Teaching the disadvantaged adult

Curtis Ulmer, Ed. D College of Education / University of Georgi,

TEACHING THE DISADVANTAGED ADULT
~
by\' Curtis U, lmer, Ed. D.
College of Education / University of Georgia
edited by Dorothy Sparer Editorial Services / Athens, Georgia
A publication of the University of Georgia and the Georgia State Department of Education, Jack P. Nix, Superintendent
December, 1968

APPRECIATION There is an air of excitement and vitality in crossroads, villages, metropolitan areas and communities over the state of Georgia. Much of this excitement is due to a new program of adult I basic education. Mrs. Catherine Kirkland, State Coordinator of . Adult Education, has for many years carried the message in Georgia for adult education. Passage of federal legislation that provided funds for adult education was the culmination of a long-time dream and the beginning of a new era in adult education for Mrs. Kirkland. Through her leadership and guidance a program of adult basic education reaching nearly 20,000 adults was attained in the first year of operation. Mrs. Kirkland has not been content to live with the old ways of doing things. Through programs of in-service teacher education, experimentation, and program innovation she has constantly sought to improve the educational opportunities over the state for the disadvantaged adult. She has done this with imagination and courage. The state owes a vote of thanks to a gracious lady who has done so much to advance the cause of education for so many.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Grateful appreciation is due to the Georgia State Department of Education for the funds that made this project possible. This text is part of a program supplying video tapes and materials to the State Department of Education for a comprehensive program of in-service education in adult basic education for teachers over the state.
Persons listed and unlisted have contributed their time and energy to making improvements in the original drafts. In fact, several took this project as a missionary effort - and their contributions and enthusiasm are indeed gratifying.
Mrs. Dorothy Sparer, editor, has become an adult basic education expert this past year. Her innate intelligence, dedication to her job and patience helped her work with the sometimes inadequate materials she received. She is a "for real blythe spirit" who made this endeavor pleasurable.
Dr. William L. Bowden, former chairman of the Department of Adult Education, College of Education, University of Georgia; Dr. Claude Ivie, Department of Instruction, Georgia State Department of Education; and Dr. Doak S. Campbell, president emeritus, Florida State University have read plans and drafts in various stages and have kindly offered constructive criticism and encouragement.
To Dr. Edwin H. Smith, director, Fundamental Education Materials Center, Florida State University, is due a special vote of thanks. The chapter, "Teaching Reading," came primarily from materials Dr. Smith has written over the past several years. Dr. .Smith reviewed the chapter and made many constructive changes. Essentially this is his chapter, even though I am certain that there is much that he would change or qualify in it.
Finally to my wife, Irene Simmons Ulmer, an "A" grade for her patience on the evenings and week-ends sans outings and companionship normally expected.
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Poverty is an anomaly to rich people. It is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the dinner bell.

And the mistake of the best men

through generation after generation,

has been the great one of thinking to

help the poor by almsgiving, and by

~vreearychiontgheorf

patience or hope, means, emollient

and by or con-

solatory, except the one thing which

God orders for them-justice.

-Walter Bagehot

-John Ruskin

You ask me what is poverty? Listen to me. Listen without pity. I cannot use your pity. Listen with understanding.
Poverty is living in a smell that never leaves. It is the smell of young children who cannot walk the long dark way in the night. It is the smell of milk which has gone sour because the refrigerator doesn't work, and it costs money to get it fixed. It is the smell of rotting garbage.
Poverty is being tired. I have always been tired. They told me at the hospital when the last baby came that I had chronic anemia and that I needed a corrective operation. I listened politely. The poor are always polite. The poor always listen. They don't say that there is no money for the iron pills or better food or worm medicine. Or that an operation is frightening and costs so much. Or that there is no one to take care of the children.
Poverty is dirt. You say, "Anybody can be clean." Let me explain about housekeeping with no money. Every night I wash every stitch my school-age child has on and hope her clothes dry by morning. What dishes there are, I wash in cold water with no soap. Even the cheapest soap has to be saved for the baby's diapers. Why not hot water? Hot water is a luxury. I do not have luxuries.
Poverty is asking for help. I will tell you how it feels. You find out where the office is that you are supposed to visit. You circle that block four or five times, then you go in. Everyone is very busy. Finally someone comes out and you tell her you need help. That is never the person you need to see. You go to see another
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You ask me what is poverty?

on and, after spilling the whole shame of your life all over the
~e~ between you, you find that this isn't the right office after all.
eS poverty is looking into a black future. Your children won't lay with my boys. My boys will turn to other boys who steal to ~et what t.hey want. And my daughter? At best there is for her a life like mme.
"But," you say to me, "there are schools." Yes, there are schools. But my children have no books, no magazines, no pencils or crayons or paper. And most important of all, they do not have health. They have worms. They have infections. They do not sleep well on the floor. They do not suffer from hunger, but they do suffer from malnutrition.
poverty is cooking without food and cleaning without soap. poverty is an acid that drips on pride until all pride is worn away. Some of you say that you would do something in my situation. And maybe you would-for the first week or the first month. But for year after year after year?
v

Any piece of knowledge I acquire today has a value at th is momen1 exactly proportionate to my skill to deal with it. Tomorrow, when I knol,\ more, I recall that piece of knowledge and use it better.
-Mark Van Dorer

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I - Introduction Points out some of the unique features of adult education which make in-service training essential for prospective teachers, and describes the teacher's role in a broad, comprehensive ABE program.

Chapter II - The Adult Student

t

Maintains that the adult is not a tall child; that being an

adult student has its advantages as well as its disadvan-

tages; and cites the implications these have for teaching

and motivating the adult sutdent.

Chapter III - The Disadvantaged Adult Student

2

Narrows the focus to the disadvantaged adult student,

describing him in terms of statistics, case histories, and

general characteristics. His physical and learning disabil-

ities are also mentioned to give the prospective teacher a

basis of understanding and empathy for her students.

Chapter IV - Approaches to Teaching and Counseling Examines the ways in which disadvantaged adults learn and their implications for teaching. Also considers why counseling is such an important part of the ABE program; how it should, ideally, be accomplished; and how, in the meantime, the teacher can function as a part-time counselor.

VI

Chapter V - Assistance Available from the Community Mentions some of the distracting personal problems which students bring to the classroom, and describes the public and private agencies which can help the teacher help her students and enrich the curriculum. Suggests that team-work among agencies, and between agencies and the ABE program, is the ultimate goal.
Chapter VI - Teaching Communication Describes ways of teaching three of the four communications skills-listening, speaking, and writing all of which reinforce each other. Asserts that these are essential skills, but that communication is meaningless unless there is something to communicate.
Chapter VII - Teaching Reading States that the adult will find it relatively easy to learn to read, but the teacher will need special knowledge to teach reading. Describes methods of testing the student's ability and potential; techniques for teaching on three reading levels; and the types of reading materials which can be used.
I
Chapter VIII - Teaching Arithmetic Points out that the ABE student already knows there are four quarters in a dollar, but needs to learn more about the arithmetic of the paycheck, the checking account, and the measuring cup. Stresses that the arithmetic of daily life should be presented through concrete examples, and should be supplemented with consumer and money management education.
r::. Chapter IX - Materials for Learning and Teaching Suggests that the ABE program's desire to move students beyond literacy calls for an imaginative set of materials which the teacher must choose. Presents guidelines for selecting and evaluating published materials and products of educational technology. Also offers suggestions for collecting and preparing original materials, or modifying existing ones to suit class needs.

49 61 71 87 95
VII

Chapter X - Putting the Group Process to Work

107

Maintains that scientific problem solving and democratic

~ecstisoonns

are the which

biggest will be

lessons learned

in the ABE curriculumthrough participation in

the group process. Describes ways in which the teacher

can lead a group democratically, and utilize the power

of the group to reinforce the power of the individual.

Chapter XI - Evaluating the Efforts of Students and

Teachers

119

Proposes that all testing must be evaluation, but not all

evaluation should be testing. Argues that evaluation

means keeping objectives clearly defined, and collecting

clues from many sources in order to make a reasoned

judgement followed by constructive action. Explains

how to plan for evaluation, and how to use tests

effectively.

Chapter XII - The Successful ABE Teacher

131

Discusses the student's motives for attending class and

his reasons for dropping out. Emphasizes that a teacher

must make the ABE program a positive attraction.

Mentions ways in which she can do this, and how she

can use teacher aids to lighten her burden.

Chapter XIII - What Can We Expect of the AB E Program? 141
On the assumption that the ABE program is a means for bringing the student closer to his own goals of self-fulfIllment, this chapter suggests that dramatic changes are possible, depending on the kind and amount of effort put forth by the teacher.

Appendix A - Organization of the National AB~rogram

151

Describes in words and charts the administrative net-

work on a federal, state, and local level which brings

funds and guidance to the local ABE classroom.

Appendix B - An Evaluation Model

161

Bibliography

165 VIII

Teaching adults is a Learned Professional Skill.

We live in a time of such rapid change and growth of knowiedge that only he who is in a fundamental sense a scholar that is, a person who continues to learn and inquire can hope to keep pace, let cilone play the role of guide.
Nathan Pusey
The human race has had long experrence and a fine tradition in surviving adversity. But now we face a task for which we have little experience, the task of surviving prosperity.
-Alan Gregg
Introduction
Why a Course for Adult Basic Education Teachers?
This book is based on the assumption that teaching adults in a technological today is a learned professional skill-quite a different proposition from teaching children or African tribesmen to read and write.
It is based also on the faith that the process of adult education can help both the teacher and his students to learn -to fulfill their expectations as well as their obligations.
The new teacher and the new student have much in common. They usually share inexperience, and the anxieties and unanswered questions which go with it. They also share aspiration - the desire to learn or to teach for importan t personal reasons. Finally, they have in common the fact that they are busy adults with full-time jobs Whose attendance at classes demands sizeable personal acrifices.
Whether they are teachers in in-service programs or migrant
~borers in basic education classes, adult students have competen-
CIes, needs, and disadvantages which require a completely different

approach, technique, and subject matter than those used il teaching children.
Let us look first at the adult student in an in-service course il adult education. His or her special competencies usually indudl teacher training and a strong motivation to teach adults. Thl student's needs are to learn-usually in a relatively short period 0 time-how to teach the disadvantaged adult. Among the students disadvantages are that they tend to live in a social, economic, ant cultural milieu which differs radically from the backgrounds 0 their students.
The purpose of this book is to help these teachers use thei competencies to meet their needs and overcome their disadvan tages. To do this, the book will try to give the teacher th( knowledge and insight he needs to do the same for his basil education students. The book will help him understand th< competencies, needs, and disadvantages of the disadvantaged adul', student so that he can reach the student and communicate witt him. Having done that, this text should put into the teacher'! hands those methods and types of subject matter which wil translate this communication into learning.
Adult educators have recently found themselves with federa funds to support adult basic education. The Economic Oppor tunity Program has given them an unprecedented supply of fund~ and an unprecedented demand for more basic education program! to help the poor to help themselves. The demand for ne\\ programs means, of course, that courses must be created to fill tht burgeoning demand for more teachers.
In the past, a call for well-intentioned volunteers might havt sufficed, and probably would have taken the place of a course. Bu1 the definition of literacy has changed. In today's automated world, the ability to add 2 + 2 or read, "Run, Spot, run," h virtually worthless. Literacy today demands far more from the student and, consequently, far more from the teacher.
Happily, this new definition of literacy has been accompanied by new insights into the learning process, especially as it take~ place in adults and disadvantaged adults. Therefore we need no longer rely on good intentions or missionary zeal. In fact, we could no longer afford to do so. We can now draw on a growing body of knowledge which has transformed the teaching of adults from a hit-or-miss avocation into a highly skilled profession.
So far we have seen that in-service education for adults is designed to point out the unique characteristics of adults and the
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unique teaching methods and materials required to teach them. We have mentioned that many more teachers of disadvantaged adults are needed, and that most of them can profit from this
information. However, there is another important reason for in-service
education which goes far beyond the need to fill an informational gap. The reason is starkly simple: there is no such thing as an ineffective basic education teacher.
Some occupations give their practitioners a certain amount of latitude in the level of performance required. For example, we have all seen incompetent repairmen, untalented artists, slip-shod builders, and even uninspiring teachers. On the other hand, some occupations do not offer their practitioners the luxury of second-rate accomplishment. You do not often find careless pilots, clumsy surgeons, or boring entertainers.
The teacher of disadvantaged adults is in the latter group. His university colleague who teaches a required course can mumble last year's notes in a monotone and still not lose his audience. His counterpart in elementary school is even more fortunate. A bus brought his students to class because their parents, the law, and social pressure insist they be there.
The student in the basic education teacher's class is not attending a required course by any means. While there are many pressures and fears working against his attendance, only one faint pressure keeps him in the classroom: his motivation. If he once defied all the laws and conventions of society to drop out of school, it stands to reason that it would not take much disappointment to make him leave a class he is attending voluntarily and against great odds.
It is for this reason that there are no dissatisfied adult basic education students. There are only empty chairs. And there is no such thing as an ineffective basic education teacher. There is only an empty classroom.
This, then, is the practical reason for a course in teaching the disadvantaged adult. The fact is that the teacher of the adult disadvantaged person must be a successful teacher. In addition, other realities in the form of statistics show us the target population for basic education classes far exceeds the number of students who are already enrolled. The challenge is clear. The teacher must not only be skilled enough to keep the students she has, but successful enough to encourage still more to attend.
Perhaps, then, the reasons for this course can be summarized
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this way. Adult students today have more to learn than ever before, and we know they will learn it only in their own way, on their own terms. Teachers must learn those ways and those tenns because there is a greater demand for basic education than ever before; because there is no alternative to good teaching; and because the price of failure is heartbreakingly high.
Perhaps the challenge to the teacher seems overwhelming. If teaching disadvantaged adults sounds like an impossible task, it may be because adult education in general sounds impossible on paper. Logically, one could argue that something as demanding of student and teacher as adult education cannot exist. The only trouble with this logic is that it not only can, but does exist. The spark of life comes from the student's desire to make it work, and it is the job of the teacher to fan that spark into a flame.
Plan for the Rest of the Text
This text is planned to help the teacher of the disadvantaged adult to work with the student, to understand him as an individual as well as a student, and to plan meaningful instruction which takes these personal factors into consideration.
Thirteen instructional units will follow this first introductory unit. Three of these will deal with the adult learner; nine will deal with the adult basic education program; and one will deal with administrative procedures.
The book will begin by discussing what it means to be an adult in a classroom, and what it means to be a disadvantaged adult, in order to show how the teacher can help the disadvantaged adult to become a student. It will stress that the emphasis in adult basic education must be on the individual, not on the transmission of knowledge- that the teacher must not only know how to teach, but also how to help the student learn.
The text will encourage teachers to arm themselves with knowledge about the psychology of adult learning, and their students' culture patterns, life experiences, and expectations.
On the theory that good teachers are made, not born, the book will then discuss the methods and materials needed to provide the kind of literacy needed in today's world. This includes consumer education, and education for citizenship, parenthood, employment, and other life skills which can be taught through the
4

