education/Adult and Community Learning Services and an office at the Adult Literacy Resource Institute/SABES Greater Boston Regional Support Center, MassAAL is moving forward with its agenda of advancing the cause of adult literacy in this state.
The main goals of MassAAL are: 1) to build student leadership in general by assisting adult learners to become active and effective members of their communities; 2) to promote student leadership within their own adult basic education programs, primarily through the creation and strengthening of student advisory councils; and 3) to involve adult learners in the advocacy process of educating policy makers and affecting public policy regarding issues of adult literacy and adult basic education.
Last year MassAAL established a Board to oversee the work of the organization. The Board currently consists of nine student members: Janine Bain and Dorothy O'Neal from Boston, Vanda Ivaneko and Christine Smith from the Northeast, Cemir Angulo and Carmen Lebron from the Southeast, and Donna Swain from the West, along with two practitioner representatives: Anne Serino and David Rosen. (The Board is still seeking student representation from the Central region.) The part-time Director of MassAAL is Ernest Best.
To help move their goals forward, MassAAL is planning this year to hold regional meetings in each of the five SABES regions, as well as a statewide adult learner conference. The purpose of these meetings will be for adult learners to meet each other, to voice their concerns about issues particular to their programs and their regions, and to learn about the process of advocacy.
MassAAL is particularly eager to work closely with teachers and other practitioners at programs, and there seems to be fertile ground for promoting this collaboration. At a recent meeting of ABE Program Directors, a focus group placed "student leadership" as priority #2 on a list of issues important to programs. And in a survey of students recently conducted by MassAAL, improving the salaries, benefits, and working conditions for teachers was voted the #1 priority for students, reflecting their belief that ABE teachers do important work and should be treated accordingly by society. MassAAL would like to ask teachers and other programs staff for their help with getting the word out about the organization and to help with getting student councils started. They've put together some resource material on this and would be glad to come out to programs to talk about student councils. You can contact Ernest Best at 617-782-8956 x13 if you're interested in this or if you have any other questions about MassAAL.
Thanks to Cemir Angulo, Carmen Lebron, Dorothy O'Neal, and Ernest Best for contributing their thoughts to this article. Steve Reuys is Staff Development Coordinator at the A.L.R.I.