basic reading and writing program.
The National Problem
The talent of a nation's people is a prime resource for survival and growth. Conversely, if a significant minority of a nation's people lacks the talent even to exist by any decent standards, it is a dangerous drain on that nation's capabilities for survival and growth.
It is the irony of our age that the very creative talents of our scientists, businessmen, industrialists, and engineers which have spurred us on to new levels of affluence have helped create a problem of poverty for the undereducated adult. He now lives in a world where employment for him is to a large extent non-existent because most jobs are beyond his educational attainment.
We have therefore called on the talents of our social engineers~the sociologists, psychologists, legislators, and adult educators--to do something about the human price we are paying for progress by providing solutions to the problems of poverty and ignorance.
The problems are succinctly stated by Dr. Grant Venn, associate commissioner for adult, vocational and technical education in the U. S. Office of Education, when he discusses automation in his recent book, Man, Education and Work:
The impact of these devices on the labor market has been profound. Automatic elevators have recently displaced 40,000 elevator operators in New York City alone. New equipment in the Census Bureau enabled 50 statisticians to do the work in 1960 that required 4,000 such people in 1950. The check-writing staff in the Treasury Department has been reduced from 400 people to four. The airline flight engineer and the railroad fireman may soon disappear completely.
Ponderous mechanical cotton pickers have, in the last four years, reduced farm jobs in lush Tulare County, California, from 25,000 to 17,000. Thirty
5

thousand packinghouse workers have been "automated out" of their jobs in the past few years. Enormous machines have helped reduced employment in the coal fields from 415,000 in 1950 to 136,000 in 1962. While construction work has leaped 32 percent since 1956; construction jobs have shown a 24 percent decline.
Comparable statistics exists for the chemical, aircraft, communications, metals, transportation, and other industries. In many additional cases where automation and computers have been introduced, the effect has not yet been to fire or layoff, but rather to put a moratorium, or freeze, on new hiring.
The human story is, indeed, frightening. Not too many years ago, the unemployed, uneducated adult could obtain an unskilled job. Today, as Dr. Venn points out, these jobs are steadily dwindling. According to the Labor Department's statistics, one out of every four persons employed in 1939 was unskilled. By 1960 the ratio was one in 16, and by 1970 only one in 20 unskilled persons will be employed.
But we are not talking about one person. The 1960 Census reports that over 25 million people in the United States, 14 years or older, did not have an eighth grade education. The U. S. Office of Education tells us that 64 percent of the unemployed do not have a high school diploma, and 62 percent of the people on relief have less than an eighth grade education.
Congress responded to this situation in 1964 by passing the Economic Opportunity Act and launching the so-called Poverty Program. A careful examination of its projects reveals that most of them have as their primary or secondary purpose the raising of the educational level of their target populations. Even those programs that are aimed specifically at children often have components which call for parent education. Obviously, then, education of teachers for the disadvantaged adult has a high priority in the total, long-range approach to the solution of one of our most pressing social problems.
In periods of crisis, Americans have often turned to education for answers. Since World War II this has certainly been the case.
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The federal government has tended to view education as an instrument of national interest and defense. It has seen education as a solution to nationwide problems created by Sputnik, automation, wars, and the plight of minority groups which often include a high percentage of the poor, the uneducated, and the unemployed.
Americans are now turning more and more to adult education for answers to social, economic, and racial problems. Interest and faith in adult education has always been there, but the scope and magnitude of today's problems--plus the recent advances in adult education-have demonstrated that continuing education of adults is as vital to our existence as a nation as the education of children from kindergarten to graduate school.
Passage of the Adult Education Act in 1966 suggests that Congress is aware of this urgency and will continue to support adult education programs. The Act provides funds to the states for adult basic education programs which, in concert with the Poverty Program, may be the answer to our nation's problems of progress.
The State Problem
In the face of this desparate need for more adult education and the recent congressional support for its expansion, the basic problem of the states is that of inexperience.
For years, states have showered their attention and their resources on educating the young. Only a few states notably Florida, New York, and California-can boast a long history of public school adult education activities, and even these few have had few programs for disadvantaged adults.
It was not until 1965 that most states became involved in adult basic education programs. It was then that funds were first made available under Title liB of the Economic Opportunity Act. In 1966 the legislation was transferred to the Elementary Secondary Education Act under Title III of the Amendments and was titled ''The Adult Education Act of 1966."
The U. S. Office of Education administered both acts. Funds are allocated to the U. S. Office of Education for adult basic education. The U. S. Office in tum transfers funds to the states for program operation. Each state is required to write a plan outlining conditions under which local school systems and other agencies
7

can operate programs of adult hasic education. For the first time. in other words. many states now have funds
to begin broad programs. and a staff whose total concern is adult basic education. With federal funds available on a 90-10 matching basis, state legislatures arc now beginning to appropriate funds and launch adult education programs.
But it is only a beginning. In 1966. 48 states. the District of Columbia. Puerto Rico. the Virgin Islands and Guam together reported only 335.347 adult students enrolled in adult basic education programs. with 22.551 teachers. The figures for Georgia reflect to some degree the situation in other states across the country and indicate clearly that the problem of the undereducated will he with us for some times.
For the quarter ending September 30.1967. Georgia reported:

TCJrqet populCJtion (adults eligible for program) Number of teachers working at end of quarter Number enrolled in classes at end of quarter Number of ABE graduates since program began Total no. of students enrolled since program began

744,398 284
4,608 2,224 27,666

The problem of the states. then, is two-fold. First. the need for more basic adult education is so great that state and local governments must begin to provide financial support for it. Secondly. because of their relatively recent commitment to adult education. most local programs find themselves without the necessary biders sk illed in developing and administering adult basic cd uca tion programs.
However. even though progress is heing made. the critical need still exists for year-roUlld programs of in-service education for teachers. These must be led by people who are knowledgeable about the adult process, the culture of the disadvantaged. and the subject matter of adult basic education.
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Adult Basic Education Today
Inspired by Abraham Lincoln and Horatio Alger. Americans have always believed that anyone could, through study and han; work, achieve social and financial success. Literacy education has played an important role in justifying this faith.
The inspiring story of early literacy movements is told in Frank Laubach's Each One Teach One and Cora Wilson Stuart's \/oonlight Schools, among others. These books point out that literacy education emphasized the necessity for everyone to learn to read and write on a primary level, and held the position that volunteer teachers or recent graduates of the literacy program could teach their skills to others.
The adult basic education movement today takes issue with both these points of view. In a technological society. the ability to read, write, and do simple arithmetic no longer guarantees a person the aptitude to perform effectively as a worker and a citizen. The abilities needed arc far more complex, and therefore a skilled corps of professional teachers is needed to teach them.
Congress has recognized the comprehensive nature of adult basic education today in the Adult Education Act of 1966 which states in part:
It is the purpose of this part to initiate programs of instruction for individuals who haVE; attained age eighteen and whose inability to r(;(Jd and write the English language constitutes a substantial impairment of their ability to get or retain employment commensurate with their real ability, so as to help eliminate such inability and raise the level of education of such individuals with a view to making them less likely to become dependent on others, improving their ability to benefit from occupational training, and otherwise increasing their opportunities for more productive and profitable employmerlt, and making them better able to meet their adult responsibilities.
Adult basic education today is a program that considers every
9

facet of the illiterate's relationship to the sophisticated world about him. This means that education must go far beyond job training or basic literacy. It means that adult basic education today is a process whereby the undereducated adult is enabled to participate more effectively and live more fully.
With these purposes in mind, an ideal program of adult basic education today would have among its goals:
* To teach basic skills of computation and communication
as a tool for acquiring other skills.
* To help the individual understand and cope with the
demands of the world of work, so he can increase his chances of becoming and remaining employable.
* To help the individual understand the duties and responsi-
bilities, as well as the privileges, of citizenship.
* To help the individual develop a new self-image, and to
enable him to make sound judgments in his roles as worker, parent, citizen, and consumer.
* To help the individual become a more effective member of
a family unit.
* To help the individual to use his leisure time for a richer,
more satisfying life.
The Role of the Teacher
The personal and professional satisfaction derived from teaching undereducated adults will far exceed the many difficulties encountered. There are, for example, a growing number of professional opportunities and rewards. The pronounced concern among the nation's leaders for the plight of the disadvantaged adult has been translated into a willingness to provide training opportunities and employment for teachers who choose to work in this field.
Opportunities for full-time work in adult basic education will continue and increase as states and local communities join the federal government in providing funds for such programs.
Several state universities are already offering courses leading to the doctorate in adult education, and the chances are good that other state universities will follow suit. Teacher training in the field is a necessity already recognized by the U. S. Office of
10

Education which has offered summer programs in 29 universities during the past two years.
As numbers of qualified teachers are prepared through institutes and in-service education programs, perhaps the next logical step will be certification requirements for the adult basic education teacher. (These already exist in some states.) Six semester hours earned in a course on teaching the disadvantaged adult plus one other education course would seem to be a reasonable requirement. At least one college or state university in each state should develop an interest and competency in adult basic education on a graduate studies basis as well as in a statewide service program.
The personal rewards are obvious but significant nevertheless. (Some teachers have continued to meet classes even when federal funds for their salaries where cut off.) The excitement and satisfaction of teaching an entirely new kind of student; the feeling of helping a fellow human being to live--perhaps for the first time--a useful, self-sufficient life-these are factors which require no further explanation. There is also the personal triumph of doing a difficult job well, which yields a full measure of justifiable pride and confidence.
The adult basic education program is among the more significant projects of our time since it demonstrates so concretely our concern for our fellow man, his dignity and worth to society. As a teacher or future teacher in the program, you hold the key to the ultimate success of the dream that all can share to some degree in our society.
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Suggested Readings
Adult Basic Education: A Guide for Teachers and Teacher Trainers. Washington, D. C.: The National Association for Public School Adult Education, May, 1966.
Cass, Angelica W. Adult Elementary Education. New York: Noble and Noble, 1956.
Catalog of Federal Assistance Programs. A description of the federal government's domestic programs to assist the American people in furthering their social and economic progress. Washington, D. C.: Office of Economic Opportunity, June 1, 1967.
Community Action: Adult Education. Washington, D. C. : Office of Economic Opportunity, July, 1966.
Hand, Samuel E. ed. Proceedings, Institute for Teachers and Administrators in Adult Basic Education. Tallahassee, Florida: The Florida State University, October, 1965.
Keyserling, Leon H. Progress or Poverty, The U. S. at the
Crossroads. Washington, D. c.: Conference on Economic
Progress, December, 1964.
Laubach, Frank, c., and Laubach, Robert S. Toward World
Literacy, The Each One Teach One Way. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1960. Stewart, Cora Wilson. lHoonlight Schools for the Emancipation of Adult Illiterates. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1923. Venn, Grant. Man, Education, and Work. Washington, D. C.: American Council on Education, 1964.
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The youth gets together materials for a bridge to the moon, and at length the middle-aged man decides to make a woodshed with them.
-Henry David Thoreau
The man who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn.
-Henry S. Haskins
II The Adult Student
The Adult Versus the Child in the Classroom
The teacher of children studies child development in an effort to understand what makes children tick-how they think, how they grow, how they learn. Teachers also try to understand their own students by measuring their aptitudes, visiting their homes, talking to their parents, and reading past records.
Ideally, the teacher then gears his educational program to the interests and abilities of the students in his class. He knows that Jimmy will learn arithmetic faster by counting dinosaurs instead of abacus beads.
In teaching adults, the education program should be at least as appropriate to the interests and abilities of the students as that for children, if not more so. While the adult will probably prefer counting change to counting dinosaurs, the same principle is in operation. As Wilbur Hallenbeck puts it, "The key to adult education is understanding adults."
But adults are not tall children. The learning characteristics which teachers have observed in children do not necessarily appear in adult students. They come to class with an entirely differentset of characteristics, attitudes, motivations, assets, and limitations.
The purpose of this chapter is to give you the highlights of a growing body of knowledge about the adult student-his learning
13

abilities, classroom performance, and developmental process-to guide you in providing an appropriate program of instruction. It will point out the implications for teaching of what we know about adult students as a group. It will also mention some of the ways in which the teacher can find out more about the individual students in her class.
Generally speaking, the adult differs from the child in experience, life style, and in physical requirements for learning. The fact that the adult student is as old as (often older than) the teacher means that he brings as much or more experience to the classroom as the teacher does.
It means, too, that he comes back to the school room with, at worst, a sense of past failure or, at best, the feeling of being an alien in a world he is no longer accustomed to.
The mature student's personality, habits, attitudes, and interests have solidified to a greater extent than those of a child. This makes him, on the one hand, more rigid and unreceptive to change. On the other hand, it means he knows better what he wants and expects from his education. And, unlike a child, he has the freedom to discontinue it at any time:,
While school is the child's only serious occupation, it is a part-time endeavor for the adult who spends most of his time, thought, and energy on other daytime pursuits. External circumstances and distractions therefore weigh far more heavily on the adult student than on the child.
The physical deficiencies of adults are not as significant to the learning process as they have often been made to appear. However, the fact remains that adults-for physical and psychological reasons--require J!lore of the creature comforts in the classroom than children do.
Although children sometimes come to class with negative attitudes about school, the adult brings with him a different set of negative attitudes about education. More than likely, the popular notion that "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" has given him many anxious moments. Our society's overemphasis on the glories of youth and the horrors of aging do not add to the student's confidence, either. And lastly, in spite of the boom in continuing education, the old myth that school is for children still persists in the minds of many. The disadvantaged person adds one more dimension to that myth: he often believes school is an undesirable experience for children.
If we conclude that child development theories do not
14

necessarily apply to adults, and that negative attitudes about teaching "the old dog" are neither helpful nor true, what then are the facts about adult students?
The Advanta~es of Being an Adult Student
Being an adult in a classroom has its disadvantages but, in balance, the advantages far outweigh them, both to the student and the teacher.
Since learning performance (not speed or ability) is the main criterion of a student's success in the classroom, the outstanding advantage that an adult has is that he can learn as well as or better than a child with the same native abilities.
Although he may lack formal education, he has been educated by living, and has the accumulated knowledge of many years. In fact, his very lack of formal education may have cultivated shrewdness, the ability to think, and a high level of common sense.
It is well known that a child whose parents talk to him, read to him, and take him to the zoo is more capable of learning than the child who has not had a chance to become familiar with words or the world around him. The adult, of course, has infinitely more knowledge of the world than the most advantaged child. He does not have to learn what words mean before he learns to read. And he already knows what numbers are for-he must learn only how to use them.
In addition, the adult has an urgent reason for learning. For him education is not a matter of status, good grades, obeying the law, or pleasing his parents. While the child may be in school because "it's a school day," the adult is there as a willing, purposeful consumer of new information.
Even though he may have less energy than a child and more demands on his strength and time, he can compensate for these limitations by his singlemindedness of purpose, his greater self-control and endurance, and his ability to pace himself and use efficiently the resources he has.
15

The Disadvantages of Being an Adult Student
One of the biggest disadvantages of being an adult student is one that the student creates for himself: the anxieties and inferiority feelings which he has about his ability to succeed in the classroom.
The adult student who has been away from school for many years often has a very damaging image of himself and his academic capabilities. This is especially true of the adult who dropped out or was expelled from school. The adult student may be wracked with anxiety about his ability to succeed in a venture which was disasterous once before, or his ability to get back again into the world of words and ideas.
Unfortunately, his anxieties are reinforced by currect myths about the learning abilities of adults, by unpleasant memories of multiplication tables, and by the nagging belief that school is, after all, really only for children.
On the other hand, it is a disadvantage-although only a temporary one~to return to the classroom after a long absence. A period of adjustment will be needed.
While the young student is used to sitting at a school desk day after day, most adults have occupations which require a high proportion of physical effort and verbal communication. The idea of looking at and learning from the printed word, of concentrating, listening, and writing, will seem very new and strange if not unpleasant-for several weeks until the rust of disuse wears off. The hand which has been holding a riveting machine for years may have some trouble controlling a pencil. The mind which has been coping with the piecemeal details of housework may have difficulty concentrating on a printed page.
Although the discomforts of adjustment will be alleviated in a fairly short period of time, they occur at the beginning of the course-a very crucial time from the point of view of keeping the student in the classroom.
Another disadvantage of being an adult student was first put forward by investigators in the field of aging. They cited indisputable evidence that adults in their early 20's begin to experience measurable losses in eyesight, hearing, and homeostatic adjustment-the body's ability to adjust to extremes of all kinds. Thorndike's early research in adult education tended to prove, too, that the ability to learn declined throughout the adult years beginning as early as age 25.
Fortunately for all those over 25, the facts about sensory loss are true, but their effect on the adult's learning performance have
16

been found negligible. Earlier investigators had neglected to take into account the many ways in which the adult compensates for what sensory loss does occur. They had also failed to differentiate between ability and performance-a crucial difference which is so well illustrated by the fable about the hare and the tortoise. They also tended to use intelligence tests where the factors of power and speed were incorporated in the final score-an unsatisfactory measure according to many authorities in the field of adult education.
When all these factors are taken into account, we get quite a different conclusion: that the adult's ability to learn and adjust to his environment may improve in spite of the fact that his physical capacities are deteriorating.
For example, an adult whose eyesight is dimmer than a child's probably sees more because he knows where to look and what to look for. An adult whose hearing is failing might actually hear more than a child because of his learned ability to listen, his ability to anticipate what is being said, and his superior vocabulary.
An adult with half the energy of a child could probably accomplish twice as much because, among other things, he does not squander it in burst of unnecessary activities.
But be that as it may, it would be a rare child who could do a full day's work in a demanding job, shoulder the responsibilities of a family, and then sit through an evening class. And it would be a rare adult who could come bounding up three flights of stairs to a poorly lit, overheated classroom and sit two hours in an uncomfortable chair.
The point is that, although an adult is not physically or educationally disabled by the aging process, he does require comfortable working conditions. This is particularly true because, regardless of his age or physical condition, he will be attending class at the end of an exhausting day. The adult educator needs to provide adequate lighting systems, comfortable adult furniture, and to make certain that everyone in class can hear.
Implications for Teaching
The assets and liabilities of the adult student can be translated into advantages and disadvantages for the teacher and into
17

appropriate teaching techniques. Because the teacher is dealing with mature adults, she will find
to her immense relief that she need no longer devote a part of her teaching time to being a disciplinarian. Perhaps for the first item in her teaching career she will have the pleasure of being a teacher 100 percent of the time.
But while the teacher does not have to worry about discipline, she does have to work harder at winning the respect of her students. A teacher of children already knows that she cannot be condescending to her students. The teacher of adults must be especially mindful of the fact that her students expect and deserve to be treated as equals.
The teacher will discover that he or she is superior to the students only in the sense that she knows more about a special block of subject matter. However, her students may and probably do know a great deal more than she does about other subjects.
Furthermore, since some students may be many years older than the teacher, she cannot rely on age either as her claim to authority. The teacher must win the respect and confidence of the class through the usual social channels: by extending the common courtesies expected of adults, and by proving through her actions that she is an interested, capable person.
Let us consider some of the implications for teaching which grow out of the characteristics of the adult student. First, because the student can be expected to learn well, the teacher can expect to cover as much (if not more) than in a class for children. There is no need to make concessions because an adult has been away from the classroom for a long time. Relearning of things he has forgotten will take place at a much faster rate of speed than learning of new material.
On the other hand, because an adult has many outside distractions, the work load will have to be adjusted with these in mind. Obviously, a woman with a new baby, or a man recuperating from a long illness, cannot be expected to do lengthy homework assignments.
The fact that the student is better informed than the teacher about many subjects means that the teacher should be able to use his experiences and competencies to help her teach. This will not only enrich the educational program, but will do much to improve the student's confidence and feeling of participation.
Since there are many obligations, inhibitions, and anxieties making the student's classroom experience a trying one, it would
18

unwise indeed to add physical discomfort to the list. In fact,

be...,fort is a minimum requirement. At best, the classroom should

Ca'" .,

'

be invltmg.

The minimum requirement of comfort assumes such things as

, hairs suitable to the tired backs, stiffer joints, and greater bulk of

cdult bodies. Lighting, heat, and ventilation should be more than adequate. The class should meet in an accessible place (one which

:equires a minimum of stair climbing), at a time which best suits

the students, and should not be held overtime. Older adults

~uatrtaiclluslaturldyesnhtsoushldoubled

permitted to choose their own work be encouraged rather than rushed.

tempo,

I The more desirable goal-that of an inviting classroom--calls

for such things as attractive and instructive materials on the walls

(maps, charts, posters); informal seating arrangements (chairs in a

circle, for example); and even the extra touch of a bowl of fruit or

/a vase of flowers to offset the stern, cold classroom atmosphere.

We have mentioned that the adult is well motivated because he

'attends class for a compelling reason. This motivation is both a

'boon and a challenge to the teacher. It is a challenge in the sense

that the teacher must first discover the student's motives, and then

reinforce them constantly by showing him the connection

between what he is learning and what he set out to learn.

Adults' reasons for attending class are diverse-they range from

,wanting to learn to sign the payroll, to a desire to read the Bible.

Some attend to qualify for a better job, while others want to help

their children in school.

No matter what the reason, the teacher should find out

through an initial interview, group discussion, or other means the

motivation that brought the students to the classroom.

Often the teacher will find that the student's motives are

unrealistic. In these cases, the teacher must work with the student

,to bring his expectations to a reasonable level. If adults have

unrealistic vocational objectives, the teacher can help them

~iscover new interests and new goals. Short-range goals which are

easily attained may be substituted for long-range goals which seem

:unobtainable or unnecessarily far off.

Closely related to the matter of motivation is the matter of

timing. This is best described by the studies of Havinghurst to

Iwhom we owe the theories of "the developmental task" and "the

~eachable moment."
I A developmental task, according to Havinghurst, is a basic task

of living which comes up at a certain period in life. It is assigned to

19

each individual by the stage of life he is in (his maturity is usually a better index than his age), by the expectations of society, and by his own aspirations.
Successful achievement in these tasks--Iearning to tie a shoe, graduating from school, or going to work to support a familyleads to happiness and success with later tasks. Failure leads to unhappiness, disapproval of society, and difficulty with later tasks.
Developmental tasks can be categorized in different ways but usually grow out of the social roles of parent, family member, homemaker, worker, citizen, or user of leisure time. Society measures the quality of a person's life by the way in which he fulfills the tasks called for by these roles.
The time at which a particular developmental task is dominant is called a teachable moment by Havinghurst. This is a very important concept from the teacher's point of view for several reasons. First, keeping in mind that the adult learns what he wants and needs to learn, the teacher must know what social and economic circumstances the ABE student is in to find the right material to fit that teachable moment.
While society expects all of us to perfonn well in all the standard social roles, sub-cultures largely determine what tasks will be emphasized, what level of achievement will be required, and at what stage these tasks should be performed. One subculture might expect the 18-year-old to apply for college entrance and make the dean's list, while another would expect him to go to work and do just enough to get by.
In order to find the teachable moment, then, the teacher must know generally the expectations of the student's sub-culture and the student's own expectations of himself. Then, using the experiences he is familiar with, and keeping in mind his educational goals, the teacher will be able to involve the student in an education which has meaning and value to him]
It is well to remember, too, that-in most cases-the strength of the student's motivation is matched only by the weakness of his confidence. Everything the teacher does to make the program suitable to her students will, if successful, also have the beneficial side-effect of building their faith in themselves.
A student in a cheerful, comfortable setting, who has respect for his teacher and a clear view of how the knowledge he is gaining will help him realize his personal goals, will almost certainly be a more confident student. In the parlance of adult education, he will be present at the next meeting of the class.
20

Suggested Readings
Burns, Hobert W., ed. Sociological Backgrounds of Adult Education. Notes and Essays on Education for Adults, No. 41. Chicago: Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults, 1964.
Hand, Samuel E. A Review of Physiological and Psychological Changes in Aging and Their Implications for Teachers of Adults. Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State Department of Education, July, 1965.
Havinghurst, Robert J., and Orr, Betty. Adult Education and Adult Needs. Chicago: Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults, 1956.
How to Teach Adults. Leadership Pamphlet No.5, Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1955.
Kidd, J.R. How Adults Learn. New York: Association Press, 1959.
Kuhlen, Raymond E., ed. Psychological Backgrounds of Adult Education. Notes and Essays on Education for Adults, No. 40. Chicago: Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults, 1963.
Lorge, Irving, et al. Adult Learning. (Adult Education Theory and Method.) Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., April, 1965.
Lorge, Irving, et al. Psychology of Adults. (Adult Education Theory and Method.) Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., May, 1963.
Riesman, David. The Lonely Crowd. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1950.
Thorndike, Edward L. Adult Learning. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1928.
Verner, Coolie, et al. Participants in Adult Education. Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., April, 1965.
Zahn, June C. "Differences Between Adults and Youth Affecting Learning." Adult Education, XVII, No.2 (Winter, 1967), 67-77.
21

Adults come to class with an entirely different set of characteristics, attitudes, motivations, assets and limitations.
22

What are the generations for, please explain to me? Only to repeat fear and desire without a change? This cannot
be what the thing is for, over and over and over. Any good man will try to
break the cycle.
-from HendR.rson the Rain King, by Saul Bellow
We have entered an age in which
education is not just a luxury permit
ting some men an advantage over
others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in th is complex, industrialized society.
-Lyndon B. Johnson
III The Disadvantaged Adult Student
We have seen that the adult student is a different genus and species from the child student, and have looked at what this means in terms of learning and teaching. Let us narrow the focus still further now to the disadvantaged adult in the adult basic education course. How does he differ (and why) from his middle-class, middle-income counterpart who is taking ceramics or child psychology in an adult education class?
If we are to know him well, we should look at the disadvantaged student as a statistic, a person, a learner, and as a member of a sub-culture. Then in the following chapter, we can look at him as one of the 10 to 20 adults in your classroom, and can discuss the learning and teaching processes which should be at work there.
23

The ABE Student as a Statistic
When reduced to a statistic, the undereducated adult comprises as much as 15 percent of the adult population. There are more than 25 million people like him, over the age of 14, Who have less than an eighth grade education. Many of them are found crowded together in city ghettos, doing what little menial work has not yet been taken over by machines. Many seek out a meager income in seasonal farm work, migrating from one low-paid, uncertain job to the next.
About half of the adult basic education students come from what we euphemistically call minority groups. It is not the fact that they, like astronauts or millionaires, are in the minority which sets them apart. It is their poverty, combined with all the features of their lives which tend to keep them poor. Minority groups most prominently represented in ABE classes are Negroes (particularly Negro women who are family breadwinners), Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Mexican Americans, and American Indians.
The other half of the ABE population represents the poor white segment of our native citizens. Most of these are rural people, particularly from the South and the Appalachian states.
Since the ABE teacher's statistical profile looks quite different from that of his student's, the teacher will find that he has a difficult time getting to know people who think so differently, act so differently, and live so differently. But learning will not take place until teacher and student know each other well enough to trust each other.
Perhaps, then, it would be helpful here to switch from the student as a statistic to the student as a person. Some introductions are in order.
The ABE Student as a Person
This is Ruth Watkins. She is Negro, 43 years old, and the mother of four children. She is separated from her husband and has not married again, although her last two children were fathered by another man. Ruth lives in a small Southern town of 34,000 people in a concrete block two-room house which she rents for $10 per week. It has no screens and no toilet. Her
24

running water comes from a faucet in the kitchen which drains through the wall and runs on the ground outside.
Ruth dropped out of school in the third grade and has worked as a maid and a laundry worker. She is attending ABE classes because she has never had steady work or good pay. She was laid off when the new minimum wage law was enforced because she could not read well enough to route laundry bundles and thus earn the minimum wage.
She believes that if she can learn to read and write well enough to do this job, she might finally earn a decent wage and have some security. At present she works as a maid three to four days a week (when she can find work), and makes $5 a day.
Ruth is also worried about her children. The ABE classes have renewed her interest in their schooling, although she realizes it's probably a lost cause. Both her married daughters finished elementary school but did not go on. Her 16-year-old son dropped out of school in the ninth grade and worked part time in the bowling alley setting pins~until the automatic pin setters were installed. Now he hangs around the neighborhood store with a rough crowd and Ruth is afraid he will get in trouble.
She is proud of her 14-year-old daughter who is still in school and doing well in the ninth grade. But Ruth finds it difficult to provide money for the school lunches and supplies needed to keep her in school. Besides, lately her daughter has begun to want better clothes and spending money, and has been talking about getting a part-time job which Ruth fears may turn into a full-time one.
This young man next to Ruth in the ABE class is Don Jones. Don is 24, married, and has a little boy of whom he is very fond. He and his family live with his parents in Middle City, which has a population 65,000. The $40 a week he earns as a service station attendant is not sufficient for a home of their own.
Don had a problem in school as far back as he could remember. He was tall for his age, and after he had been left back a few times, he found that he could no longer get along with his teacher or his classmates. He wanted to take shop work but could not get it until the tenth grade, which looked a long way off while he was struggling through the ninth grade.
So he became a truant from school, and by the time his parents found out about it is was too late. Although he squeaked through the ninth grade, his tests indicate that he is at a sixth
25

grade level. After doing various part-time jobs, he began workin full time at the service station when he was 20. He has applied fo; i many other jobs that he felt he could do, but each time the lack Of a high school education kept him from being hired.
Shortly after, he got a nice girl into trouble and had to get married. But his marriage is a happy one, and his main ambition h' to get a better job so he can support his family and afford his oWn home. This is why he is attending ABE classes. Nothing less would have gotten him there.
To his amazement, Don finds that he likes the class. He h treated like an adult and is doing well in his work. He attends class, regularly and is already planning to go on to adult high school So he can work toward a diploma. After that, he hopes to get into a mechanics training program.

Seated next to Don is Frank Slocum. He is 46 years old I
married, and the father of three children. Frank dropped out of

school in the sixth grade (tests show he is at a third-grade level) to .

help his father gather the crops. Somehow he never got back.

His father was glad to have Frank's help and didn't see much

use in book-learning anyway. He thought the boy was getting good

experience and a strong back, and a good farmer could always

make a living for his family.

,

Frank married when he was 20. He moved to a small but I

adequate home of his own that his father and brothers helped him

build on 20 acres of family farm land. He has lived there ever

since, near a town of 200 people.

Things went well enough until after the war when Frank found

that his farm was to small to be profitable, and not large enough I

to mechanize. So he did some day labor for the county road:

department to supplement his income-until the day that he hurt

his back in a farm accident and had to give up manual labor

entirely.

In spite of his predicament, Frank retains his pride and his.

strong convictions. He will not accept welfare and he will not leave I

his home. He is also opposed to the idea of his wife's working, but J

cannot find an alternative. His wife went to work in a nearby I

tex tile mill.

This set of frustrating circumstances brought Frank to the I

ABE classes where he works very hard and very impatiently two

nights a week. He is anxious to get through the elementary work

so he can qualify for a job as store clerk or bookkeeper.

26

Unfortunately, there are few jobs of this kind near the home he refuses to leave.
Right behind Frank is Mabel Jackson, an attractive young Negro woman of 26. It seems to Mabel that she has lived in the big city all her life, although she moved there with her mother from a small Southern town when she was 15. She was in the eighth grade then-doing sixth grade work.
At first the big city was confusing to Mabel and school frightened her, so her mother did not force her to go. After a time she got to like the excitement and variety of the city, but she never really felt at home there.
When she was 18, Mabel married. Her husband moved into the apartment she shared with her mother and brother. After her child was born, she found she had to go to work to support the baby, her husband, and herself. That was more than she could manage, so she asked her husband to leave. He did, and she has not seen him since.
Meanwhile, her little girl is eight years old and Mabel is devoted to her. She wants to leave the unsavory neighborhood she lives in before the little girl is old enough to stay out on the streets. Right now she leaves the girl with her grandmother while she cooks and washes dishes in an all-night restaurant. Her employer likes her and will give her a better job on the counter or as a cashier if she learns to read, write, and count change better.
So Mabel started coming to ABE classes. She sees them as her only chance to earn the kind of money she needs to give her little girl a better place to grow up in.
And finally, you will want to meet Manuel Juarez. Although he is only 38 years old, Manuel looks much older--perhaps because he has been a migrant farm worker almost as long as he can remember.
Manuel never really attended school for more than three months at a time. By the time he was ten and in the second grade, he was helping his Mexican-American mother in the vegetable fields full time, and has been moving from job to job ever since.
Once Manuel decided to leave migrant work and took a job at a dairy farm. But he left after a short time because he missed the excitement of frequent moves and different kinds of work. In the last few years Manuel has earned as much as $20 per day when the crops were good, but he has not managed to save any money. And
27

he has not married because he did not want the burden of supporting a wife and children. Instead, he usually moved in with a woman whenever he stayed a month or more in one place.
In all, Manuel has not really had any problems getting along until lately. After 20 years in the field, Manuel's health is not as good as it was, and he is beginning to get very worried about his future prospects for earning a living. He realizes, in a vague sort of way, that he will have to give up farm work eventually and get some other kind of job.
With that in mind, he attended ABE classes two nights a week last year and finally learned to sign his name. He is very proud of that accomplishment, but it was not enough to overcome his dread of the class. After a while he stopped coming because he was ashamed of his broken English and had difficulty understanding what the teacher was saying.
But in spite of this discouraging experience, Manuel is back in class now because he still wants to learn to read and write. He is really not sure he can learn anything at all, and does not know what kind of job he might get if he did learn. But he is sure he wants to try again because he doesn't know what else to do.
General Characteristics of ABE Students
Somewhere between the impersonal statistics and the life stories of flesh-and-blood people lies the realm of the sociologist who describes the general characteristics of groups of people. His generalizations are less precise than the statistics and less specific than the case histories, but they may give us more insight into the ABE student's living patterns than any other approach. A composite picture of the uneducated person would show that he tends to have a typical pattern of social and cultural traits.
More than likely he is poor, since level of education usually goes hand in hand with level of income. He is also probably below average in aptitude to learn academic subjects. Both his poverty and lack of scholastic aptitude are chicken-and-egg propositions. Poverty fosters cultural and educational deprivation, which in turn affect academic achievement, and so round again to poverty.
He is poor also in terms of motivation and conficence. His excessive failures in achieving the recognized American standards of success lead to discouragement which may amount to complete
28

resignation to his fate. Consequently, he is easily frustrated and may stop trying to improve his life. Instead, he lives for today because today is enough of a challenge. Tomorrow is more than he can think about.
Although help may be available through the social service agencies of the community, he probably doesn't know about them and might not use their services if he did.
When he has grown tired of trying to meet the expectations of middle class America, the uneducated person joins a cultural subgroup which condones his standards of behavior and achievement. Having joined a culturally deprived, excluded group, he is no longer subject to middle class standards. In fact, his exclusion from the main stream of society actually prevents him from ever being successful, and thereby removes the blame for failure from himself.
Education, for example, is not readily available to adults or children in disadvantaged groups. Our traditional middle-class school system, which emphasizes middle-class values and verbal skills, has tended to process out those students who cannot conform to or keep up with its educational program.
Recent programs, such as Head Start for the pre-schooler and programs of compensative education for the elementary child, are intended to break the poverty cycle. Such programs are probably doomed to failure if they neglect the adult education of the parents. Home and community expectations may be too much for the child to overcome.
Good jobs or social betterment are not available to the excluded group either, because education is the key to success in both areas. The uneducated person's exclusion from society and success is now complete. While he may want the same things from life as those in the main stream of society, the excluded, disadvantaged person now has no means of acquiring them.
He lives, instead, in his own world with its own set of values and attitudes. While he does not read well and is not well informed, he has strong opinions on a variety of subjects. The deprived family is usually very religious (particularly the mother), and attends church regularly. The deprived person is also intensely loyal to family and friends, and will gladly share his home and food with them.
The only aspect of middle-class life he aspires to is the acquisition of material comforts and conveniences. Today is what counts, and today can be much pleasanter if he owns a car, a
29

television set, or a washing machine. Insurance, savings accOunts and medical check-ups belong to the age of tomorrow. And fo; those with out hope, any investment in something as uncertain as tomorrow would be as speculative as an investment in a uranium mine.
The deprived person is superstitious and believes that every. thing is a matter of luck. On the other hand, he believes that the reason his luck is so often bad is that the dice are loaded against him. He sees himself as a gambler in a crooked game in which the rest of society is cheating him-and in a sense he is right.
The pillars of this crooked society-including policemen politicians, and educators-are people he looks at with awe'
because they are big and powerful. But he dislikes and mistrust~
them at the same time, because to him they represent a corrupt society which is conspiring against him.
The uneducated may also have an exaggerated respect for the wisdom of a particular teacher or preacher, although they are not influenced by either one to any great ex tent. They are sure they could not live up to the teacher's or clergyman's expectations, and are probably equally sure that they do not even wish to do so.
Neither abstract ideas nor abstract ideals appeal to the disadvantaged person because he has a physical orientation to life. His earning capacity depends on physical strength. His conversa tion depends on gestures. His religious services probably include hand clapping and other physical activities. His honor and self-respect depend on his ability to use his fists. He finds his recreation in sports, as a spectator or participant, and athletes (especially prize fighters) are among his heroes.
It is probably quite obvious by now that most of the characteristics of the poor, uneducated, deprived person are not only d~fferent from those of the middle-class students or teachers, but are characteristics which would be considered undesirable by middle class American standards.
Whereas poverty used to be a sentimental virtue, times have changed and so have attitudes toward the poor. Poverty was, at one time, more the rule than the exception and was consequently only the natural starting point for acquiring wealth. This type of poverty was more a financial than a cultural phenomenon. The penniless immigrant, the man of humble birth, the man who was unemployed or made bankrupt by the depression-all these were poor only in the sense that they had either just lost their wealth or had not yet had time to acquire any. As for the poor but honest
30

Poverty has many faces. 31

man who remained poor but honest, chances are that his farm or small store yielded him enough livelihood to feed his family as well as his pride.
Today, poverty takes on a different look. The poor, now congregating in big cities, are more visible and more deprived than their poor-but-honest ancestors on the little farm. Not only do they need more money to survive in the big city, but they need more than a strong arm and an honest face to earn it. If they are second, third, or fourth generation poor, they may have neither the motivation, the education, or the other personal traits needed to break the cycle.
Poverty is a stigma today, not because it is any less pitiful, but because we have invented a cure for it: education. Since a high school diploma guarantees a person the means of earning a livelihood, many people think poverty is unnesessary. They cannot understand why the poor don't get educated and go to work. What they do not realize is that the poor have tried to get an education, but have either failed or been rejected.
Since the school system has cast out those who cannot conform to it, it is the task of the ABE program to create an educational system that conforms to the student--his level of ability, his needs, and his desires. Such a program must start where the student is, and help move him where he wants to be. In this way, ABE offers the only chance for the adult student's ultimate escape from the cycle of poverty and ignorance.
Physical and Learning Disabilities of ABE Students
From the point of view of the teacher, most of the characteristics of the typical ABE student will inhibit learning, and will make communication difficult in the classroom. However, the teacher must also be prepared to encounter physical and learning disabilities in his ABE students.
In his book, The Other America, Michael Harrington states the problem succinctly:
The poor get sick more than anybody else in society. This is because they live in slums, jammed together in unhygienic conditions; they have in-
32

Health is a continuing problem. 33

adequate diets, and cannot get decent medical care.
When they become sick, they are sick longer than any other group in society. Because they are sick more often and longer than anyone else, they lose wages and work, and find it difficult to hold a steady job. And because of this, they cannot pay for good housing, for a nutritious diet, for doctors.
At any given point in the circle, particularly when there is a major illness, their prospect is to move to an even lower level and to begin the cycle, round and round, toward even more suffering.
There is no sentimentality or exaggeration in this statement. It represents the stark truth. The poor, whose finances and philosophy demand that they live for today, do not receive the benefits of any of the preventive health care which is standard procedure in more affluent circles. Physical check-ups or routine dental care are unheard of among people who go to the dentist when a tooth is so painful that it must be extracted, or call a doctor only when prayer, courage, and home remedies have failed. (By this time, more often than not, the patient is ready for the hospital emergency room rather than the doctor's office.)
Since medical and dental problems are not nipped in the bud by preventive health care, and since the quality of his food, clothing, housing, and working conditions is usually de~rimental to his health, the disadvantaged person is likely to be suffering from physical impairments as well as a number of chronic diseases.
Tuberculosis, venereal disease, malnutrition, skin disease, and diseases of the gums are among those most frequently found. Many of these diseases have symptoms which do not completely incapacitate their victims, and they are therefore left untreated for years by those who can bear pain better than the expense of treatment.
The physical impairments which are prevalent among the disadvantaged are visual problems, dental problems, and hearing difficulties. In one ABE program in which 100 migrant farm workers were enrolled, it became apparent that poor eyesight was a major impediment to learning. Local doctors, who were persuaded to give free eye examinations, discovered that over half
34

of the students needed glasses. It was not until these were provided (again through local initiative), that the learning process could begin for the majority of those enrolled.
In addition to problems of health, the disadvantaged student usually has a number of learning disabilities, most of which hark back to his poor language development. His inability to pronounce words correctly many ABE students use some kind of dialect makes it difficult for him to spell, read or simply talk to others. The ABE student's vocabulary is usually limited to words which describe concrete objects, which means he cannot speak or think in abstract terms. In addition, his unsophisticated vocabulary probably does not allow him to talk or think in terms of fine distinctions or precise definitions, both of which are needed in the classroom.
In his day to day life, the ABE student supplements his inadequate speech with gestures and facial expressions which help him to convey his meaning. However, since he cannot gesture on a written intelligence test, his score is usually low.
Furthermore, his ability to solve problems with his hands or by hit-and-miss methods may get him through the day, but will hinder him on standardized tests which measure cognative ways of solving problems.
For these reasons, the teacher of the disadvantaged student should not place too much emphasis on the results of verballyoriented tests. The student's difficulties with them is an index of his language disabilities, and should not be taken as an index of his ability to learn.
Instead, test scores should give the teacher clues as to the distance education will have to travel in order to meet the student at his starting place. Again, it is the task of the teacher to I) find out what the student's medical and learning disabilities arc; 2) understand the reasons behind them; 3) empathize with each student's desire to succeed in spite of these disabilities; and 4) plan a program to help him reach the goals he has set for himself.
A general knowledge of the typical ABE student, and a personal acquaintance with the individuals in the class will give the teacher the basic facts she needs. Understanding and empathy for the student will provide her with the motivation she needs to help, and to overcome any personal distaste she may have for people Whose values are different from, and sometimes opposite to, her OWn.
A teacher who has progressed this far has won half the battle.
35

She is ready to proceed. She now needs the knowledge and tools with which to fashion a learning situation out of a teachable situation-with which to turn learning readiness into learning.
36

Suggested Readings

Haggstrom, Warren C. "Poverty and Adult Education." Adult v }<,'ducation, XV, NO.3 (Spring, 1965), 145-160.

Hall, Edward T. The Silent Language. New York: Fawcett World Library, 1959.

Harrington, Michael. The Other America: Povert.r in the United States. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1964.

Krosney, Herbert. Be.rond Welfare: Povert.r in the Supercit.r. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966.

Lanning, Frank W., and Many, Wesley A. Basic Education for the Disadvan taged Adult: Theor.r and Prac tice. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1966.

Passow, A. Harry. Education of the Disadvantaged. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.

Puder, William H., and Hand, Samuel E., ed. Frontiers in Adult Basic Education. A compilation of selected papers and group reports presented at the Southeastern Region IV Institute for Teacher-Trainers in Adult Basic Education, August 1-26, 1966. Tallahassee, Florida: The Florida State University, Office of Continuing Education, 1966.

Theobald, Robert. "Education and the Cybernation Revolution." Perspective on Automation: Three Talks to Educators. Notes and Essays on Education for Adults, No. 43, Chicago: Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults, 1964.

U.S. Department Labor. Office of Policy Planning and Research.

The Negro Famil.r: The Case for National Action (The

Moynahan Report), by David P. Moynahan. Washington,

.

D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, March, 1965 .

I
Webster, Staten W. The Disadvantaged Learner. San Francisco:

Chandler Publishing Company, 1966.

37

Adult education must be individualized. 38

The most basic function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his Iife to himself and others. This is the basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure.
-Grayson Kirk
Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.
-Eric Hoffer
IV Approaches to Teaching and Counseling
Now that we are better acquainted with the disadvantaged adult, we know why he left school and why he is so anxious to return. Our sympathetic understanding of his many limitations is coupled with respect for his grit and desire to learn. However, he is waiting for the class to begin he and 15 other students with different backgrounds and different levels of accomplishment. How and where do we start?
We already know where to start-where the student is. This means that adult education (if not all education) must be individualized. It must be fitted to whatever goals and interests the students have in common as a group, and further tailored to the special requirements of individual students.
Choosing the Subject Matter and Materials
Since we are teaching how to live in today's world-not merely how to add or how to spell-the best approach will be to teach blocks of subject matter rather than to compartmentalize instruction. When a lesson on "How to Apply for a Job" is taught by one
39

teacher who weaves in reading, writing, arithmetic, good grooming, and occupational counseling, the result will be a useful, comprehensive learning situation for each student. But when isolated subjects are taught by separate teachers, the student is more likely to end up with a miscellaneous assortment of irrelevant facts.
Ideally, then, one teacher will teach the basic academic skills along with the basic skills of living in one interesting package which is pertinent to the lives of her students. However, the teacher will recall that her students live from day to day. In other words, the carefully planned lesson on "How to Apply for a Job," appropriate though it is, may have to be scrapped if this is the day that Manuel has been threatened with eviction by his landlord. It means, ready or not, that today's lesson will be about the legal rights of tenants, or "How to Find a New Apartment."
The ABE teacher will, of course, be wise to plan her instruction by means of the traditional course outline. But she will be even wiser if she knows when to put the outline aside. While the course should not be guided by every changing breeze of the students' interests, it should not be guided by an automatic pilot either.
In many cases, an ounce of flexibility will be worth a pound of planning. The teacher should be prepared to substitute lesson 7 for lesson 2 if the opportunity presents itself. She should be willing to make a reading lesson out of the materials she brought for a lesson in arithmetic. And above all, she should not overemphasize reading or any other academic skill to the exclusion of lessons in living.
The teacher's flexibility about choice of subject matter must extend to her choice of teaching materials as well. While the range of materials available will be discussed more fully in a later chapter, suffice it to say here that for some classes a telephone book will be more suitable than a map or a globe, and for others a newspaper want ad column will be more appropriate than a workbook.
How Disadvantaged Adults Learn
Although the teacher can and should remain open to suggestion about what to teach, and can be free-wheeling and creative about the materials she uses, she does stand on fairly solid ground
40

when it comes to knowing how to teach. There are many sound principles of learning which can be translated into successful methods of teaching disadvantaged adults. It is the application of these methods in terms of subject matter and materials which will vary with each class.
Current theories of learning are based on the old adage about 'leading a horse to water. We know that people learn what they want to learn, when they're ready to learn it. They will learn best if it is taught in a situation similar to the one in which the knowledge will be used, and shortly before it is needed.
1t has been found that people learn most when success is neither too easy nor too hard. The goal must be set somewhere between boredom and frustration, especially since disadvantaged students are easily bored by seemingly useless tasks and easily frustrated by failure.
Their tolerance for failure can be strengthened only by repeated successes, and the satisfaction which comes from this success is the student's best reward. Praise or rewards from the teacher (including grades) are not nearly as effective, while threats or punishment have only negative effects.
The student wiillearn more quickly by doing and participating than by excessive direction from the teacher. On the other hand, he will learn better if his freedom to do and try is kept within a framework of evaluation, and he is kept informed about his progress.
We know, too, that concepts and abstract ideas are best taught via concrete, specific examples of situations which are familiar to the student. It has also been found helpful to present these examples to the student through many of his senses-not only through his eyes or ears but also, if possible, through his sense of touch, taste and smell. (A sixth sense worth considering is a sense of humor.)
Having learned, the student must retain his knowledge. We know that people remember best those ideas which fit in with their previous opinions, and have most difficulty understanding and retaining ideas which run contrary to what was previously believed. Retention can be improved by reviewing material shortly after it is learned, or reinforcing proper responses immediately after they are made. Practice also improves retention, but it loses its value when it is unduly long or repetitious. It then degenerates into robot-like behavior which is unthinking and automatic.
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The Task of the AB E Teacher
Many of the implications of these principles for the teacher in the ABE classroom are self-evident. However a few should be re-emphasized.
First, since the teacher cannot do more than whet the student's appetite for learning, she must set the table and serve the dinner in an appetizing way. Learning will take place only if the proper climate is created.
Secondly, teaching must be problem-centered to be practical and interesting; experience-centered to be meaningful and understandable; and oriented to all the senses to facilitate the transition from the concrete to the abstract.
In summary, current theories of learning tell us that the student does many of the tasks which have, in the past, been considered to be in the province of the teacher. He is really quite self-sufficient. He provides the motivation to learn, the objectives, and the plan of attack. He learns best by doing things himself at his own pace, and is rewarded by his own sense of satisfaction.
What, then, is left for the teacher to do? A capsule description of her job would probably include four do's and one don't as follows:
* Don't frustrate the student's good intentions, or get in the
way of his learning.
* Present the right material at the right time in the right
quantity so that motivation and satisfaction are not thwarted.
* Do help the student learn. Simplify difficult tasks, and
present them in ways which will make them easier to grasp.
* Do help the student remember. Show him how to
reinforce his learning, and give him appropriate exercises or assignments.
* Do help the student assess his progress. Evaluate all his
efforts, help him learn from his mistakes, and show him where and how he can improve his work.
Counseling and Guidance in ABE Programs
The adult basic education program has broad, far-reaching
42

objectives that have no parallel in the history of American education. In fact, it cannot really trace its ancestry directly to education, even though adult educators have been trying to stamp out illiteracy for a long time. The program is a direct descendent of the social and political ferment of the 1930's, and an offspring of the recently declared war on poverty. The recen t federal support for adult basic education is a social and political rather than an educational movement.
As such, basic education is rooted more firmly in a concern for people than in a desire to extend educational frontiers. Its goal is to make participating citizens--socially and economically ou t of an alientated and rejected segment of the polulation. This goal accounts for the broad ABE curriculum, designed to move the student beyond the acquisition of academic skills.
It also accounts for the ABE program's interest in the student's life outside the classroom. Counseling and guidance are as much a part of the ABE program as teaching. While counseling is at present still largely a matter of solving classroom problems, a new type of total counseling service for the disadvantaged adult is slowly emerging.
It is evolving bit by bit out of experiments with new approaches to counseling, and by the creation of a new breed of counselor. He will be part educational counselor and part social worker, with special expertise in dealing with the educational and personal problems of the disadvantaged.
In one such experiment, a person affiliated with the Poverty Program, who had broad experience in working with deprived adults, interviewed each ABE student when he registered. He asked questions which would help him determine initial class placement, and would reveal the student's employment aspirations and abilities.
On the basis of this interview, the counselor often placed the student in a Manpower Development Training Program or a vocational program instead of the basic education class. He divided his time between the school and the community, helping the student who did enroll to find employment or vocational training opportunities. He also visited the new student in his home.
Unfortunately, this type of comprehensive counseling is still a dream for most program administrators. And until this dream becomes a reality, the ABE teacher will have to face the fact that she will be counselor as well as teacher to her students. Although a few programs are fortunate enough to have the services of
43

educational counselors, they are in the minority. Besides, the educational counselor's experience with high school guidance and testing programs does not equip him to deal with the social, educational or personal problems of the undereducated adult.
Many welfare case workers are more informed and more skillful in counseling ABE students than school counselors are. But case workers do not have the information or experience they need to deal with students' educational difficulties. x Hopefully, a fortuitous blending of these two disciplines will some day come about. But in the meantime, most teachers can expect to be counselors by default. And since most adults attend class only one or two evenings a week, most of the counseling will take place in a group situation in the classroom.
To prepare the groundwork for both counseling and teaching, the teacher will have to exert whatever patience, understanding and personal magnetism she can muster to win the trust of her students. As we have pointed out earlier, most ABE students have learned to trust no one who is connected in any significant way with the society which has rejected them. But once they have learned to have confidence in their teacher, and have further learned to trust each other, they are then well on the way to extending this trust to the rest of the community.
To accomplish this, the teacher will do well to remember and act upon everything she knows about the values and attitudes of the uneducated, in addition to everything she knows about her particular students. With this kind of background, she will be better equipped to understand behavior which may appear to be inexplicable or even unacceptable.
At the same time, the teacher should remember that undereducated adults are accustomed to authority being expressed by those in command. They expect the teacher to be the boss, and will be just as disturbed by behavior which smacks of indecision or lack of authority, as they might be by lack of sympathy or understanding. The fair-but-firm approach will probably be the most successful one.
Having established this kind of rapport, the more fortunate teacher would then be able to turn to the comprehensive guidance program provided by her school, or the part-time services of an experienced case worker. In the absence of either of these, she will then proceed with the task of educational counseling herself.
44

The Teacher as an Educational Counselor
As counselor, the teacher will primarily be resronsible for three tasks: the initial interview, testing, and record keeping.
Adult educators have long cautioned against the shock tactics of testing adults-particularly deprived adults-extensively when they enter the program. However, some information is needed to place the new student, and the interview has proven to be a good technique for obtaining it.
A ten-minute oral test in word recognition will reveal the student's reading level, establish his placement in class, and indicate the reading materials he can use profitably. This test should probably be the only one given during the interview. The rest of the testing program can wait until the adult is established and comfortable in his new role as student.
However, the interview should elicit a certain amount of personal information (as much as the student is willing to provide freely), as well as facts about the student's prior education, his reasons for wanting to attend ABE classes, and any other information which is required by the school.
When conducted properly, the initial interview is more than a source of basic information. It can be-and should be-a time to welcome the student, and to reassure him that his fears and apprehensions about returning to school are not justified~
At the very least, the interview should not become an unpleasant chore or, worse yet, an embarrassing situation. Much of what the student tells the teacher during the interview will be information which the student is neither proud nor happy about: his age, his employment status, his home life, his previous schooling will not have the makings of a success story.
Particularly painful to some ABE students is their inability to read and write, a fact which they may have successfully hidden from the world until now. Those who are still not ready to admit their illiteracy during the interview will sometimes resort to "I left my glasses home" when confronted by a reading test. In these cases it is best to forget about the test and enroll the student in reading level one.
One teacher used a novel technique to avoid embarassing her students at registration. She displayed adult reading material, graded from first to eighth grade, thoughout the room, and instructed the students to browse while she completed some
45

forms. The materials which each person selected to read gave her a pretty good indication of that person's reading level.
As soon as the new student is reasonably comfortable in the class, he should be given an achievement test. His performance will give the teacher more information with which to plan his total program. Through subsequent testing, a record of his progress from one grade level to the other can be charted by the school.
The teacher cannot be guided by the normal curve when she is evaluating her students' performance in any of the standardized tests. Obviously, the disadvantaged person's lack of education and verbal ability will usually result in very low scores. These should be taken as a measure of his past schooling, rather than a forecast of his ability to succeed in the program.
Despite the limitations of standardized tests, and the fact that part-time programs do not provide much time for record-keeping, records must be kept systematically in ABE programs. For one thing, the U. S. Office of Education requires that a minimum amount of data about students be reported in programs which it finances, and similar requirements are made by local and state agencies involved in the administration or funding of programs.
In addition, the teacher will find that good record-keeping in terms of each student's progress will be useful to her in her role as guidance counselor as well as teacher. Of course, such records will pass valuable information on to the student's future teachers and counselors, and will make it unnecessary for them to put the student through the same routine of interviewing and testing again.
There is a third advantage to good record-keeping which will benefit students, teachers and counselors in the long run. Basic and applied research-sorely needed in all aspects of adult basic education-can be done only if teachers will collect data as consistently and comprehensively as time permits.
For example, in 1967 the U. S. Office of Education collected demographic information from all over the country, describing and defining the student population of ABE programs. The results of this survey, available from the Office, are already providing useful insights to teachers, directors and counselors, and are a stepping stone to further research. But more needs to be done, not only in surveying what is, but in evaluating new techniques, new approaches, and new materials.
A cumulative folder should be opened for each adult when he enrolls. The pocket type, with room for test scores and observa-
46

tions by teachers and counselors, seems to be most useful. Several states have designed special folders for statewide ABE programs to insure uniformity of reporting.
In any case, the teacher will want to be aware of the minumun reporting requirements in her program, as well as the desirability of collecting additional data which she feels is, or could be, significant.
While the teacher is responsible, to a large degree, for the counseling and guidance of her students, this does not lessen the need or the responsibility of the school to work toward providing a complete professional program. Anything the teacher can do to initiate, speed up, or facilitate the effort to set up such a program will hasten the day when all her attention can be whole-heartedly directed toward teaching.
Some states have already come close to this type of guidance program, and have thought through the objectives it should have as well as the techniques which could be used. They have concluded that the counselor's case load should permit him to become thoroughly acquainted with the students, visit their homes, and learn as much about them as they are willing and able to communicate. Using this information, he should have an active part in helping to shape the plans for the total ABE program, in recruiting and retaining students, and in advising in the instructional program.
47

Suggested Readings
Beck, John, and Saxe, Richard W., ed. Teaching the Culturally Disadvantaged Pupil. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1965.
Ford, William R., and Shutes, James L. The Role of Counseling and Supportive Services in the Training and Placement of Older Workers: An Overview. National Conference, Manpower Training and the Older Worker, Sponsored by the National Council on Aging, Washington, D.C., January 17-19,1966.
Leading the Learning Group. Leadership Pamphlet No. 18. Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1963.
Marshall, Jon c., and Copley, Patrick O. "Problems of Adult Basic
Education Teachers." Adult Leadership, XVI, No.2 (June, 1967),55-56 and 61.
McElaney, Francis A. "Counseling in Adult Basic Educational Programs." Adult Leadership, XV, No.3 (September, 1966), 78 and 102.
Puder, William H., and Hand, Samuel E. "Personality Factors Which May Interfere with the Learning of Adult Basic Education Students." Adult Education, XVIII, No. 2 (Winter, 1968),81-93.
U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Office of Education. Bureau of Adult and Vocational Education. Curriculum Guide to Adult Basic Education. Washington, D.C.: U.S, Government Printing Office, 1966.
48

Men exist for mutual services.
-Marcus Aurelius
V Assistance Available from the Community
Enter Miss Irma Brown. She is known as a master teacher in her home town of Rosehill. Miss Brown had been teaching for 18 years when she became interested in the plight of the disadvantaged, uneducated adult and made up her mind to help by teaching an ABE class.
Armed with the skills and experience acquired in elementary school classrooms, she attended a two-week workshop for teachers conducted by the State Department of Education. Here she learned, quickly and well, about the culture of the deprived person, the most modem teaching methods for adults, and read widely the latest literature used in the instructional program.
Completely equipped now with experience, specialized knowledge, and missionary zeal, Miss Brown met her ABE class for the first time. The results of this first meeting were rather unsettling to her.
While the interest and determination of her students was obvious, there seemed to be so many distracting problems. Miss Adams, for example, brought three of her children because, she explained, she had no place to leave them. Several of the men in the back row seemed to be having trouble seeing the blackboard clearly. One of the men near the window asked if he could qualify for welfare payments if he could prove he was attending class. And the fragile young lady in the first row coughed throughout the class period.
Some of the other students looked like they had something on their minds, too, but Miss Brown could not find out what it was because the class ended before she had a chance to talk to them.
Slightly deflated, Miss Brown rested her head on her lesson plan book and reconsidered her course of action. The lesson plan felt reassuring and familiar. Would she ever get to use it? What did she know about child care, optometry, or welfare regulations?
49

Where will the children stay during classes? 50

Being a determined person not easily given to discouragement, Miss Brown decided to find out if there were some community organizations which could help her to help her students.
Had Miss Brown been employed in a well-organized program in a metropolitan area, she might have gone through ABE administrative channels for help. Her immediate supervisor would have either made the appropriate contacts for her or would have given her the names of individuals and groups to call. However, Miss Brown's ABE class was an isolated effort in a remote part of the state, and she was forced to launch her own investigation.
The results were a pleasant surprise to her. She found that there were many agencies and programs in the community and surrounding county that were willing and anxious to lend a hand. Fortunately, Miss Brown categorized them and listed their services, realizing that this information might one day be useful to others. Although she had done a very thorough job of research, she left some blank space at the end of the list, knowing that she had not exhausted all the possibilities.
Government Agencies
Welfare Department - can help recruit students and provide them with financial assistance, employment, and personal counseling. County welfare departments will often refer their clients to ABE programs or provide lists of persons in need of basic education to ABE administrators or teachers.
Public Health Department - provides varying amounts of free or low-cost health care, chest X-rays, and speakers on health and sanitation. While county health departments and field services have been in the business of providing valuable services for years, many deprived persons are not even aware of their existence, much less their services. The ABE teacher may wish to take her class to the local health department to acquaint students with the help available, or ask a member of the department to explain it to the class. He can also talk about some pertinent aspect of health and hygiene.
Employment Agencies - can refer students, provide speakers, and approve adult students for training in Manpower Development
51

Training Programs. Personnel of state employment agencies are acutely conscious of the need for basic education. They see large numbers of job seekers whose placement tests show they are unemployable because of educational deficiencies. They therefore welcome the opportunity to refer these clients to ABE courses, and are usually willing to speak to adult classes about local job opportunities and educational requirements for employment. These talks will be based on the agency's periodic surveys of the local labor market as well as their personal knowledge of what local employers are looking for.
Office of Vocational Rehabilitation - provides vocational training and other services to students, and speakers for classes. The scope of services offered by this state agency is so extensive that the teacher will want to invite a rehabilitation counselor to the class to explain the program and schedule interviews with individual students.
Public Housing Authority - a potential source of classroom space. Many adult basic education classes have been conducted in recreation rooms or assembly rooms of low-rent housing projects administered by the city's housing authority. This procedure can eliminate transportation problems and provide an informal neighborhood setting for classes. In addition to making the space available, the housing authority will often cooperate with the ABE program by posting notices of classes and arranging for whatever specialized facilities are needed.
Civil Defense Program - provides instruction and reading materials. The state or local civil defense coordinator (or any qualified civil defense instructor) can speak to the class on such topics as medical self-help, survival in natural disasters, and survival in case of atomic attack. The program is also a valuable source of free reading materials.
Cooperative Extension Service - provides lectures, demonstrations, and instructional materials. Home Economics Extension personnel will demonstrate and teach many aspects of home management, such as sewing or preparation of attractive, nutritious, and economical meals. This can be done as a part of the ABE class or as a separate program for those who are interested.
The Service also has a large collection of reading materials, many
52

of which are written in simplified form for basic education students.
Children and Family Services -- provide counseling. The department of family and children's services, as well as other agencies specializing in this area, will visit the homes of students or offer counseling in the agency's offices. Services vary from one community to the other, but they should be known to ABE students via a speaker from the agency or a class visit to it.
Volunteer Agencies and Civic Groups
Local religious groups - can provide teacher's aides, operate nurseries, donate classrooms, or provide other forms of assistance. Local churches and synagogues-particularly their women's auxiliaries-are often looking for worthwhile community projects and will usually be anxious to help the ABE program if they are made aware of its needs. They can, for example, provide volunteers to work as teacher's aides, or might operate a nursery for the class member's children. Many religious groups can donate classroom space which may be more appealing and more centrally located than a classroom in the local elementary school.
Red Cross and Salvation Army - can extend emergency help to students. Students who need food, clothing, shelter or other essentials, because of a natural disaster or some form of personal disaster, can obtain help from these agencies while government agencies or insurance companies are investigating their claims. The local Red Cross can also provide instruction in medical self-help, ftrst aid, baby care for expectant parents, and other related subjects.
Civic groups and clubs - many are anxious to begin community improvement projects and will welcome the chance to assist ABE programs. One outstanding example is the Lions clubs which have provided eye care and glasses to thousands of indigent people.
Garden clubs too, can provide speakers on yard care, all aspects of horticulture, and civic improvement. The state chairman on horticulture or the state chairman on civic improvement will be glad to refer ABE teachers to competent speakers who can help
53

students to beautify their homes or streets, plant gardens, or launch paint-up clean-up campaigns.
Leaglle of Women Voters - provides information about voter registration, candidates and issues in elections, community agencies, and other information about citizenship. While each local League has its own projects, citizenship education of the deprived is an overall interest of all League groups. The local league might undertake a special project to help ABE students, or can provide speakers and literature (such as political directories) about all aspects of the community's political life to help students understand how they can become participating, voting citizens.
Planned Parenthood _Association - can provide literature and speakers. Local planned parenthood groups can provide professional speakers on birth control to address the class, or will provide personal instruction and counseling to those students who are interested in more information on birth control methods.
Other grOllpS -- There are many, such as Settlement Houses and the Migrant Ministry, who have years of experience working with disadvantaged people and can give assistance to the ABE teacher or class. However, finding these helpful persons and involving them in the basic education program is, in most cases, the job of ABE administrators and teachers. The teacher, on her own or through administrative channels, must make her needs known, and convince local organizations that their assistance is both necessary and welcome.
Business and Professional Groups
Medical and Dental Societies can set up clinics and provide speakers. Some medical and dental societies can be persuaded to set up a clinic at the school to examine ABE students. Individual doctors or dentists may speak to the class about health, hygiene, and related subjects.
I,egal Aid Socie ties - provide legal services and information. Sponsored by local bar associations or law schools, legal aid societies can provide free legal services and advice for those who
54

are unable to pay for it. A spokesman for the local society can explain that group's services to the ABE class, as well as providing general information about legal rights of citizens.
Labor unions will recuit students and help in a variety of ways. Local labor organizations have long been interested in adult basic education. Their education officers often serve on lay advisory committees to ABE programs, and stand ready to contribute time, money, or facilities to help the program in some appropriate way.
Private Business and Industry - provide time off to students, free literature or other materials, and encourage class tours. Business and industry have recently become interested in adult education, and many companies will allow time off to their employees for basic education courses. They may be able to provide a variety of reading materials and other equipment or supplies for the program. They also help the teacher plan class visits to their plants or offices.
OEO Programs
The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 created the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) with broad powers to conduct educational and vocational programs which would help the poor to help themselves. Some of these, already mentioned, are administered by the appropriate federal agencies. Others, however, including those in the following list, are administered by the OEO through its local community action office.
Local community action program provides tailor-made local services such as recruiting, providing teacher aides, conducting nurseries, or administering projects and direct grants. Community action programs are the greatest potenial source of aid to ABE programs because they are staffed by local people and are responsive to local conditions. There is virtually no limit to the variety of services which can be worked out with the local agency.
Project Head Start The head start program, administered by the local community action program, provides pre-school education to deprived children from ages 3 to 6 so that they will be able to
55

profit more from first grade and elementary public school education. Programs for parents are often conducted in the same location (or parents may be referred to ABE classes), so that they will be in a better position to help their children keep the head start they have acquired.
Legal Services Program - provides legal services and insures full protection of the law for the poor.
The Job Corps - provides job training to young men and women. Aside from trying to make disadvantaged young people employable, the Job Corps encourages them to return to school, obtain a job, or to join the armed forces after training is completed. ABE teachers may want to refer some of their younger students to the Job Corps, and should keep older students informed of the opportunities it offers their children.
Professional Organizations
National Association for Public School Adult Education (NAPSAE) - a service membership organization, oriented toward the public schools. It has a tremendous influence on legislation, and has served as liaison between state and local programs and the federal government. It has become the voice of public school adult education through a national newsletter, a teacher's newsletter (Teaching Tips), and a strong legislative committee. Although NAPSAE's interest has been largely directed to adult basic education in the last three years, it is committed to a broad public school program for adults. It has a number of state affiliates.
National Council of State Directors of Adult Education organized in 1966 as an affiliate of NAPSAE to establish an organized system of communication with the Adult Education Section of the U. S. Office of Education via an executive committee with representatives from areas around the country.
Adult Education Association of the U. S. A. (AEA) - has long served as an umbrella agency embracing all aspects of adult education-by business and industry, labor unions, churches, and universities. It publishes a professional research journal (Adult
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Education), and a general circulation magazine on adult education (Adult Leadership).
Although Miss Brown undoubtedly felt reassured after looking at her list, she soon discovered that it was not an end in itself. True, there is comfort in knowing that a wide variety of individuals and agencies share the ABE teacher's concern for disadvantaged students, and are willing to help make the ABE program successful. However, the question of how to use this comforting information still remains. Knowing the telephone number of the welfare department is one thing, but using its services is quite another matter.
It is obvious, for example, that the very length of Miss Brown's list presents a problem to the teacher. There are overlapping functions and services among agencies and, conversely, there are specialized services with gaps between them. There are services specifically aimed at women or children or breadwinners which ideally should be woven together to serve the family as a whole.
There are agencies dispensing food, health care, job training, counseling, money or advice-all of which would seem more profitable to the recipient if it were presented in some integrated form. It also seems reasonable to hope that the agency which is providing counseling or food be aware of what the agency providing health care or job training is doing.
Those who have been concerned with this situation for some time have advocated, by way of remedy, the "total agency approach" and the "total family approach." Their goal is to get all agencies which work with and for the deprived adult to pool their resources and strive toward a common goal: the eradication of poverty and ignorance. The immediate objective should be to provide a total program of health, education, and welfare for the entire family as a unit.
At the present time, such totality of cooperation and coordination has not yet been perfected. Although most agencies see the need for cooperative effort, they are often hamstrung by organizational red tape or inflexible operating procedures. There is, for example, the simple requirement that each government agency account for the expenditure of all its funds--a procedure which becomes a bookkeeper's nightmare if funds and functions are pooled creatively.
Nevertheless, the comprehensive approach seems to be the only reasonable or effective way of fighting a total war on poverty. As the head start program has demonstrated so well,
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sniper tactics will not win that war. A child who has received large doses of cultural enrichment in the head start program cannot be , expected to keep that head start when it returns to the same deprived family and neighborhood which was the cause of its problem.
Unless parents are educated along with their children, the head start will be one jump forward and two jumps backward. In this instance, the best remedy would be to refer children of adult students to the head start program, and to refer parents of head start children to ABE programs. This has been done in many communities and should be encouraged in many more.
The teacher's awareness of the need to mobilize the entire community to help an entire family will be a vital factor in hastening the day when this will be standard procedure. Fortunately, though, she is not alone in this struggle.
The federal government is making significant propress in coordinating federal assistance programs. In fact, it is becoming a requirement of many federally funded programs that a comprehensive plan involving all appropriate agencies be submitted before funds are allocated. Compacts between federal agencies, and even with private foundations, are becoming more widespread.
In states, the trend toward cooperation is also visible. In state ABE programs using federal funds, for example, a state must list the agencies the program will work with, and submit a plan which provides for a cooperative approach. This approach is often achieved by holding a monthly meeting of state agency directors convened by the state's Office of Economic Opportunity. Since the OEO operates directly from the governor's office and screens most of the requests for federal funds in the state, it is an effective coordinating agent.
The state director of adult education also works with a lay advisory committee to plan the statewide ABE program. A similar advisory committee on the local level can be a tremendous asset to the local ABE program. A well-chosen, hard-working committee can mobilize and integrate the community's services more effectively than any ABE teacher or administrator.
There are many examples of successful, productive teamwork between ABE programs and other agencies. For instance, the Work-Study Program, funded by OEO and administered by the Welfare Department, is designed to train parents with dependent children to be self-supporting jobholders. In some cases, where the parent's educational level is very low, gainful employment is
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almost out of the question. The Welfare Department refers these persons to the ABE program-- often arranging part-time jobs and day care for smaller children-until they have reached fourth or fifth grade level. They can then resume their job training full time.
One school system used the total agency approach in planning an elementary school close to a migrant camp. The school was planned to provide for adult education programs, health services, a community recreation center, a dental office, a counseling center, and other essential services. Any agency which served the migrant camp was invited to help pay for and plan a portion of the building for its particular functions. ABE students in the migrant camp remodeled a vacant building so it could be used for emergency housing for sick or destitute migrants.
Again, while it will not be the teacher's job to plan such large-scale cooperative ventures, she will make her contribution by using the help of community agencies, helping coordinate their services, referring students to appropriate programs of other agencies, and keeping herself and her students informed about the many options available to every member of a disadvantaged family.
Aside from the more obvious benefits to students and teacher, the student will be just as reassured as Miss Brown was to find out that his sense of isolation and impotence is not justified. Moreover, his familiarity with the services of a concerned community will give him more than help and reassurance. It may help the uneducated adult to renew his faith in the society which has rejected him, and rekindle his willingness to accept that society's goals and standards as his own.
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Suggested Readings Hallenbeck, Wilbur C. et al. Community and Adult Education.
(Adult Education Theory and Method.) Chicago: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1962. Taking Action in the Community. Leadership Pamphlet No.3. Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1955. The Quiet Revolution. Washington, D.C.: Office of Economic Opportunity, 1967. Voluntary Help Wanted for War on Poverty Projects. Washington, D.C.: Office of Economic Opportunity, Spring, 1967.
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Scientists will have rifled the secrets of the moon and of Mars long before they know the secret and subtle workings of the myriad-minded force which shapes the source of the language.
-John Moore
Slang is a token of man's lively spirit ever at work in unexpected places... For slang, after all, is a kind of metaphor and metaphor, we have agreed, is a kind of poetry; you might say indeed that slang is a poor-man's poetry.
-John Moore
VI Teaching Communication
When a child sees "that look" and hears the drawer slam, he is likely to say, "Are you mad, Mommy?" And when the guest departs, the verdict might be, "He's very nice. He smiles a lot, and he helped me crack my peanuts." In both instances, the child has reached a conclusion-probably the right one-without a word being uttered. The smile or frown, the helpful or angry gesture, all communicate in a silent language which most people, and even the more domesticated animals, understand.
Novelists and movie makers use the silent language as their stock in trade. It would be an unusual book or movie which tried to create an atmosphere or delineate a character by conversation and narrative alone. Imagine Wuthering Heights set in Miami Beach, or the man in the grey flannel suit wearing tweeds.
In fact, all of us use the silent language in order to make the impression we want to make and to "read" other people. Although this reading is often unfair, we do categorize people by their appearance, their possessions, their homes, and their church and social affiliations. Only the fine points of their beliefs, station
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Teaching Communication 62

in life, and probable future course of action are left to be

illuminated by conversation. V

'

The disadvantaged adult relies heavily on the silent language of+

gesture, expression, bearing, and appearance for obvious reasons- '

his difficulties with the more formal, precise methods of com-

munication. Unable to read, write, speak, or listen well, he takes

the non-verbal shortcuts to conveying and receiving messages.

There are advantages to this non-verbal approach beyond the

fact that it serves the deprived person well. It may mean that he

has the novelist's eye for physical details; a symbolic, almost

poetic pattern of speech (one old Negro garage mechanic

expressed his happiness by saying, "It's like bein' in heaven, sittin'

down"); and a highly developed sixth sense which is a combina-

tion of intuition and insight.

From the point of view of the teacher, her students' lack of

formal communication skills should point the way toward

appropriate teaching techniques which take advantage of their

sixth sense and their love of concrete detail and imagery.

Advanced reading classes, for example, can be introduced to

literature and literary techniques which capitalize on these forms

of silent communication. The teacher can count on a receptive

audience when she plays program music (such as Peter and the

Wolf), or asks students to recite Shakespeare's sonnets. Many

students will be able to write poetry or stories of their own.

It will doubtless be a source of pride and relief to the

disadvantaged student to find out that his lack of ability in the

communication skills has its compensating factors. And the

teacher will find the student's talents a well-spring of creative

classroom work. Since she is charged with developing the potential

of the whole person, there is no reason to ignore his literary or

aesthetic sense in the big push for literacy.

Nevertheless, communication skills are at the heart of the ABE

program because, from a practical point of view, their mastery will

permit the student to reap some of the social and financial

benefits of a communication-conscious middle class. The disadvan-

taged person who can read, write, comprehend the spoken word

and have his words understood clearly by others immediately has

fewer strikes against him. Whatever his calling in life, the dialect,

gestures, and symbols he uses in his speech will be understood by

few people except those in his small cultural sub-group.

So communication must be taught and taught well. Research

results tell us that the average person spends 42 percent of his day

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listening, 32 percent speaking, 15 percent reading, and 11 percent writing. This gives us some indication of the relative usefulness of the communication skills, although their value in different situations is another matter. But let us consider the communication skills in the order of the frequency with which they are used which is, incidentally, also the order in which they are learned.
Listening
While hearing is a physical, automatic response to sounds, the ability to listen is a conscious, learned process. Unlike hearing, listening implies selectivity, concentration, and comprehension. The fact that we hear so many sounds all day long, many of them unwelcome to our ears, may account for the defenses we have built up against them. Disadvantaged people, who often live and work in croWded, noisy surroundings, have probably spent the better part of their lives teaching themselves to ignore sounds. In addition, since their communication is largely without words, they have not had much opportunity to cultivate good listening habits.
Even the so-called average person listens at about 25 percent efficiency-a rate which goes up to 50 percent when he is trying. And yet the ability to listen is the keystone to all the communicative skills. A student who comprehends what he hears is well on the road toward learning to read and speak well, which in turn will make writing easier. Conversely, inability to listen well is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to good reading, speaking, and consequently writing.
Training and experience in listening to middle class English involves the same skills as those needed for reading: deriving meaning from words. But because it is easier to get meaning from spoken words than from written symbols, training in listening is the adult's reading readiness program.
Listening skills are not only valuable in all phases of education, they are learned in all aspects of it. Listening is such a integral part of living that it cannot be taught as a separate lesson. Training in listening must be part of the fabric of classroom procedure. The following suggestions are good rules in any event, and particularly useful in improving students' listening abilities.
1) Be sure every student in the class can physically hear you. If not, the fault may lie with their hearing, the seating arrange-
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ments in the class, or the way you project your voice 2) Be sure you have established the kind of classroom
atmosphere and rapport with students which underlies good communication.
3) Don't lecture to students often or at length. 4) Do use a variety of materials, such as good record players, tape recorders, and movies. 5) Read aloud often from informative, entertaining books which contain new words and new concepts. 6) When introducing new materials (such as poetry or classical music), tell the class what the author or composer is trying to accomplish, and explain what students should listen for. 7) Help students listen efficiently by eliminating distractions (erase the board, close the windows and doors), discouraging interruptions (schedule a special time for questions), and making all announcements slowly and clearly. 8) Evaluate students' listening skills often by asking questions about the material they have heard or by giving short tests. 9) When you do talk to the class, make sure they know you are talking to them. Look individual students straight in the eye, and act enthusiastic about what you are saying. When practice and experience in good listening has produced a skilled listener, we have a person who can understand three or four times faster than most people talk. They can use this extra time to review what the speaker has already said, anticipate what he is going to say, and speculate on the many ramifications of his message. Of course, the skilled listener works at his trade. He is well motivated in the sense that he assumes the speaker will say something important. He is physically alert, with his back straight, his eyes on the speaker, and his ears straining for every sound. His mind is alert, too, ready to hear and remember every word, every meaning. While most students will not emerge with the listening ability of a court reporter, they will certainly improve their listening skills appreciably simply by virtue of being exposed to words for some time. If, in addition, classroom procedures are oriented toward teaching good listening habits and students are motivated to improve, their listening abilities should show marked improvement before long.
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Speaking
As we have said, the disadvantaged student uses a high proportion of substitutes for language. The few words he does use may be a foreign-sounding combination of dialect and personal speech idiosyncracies. The words may be mumbled, swallowed, contracted, slurred together, or otherwise indistinguishable.
Generally his sentences are short and simple. He does not want to challenge anyone else's capacity to listen, nor does he want to air his poor speech more than is necessary. His simple utterances are generally reserved for expressing concrete needs, somewhat like the small child whose conversation is usually restricted to "Gimme that." He seldom discusses the pros and cons of any subject, not does he deal in abstract ideas. Chances are he has seldom had opportunity to think this way, and his conversation reflects to some ex ten t his undeveloped thinking habits.
These poor speech patterns are reinforced in the student's home, at work, and in his community. To him they are as much a sign of belonging-a status symbol as professional jargon is to some academicians. His is a language which no one else understands~an elaborate system which insures the privacy and integrity of a special group, and serves as a wall between its members and the rest of society.
But the rest of society judges from people's manner of speaking who belongs, who will succeed, who will get the job or the invitation. The rules are that a French accent is OK but a regional dialect is not; professional jargon is in but hill-billy jargon is out. Even in our schools we measure intelligence in terms of verbal facility with middle class English.
The disadvantaged student probably knows, at least instinctively, all the social implications of poor speech. At the same time, he does not want to speak differently from those in his family or neighborhood. Even if he did, he would have trouble changing the speech habits of a lifetime in a few hours of class practice each week.
In other words, the prognosis is poor. Probably the most reasonable eexpectation the teacher can have is that the student will learn to understand middle class English better. She should not hope for a miracle as far as the student's own manner of speaking is concerned, although she can certainly encourage and help the student improve.
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The best technique for improving the student's speech and understanding of good English is constant exposure to it. Reading interesting stories, playing records or tapes, even playing the radio can be a way of teaching how English should be spoken. Students will be more apt to listen to radio and television if they can be convinced that they will hear interesting, useful information. A construction worker, for example, can find out from the weather forecast whether or not he will be employed in the next few days. Local news programs usually contain items of interest to almost anyone in the class.
Of course, there should also be plenty of opportunities for speaking, such as group discussions and informal oral reports by students on their favorite readings or other subjects. Students can be asked to volunteer to read announcements, instructions, poems, parts of books, or any other item of general interest which would ordinarily be read by the teacher or distributed in written form.
A combination of good listening habits, good speaking habits, plus some cognative reasoning ability are the necessary steppingstones to reading the printed word. While the teaching of reading will be covered separately in the following chapter, it can be stated here that practice in listening and speaking has the added value of being the adult student's reading readiness program. For the severely deprived adult, a fairly long reading readiness program i may be necessary.
Writing
The teacher's expectations can be much higher when it comes to teaching writing. An adult's muscles may have to get used to grasping a pencil and making the small, exact, feather touch marks on paper. But the joy and pride which sweep over him when he writes his name for the first time will provide all the motivation he needs.
There is little, if any, research on techniques of teaching Writing to adults-probably because the methods used for teaching children seem to have worked so well. Of course, the approach to adults will be tempered by the teacher's acknowledgement that her students are by no means children, but otherwise the process is similar.
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The student will first have to learn how to hold a pencil and make letters between ruled lines in a confined space. This is largely a matter of coordination which will improve through practice. As a general rule, the adult learns faster if many of his senses are involved. When he is learning to write, his sense of touch can be enlisted to help his eyes and ears.
While he is improving his coordination, he will also be learning to recognize and write letters from memory. This leads to writing words which, in turn, leads eventually to expressing thoughts by joining many words together.
Manuscript writing is usually taught first because it is simpler. The letters correspond to those the student learns in reading. In addition, there are only three basic strokes in manuscript writing: a straight line, a circle, and a half circle. Manuscript writing can therefore be learned and read more easily than cursive, and will be easier for the student to write legibly.
The first step is usually writing the most important word in the English language: the student's own name. The teacher can write the name of the student with a stylus (or other sharp instrument) on soft paper. He then traces it with a soft lead pencil which glides easily across the paper until he can do it from memory. Practice periods should be short-not more than five minutes long at first. As students become more proficient and less tense, the practice time can be gradually lengthened.
When the student has learned to write his name with ease, he can be encouraged to write short, useful sentences. Emphasis here is on the word useful. Everything the student writes should have a purpose. The meaningless writing exercise has no place in an adult classroom, where students are trying to learn a method of expressing thoughts on paper.
The transition to cursive writing should come when the student can print short sentences in a fairly relaxed way. Begin by showing the student the difference between cursive and manuscript writing: letters are slanted and joined, each letter has a short flourish on the end, and the writing is done without lifting the pencil from the paper. The student then learns the alphabet, learns to recognize capitals and iower case letters, and practices reading cursive writing from posters or books. He is then ready to begin short practice sessions.
Part of the teacher's job will be to help the adult sit properly, in a relaxed position, with the paper at the right angle and the
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correct grip on the pencil. Both teacher and students should write on the board frequently.
After the teacher has pointed out mistakes, the student should be encouraged to analyze and correct them. In general, writing should be evaluated for the legibility, not the beauty, of the finished product. Some training in spelling can be part of the writing lesson. Capitalization and punctuation rules can also be introduced if they are presented as useful devices for clarifying the meaning. Formal theories of grammar are taboo in the adult basic education classes at this time.
Aside from the more apparent benfits of being able to write one's own name, a shopping list, or a letter, the ability to write reinforces speech and reading skills. The cycle of learning goes round and round, beginning with good listening habits. Listening leads to reading and speaking which leads to writing, and so on back to speech and reading again.
The communications process consists of related units of knowledge which feed (and feed on) each other. In individualized teaching this means that each student's communication problems will be different, but that each can be reached via at least one of the units of instruction. He may learn reading from listening, or writing from speaking. If he is roadblocked in one area, he can always learn through another approach.
The important thing, from the teacher's point of view, is to keep in mind the many approaches that are possible and to make full use of them all. It is too easy to forget that reading and writing are only two of four communications skills.
It is also easy to forget that communications skills are useless if there is nothing to communicate. They must be taught using other useful subject matter, so they can be used to received and express thoughts on a variety of subjects. The student who can write "The ball is blue" is, for all intents and purposes, just as illiterate as he was before. The student who can write "register to vote on Thursday," is on his way.
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Suggested Readings
Barnes, Robert F. "Problems in Adult Basic Education." Language Programs for the Disadvantaged. A Report of the National Council of Teachers of English Task Force on Teaching English to the Disadvantaged. Champaign, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 1965.
Freeman, Frank N. Teaching Handwriting. Washington, D.C.: Department of Classroom Teachers, American Educational Research Association of the National Education Association, August, 1954.
Horne, Ernest. Teaching Spelling. Washington, D.C.: Department of Classroom Teachers, American Educational Research Association of the National Education Association, J anuary, 1954.
Improve Your Writing. Pamphlet No. 1-10. Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Department of the Army, January, 1959.
News for You. Newspaper published by Syracuse University for Adult Basic Education on two-graded levels. Syracuse, New York.
Taylor, Stanford E. Listening. Washington, D.C.: Department of Classroom Teachers, American Educational Research Association of the National Education Association, April, 1964.
U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Division of Personnel Management, Staff Development Branch. Getting Your Ideas Across Through Writing. Training Manual No.7. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1950.
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Reading books in one's youth is like look ing at the moon through a crevice; reading books in middle age is like looking at the moon in one's courtyard; and reading books in old age is like looking at the moon on an open terrace. This is because the depth of be!'lefits of reading varies in proportion to the depth of one's own experience.
~Chang Ch'ao
VII Teaching Reading
An adult, even a disadvantaged one, can learn to read far more quickly than most children. He is better equipped for the task by virtue of having talked, listened, and lived so much longer. He is more strongly motivated, is better able to concentrate, has a bigger vocabulary, a better visual and auditory memory, and has better developed abilities to hear and see small refinements of sound and shape.
He knows, too, what a word is and that writing is merely language written down. While he does not know how to write or read, he does know that reading means rapid translation of written symbols into words. He may even be familiar with the alphabet and a few simple words learned simply from frequent exposure to them.
For these reasons, few adults need an extensive reading readiness program. However, learning to read will not be an effortless process. There will still be stumbling blocks, especially for the disadvantaged. The physically oriented, culturally deprived person will not be used to dealing with the abstractions of language, a situation which often leads to difficulties in comprehension. On the other hand, his eventual mastery of difficult material will improve his ability to think in a more abstract, sophisticated way.
His limited vocabulary and poor diction will also interfere with
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smooth progress. Undoubtedly some of the members of your class will require practice in sound discrimination, so that they can hear that "fan" rhymes with "man" and that "leaf" is different from "leave. "
The disadvantaged student's difficulty in this area stems from his use of dialect, slang, or some other personal version of the English language. He may have to get used to speaking and hearing middle-class American. In the meantime, he may not understand the teacher, and may have difficulty reconciling what he calls "guvmint" with the written word "government."
All in all, however, most teachers accustomed to teaching children will be amazed at the progress made by their adult students. They will also find that, while the student is often having a relatively easy time, the job of the uninitiated teacher is usually relatively difficult. It will become abundantly clear early in the game that the teacher needs special knowledge to teach reading, the heart of the ABE program.
Her task is made more complex when she realizes that she is actually teaching communication. Reading, speaking, writing, listening, and critical thinking are all part of one package-the communication system. In addition, the reading instruction must be designed to teach facts and ideas about citizenship, homemaking, vocations, and about being a parent and a consumer. Therefore, she will not be teaching reading alone in the narrow sense of the word. And of course, the teacher's knowledge of disadvantaged adults as people will be needed for good verbal communication which, in turn, is a prerequisite for learning to read.
The reading teacher is therefore teaching reading, general communication skills, and a variety of subjects to a variety of people, all of whom may have different levels of academic ability and reading skill. She will have to know a great deal about the reading and learning objectives of her students, about testing their reading ability and present potential, about selecting and preparing materials, and about techniques for presenting them to individual students.
Fortunately for all concerned, the teaching of reading is a field about which adult educators have amassed a reassuring amount of knowledge and experience which the teacher can draw on. To her rescue will come reasonably accurate ways of assessing the ability of students and the readability of materials. She will have at her disposal a variety of approaches, techniques, teaching aids, and
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publications with which to embark on this journey to literacy. She will find, too, that her students make good traveling companions. Their excitement and pride will do much to make a difficult task an enjoyable one.
Testing the Student's Reading Ability and Potential
As we will see presently, instruction is provided on three different levels which correspond to the eight grade levels of elementary school. However, as every teacher knows, all children in the third grade are not necessarily doing third grade work or third grade reading. A more refined method of classification is required within the broad framework of teaching levels.
A specific assessment of each student's reading ability, present and potential, will help the teacher choose appropriate materials and teaching techniques for each one. This assessment must be made at the beginning of the course so that individualized instruction can proceed. Those who enter the class at a later time should be evaluated right away. reassessment of all students should take place at regular intervals (approximately 50 teaching hours) to determine their rate of progress, and to adjust methods and materials to their new level of performance.
Two types of informal tests are recommended for use at the beginning of the program to assess the instructional level (I, II, or III) for placing the student, to determine his potential reading ability at that time, and to assess his present reading ability. A lO-minute word recognition test and a simple oral reading test can be used to determine all of these.
A short word recognition test, consisting of graded lists of words, may be used to determine initial placement in the reading program in the first, second or third reading level. The same test may be used to determine the student's instructional level, independent reading level, and frustration level so that appropriate teaching techniques and materials can be selected. The standards for these levels differ somewhat from children to adults so the adult standards are presented here.
(The instructional level will be that level at which the student recognizes most of the words on the word recognition test but fails to recognize or grossly mispronounces a few. In terms of reading it would mean that he could recognize well over 90
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percent of the words in a selection instantly, and could read smoothly with good comprehension and without showing undue stress. He should need help with no more than 5 percent of the words. Errors should be noted but language difficulties (mispronunciations, endings added or omitted, etc.) stemming from cultural deprivation should not be counted in the 5 percent. Some will make the same errors on all levels of material and thus would appear to have no instructional level. Here teacher judgment is a vital ingredient in finding the proper instructional level.
At a later date, when the student is adjusted to the ABE program, he can be re-tested with graded paragraphs to determine his new instructional level. The student is usually asked to read one paragraph orally and another silently at each grade level of readability. However, initial testing should be done with the word recognition test, because this can be accomplished more quickly and with less anxiety to the student.
Crhe student's independent reading level is one grade level below the instructional level. He can instantly recognize over 95 percent of the words in reading material at this level, can understand it easily, and can read it aloud smoothly. However, habitual mispronunciations, omissions of endings, etc. should not be penalized (but should be corrected).
His frustration level, on the other hand, is one grade level higher than the instructional level. When reading material at the frustration level, the student will hold a book very close to his face, point with his finger to the words, and his voice may either rise in pitch or decrease in volume to a mumble. Material at the student's frustration level is too difficult to handle pleasurably or profitably and should obviously be avoided.
Determination of the student's present potential ("present" because it will increase as his education progresses), is a most important part of the initial testing program. Using graded paragraphs, the teacher reads to the student in order to find out the highest level of graded reading material he can comprehend orally. That level represents his potential capacity for reading at that time. This assumption is made on the theory that writing is merely printed speech. If a student can understand what is read at a certain grade level, he will presumably be able to read at that level once he has acquired the necessary reading skillsJ
The use of graded paragraphs to determine a student's capacity to learn to read is preferred over a verbal intelligence test. Intelligence tests tend to be oriented to middle-class vocabulary
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and knowledge. Besides, they test general information and other capabilities which do not necessarily apply to the student's future ability to learn to read.
In the event that a disadvantaged student's present potential level is very low, the teacher should consider helping him raise his ability to comprehend orally. There are two helpful sources which can guide the teacher in providing training in listening: What Research Says to the Teacher, and Listening Aids Through the Grades (NEA).
Students should be re-tested regularly with standardized silent reading tests which are carefully chosen. Choose a test in which the student's expected score is near the middle range of possible scores, and be alert for the possibility that a student might be a poor reader but a good guesser.
In many states, elementary grade certificates are awarded in part on the basis of a student's achievement on a standardized test. Since the standardized reading test is objective, and its error of overestimation tends to remain rather constant, it can and should be used for this purpose.
As stated previously, a standardized test should not be used when the adult first enters the program. However, once he has progressed further, he can be tested periodically with standardized tests to determine his progress and his qualifications for a certificate. It is recommended that a test with several forms be chosen so that a different form can be used for each testing period. It is also recommended that the student be given some experience in taking standardized tests before the results are taken seriously. Otherwise a student may be tested on how to take a test rather than on the skills the test is supposed to assess!
Teaching Levels
Adult basic education, including the teaching of reading, is divided into three levels which correspond approximately to the fIrst eight grades of elementary school. Level I is the introductory level; Level II is elementary; and Level III is intermediate. Adults who have completed the first three levels and continue on their own to improve their reading habits and skills will have attained the fourth or developmental level. This is the level of true literacy which is acquired by independent post-graduate study beyond the
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confines of the ABE program. Level I, the introductory stage, is similar to the first three
grades of school in terms of skills learned and readability levels of materials used. It is probably the most difficult level for both student and teacher. At this stage the adult learns to recognize several thousand words that are already in his listening vocabulary-words whose meaning he understands. He also learns word attack skills, so that he can teach himself to read words he has not studied in class.
As mentioned previously, not much teaching in reading readiness will be required, although some students may need to become accustomed to hearing and speaking well-spoken English. Research tells us that many people learn more readily through their ears than their eyes. This is especially true of the disadvantaged student who is used to learning in this way because he has had few alternatives. For this reason, and to wean them away from dialects and mispronunciation, students should do a great deal of oral reading at the beginning.
To avoid embarrassment and discouragement, students should not be asked to read in front of the class until they are familiar enough with the material so that they will make few mistakes. (They should also be familiar enough with their classmates so that they are not chagrined about even those few mistakes.) The adult should read to himself before reading aloud to the class, and should do his classroom oral reading voluntarily. At all costs, embarrassment to the student must be avoided.
During silent reading, have the student point to troublesome words. Tell him what the words are, and then record them for further study. When studying them, ask what part of the word gave him trouble. His answers may pinpoint his problems and indicate the teaching techniques needed to help him. Don't worry if the student mumbles or moves his lips during "silent" reading. These bad reading habits will disappear when greater reading proficiency is attained.
All of the students in the class have a practical reason for wanting to learn to read. While learning to read for enjoyment is certainly one of the objectives of the reading program, and acquiring the skills of reading is in itself a rewarding occupation, the teacher should direct the student's attention to the practical v purpose of his reading. The student should know in advance why he is reading something and what he expects to get out of it, so that his motivation will be reinforced and he will acquire early the
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habit of reading to learn. In most cases new words should be presented orally first, and
then in a written context which carries a message and illustrates its use and meaning. Read the sentence aloud to show how the word sounds. Later, if necessary, work with the word in isolation, in phrases, or in other sentences.
Word attack skills are those techniques which the student can use to figure out for himself a word he does not recognize. Teach the student to identify unfamiliar words by referring to the illustration, the configuration or shape of the word, sounding it out phonetically, or by getting clues from the sentence or context in which it is used. Teach these skills and let students apply them before they begin independent reading. Observe students when reading to see if they use word attack skills, and provide whatever corrective work is needed at the beginning of the next session. Don't stop a student in the middle of a page or selection to teach him a reading skill!
Materials simple enough for use at Level I are still somewhat scarce and often not completely satisfactory. Selection is difficult because there are insufficient materials available to choose from. Then too, publishers tend to underestimate the complexity of materials they lable as appropriate for Level I, so teachers will be wise to decide for themselves which materials are appropriate at this stage. Fortunately, this is not a difficult process. After some experience with readability formulas and other factors involved, (they are described later on in this chapter), most teachers will be able to recognize appropriate materials with little difficulty.
However, since so few books meet all the criteria for easy reading on the first level, teachers often have to rely in part on materials they or their students devise. It should be noted here that it is easy to discourage and thus lose adults at this point if the reading materials are too difficult. In fact, it is frequently desirable to choose readings which are at or even below the student's independent reading level so that his efforts will be rewarded with immediate success and encouragement. Once he has learned that he can learn to read, more difficult material can be introduced.
There are millions of adults in the United States who are at the elementary reading level-Level II--which is comparable to readability levels 4, 5, and 6. Having mastered the mechanical aspects of reading, they can now respond automatically to most of the 1,000 most frequently used words. They can now read most of the words in books, magazines, or newspapers of average complexity.
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They can certainly read most of the words in this paragraph. Students in Level II concentrate more on reading to learn than
learning to read. Although reading fluency and versatility is still practiced, the greater emphasis now is on interpretation and comprehension. The student also needs to continue building his reading vocabulary so that he can recognize the thousands of less frequently used words and thereby get the full meaning of adult reading material.
The significance of this reading level cannot be overstated. In the early literacy campaigns, students were often brought to this level and then abandoned before it was completed. Experience has shown that this often meant regression to complete illiteracy. A student whose reading ability has not reached the end of the second stage cannot cope with ordinary newspapers and magazines and cannot derive sufficient meaning or satisfaction from books. Consequently, he does not practice reading and soon loses the skill entirely from disuse.
Upon reaching Level II, the student can be weaned away from textbooks and heavy dependence on the teacher. He is ready (and should be encouraged) to work independently on reading of his own choosing. He should be guided in selecting books which he can read for pleasure or information. Since he is now reading to learn, the teacher should provide the vocational readings he needs and wants. Simplified versions of publications used in vocational training can be prepared by the teacher.
A substantial part of each class period should be set aside for independent reading of this kind. Students should be encouraged to share their enthusiasm for favorite parts of their reading in oral reports to the class. But written book reports should never be required since they tend to replace-and often obliterate- the student's own motivation for reading. The same can be said for outside reading and homework which should also be avoided.
Whatever the reading matter used, the teacher must keep in mind that the student is not reading in the fullest sense of the word just because he can say the words he sees on the page. Reading can be an automatic response-a kind of reflex action which bypasses the conscious thought processes.
Therefore, work on comprehension must go hand in glove with work on vocabulary building. The student must learn to look for and grasp the main ideas, major and minor details, inferred meanings, and abstract thoughts in a selection. He must learn to follow directions, and to accustom himself to writing which has a
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higher density of information and a lower density of concrete examples than the materials at Level I.
For example, the student in the introductory stage would be reading at a fairly low level of difficulty and density: "There is a bird. It is blue. It is beautiful. It is sitting on the tree. The tree is bent. The wind bent the tree." By the second level, the student should be able to grasp the meaning in a denser, more telescoped sentence: "The beautiful blue bird is sitting on the tree which was bent by the wind."
Even when an adult's reading vocabulary and fluency are sufficient to qualify him for the next level of instruction, he should not be moved on until he can comprehend fully the meaning of the readings at his present level.
The adult who has reached Level III, the intermediate stage, is in the transitional stage between the world of special reading materials and the real world of publications written for the general adult population. He is no longer learning to read, and he is not restricted to reading to learn. He is ready to learn to read with ease and enjoyment almost anything for almost any purpose.
He has a reading vocabulary of many thousand words and is familiar with most of the reading skills. What he needs now is more fluency, speed, practice, and wider experience with different kinds of writing. Having acquired the ability to use reading as a tool for gaining new information, he must now improve his fluency and comprehension to the point where he can use it as a tool for further learning-for self-study and for acquiring new skills.
To give the student the reading power he needs at this stage, the teacher should guide him in reading both widely and deeply. He should be familiar with most of the books in the library so that he will have a wide range of experience with different types of publications. At the same time, his reading skills should serve his personal needs and interests more specifically. He should be encouraged to search for greater depth of meaning in writings about his own occupational or other interests. The student can also be urged to bring reading matter on his favorite subjects to class.
Some of the student's efforts can now be directed toward developing greater sensitivity to nuances of style and meaning. He can become aware of the literary quality of writing by becoming acquainted with literary devices and forms. His discovery of style, pace, rhythm, alliteration, and tone should suggest to him that
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writing can be music as well as speech. To improve his comprehension of the subtle, the abstract, and
even the sly use of words, he must be guided in seeking deeper and more exact meanings. He can learn to recognize devices which persuade or delude, and to recognize the impact of his own preconceptions on what he reads. The student will thus emerge from Level III willing and able to extract a maximum amount of pleasure and knowledge from the printed page. In the process, he has not only matured in his ability to read, but in his ability to think.
By now the student has reached the developmental stage. He is a reader, not one who can read. He is ready to be abandoned by the reading instructor because he has become truly literate, and can develop his reading power and speed on his own. Having reached this stage of functional literacy, he is not likely to retrogress. He will be busy pursuing his special interest, satisfying his curiosities, building his knowledge, and just relaxing with newspapers, some magazines, many books.
Methods of Teaching Reading
There are five basic reading methods which can be used in teaching adults. It will come as no surprise to most teachers that all have their merits in certain situations, but none is applicable to all students at all levels. The eclectic approach is best-a judicious mixture of methods and techniques served in individual doses by a flexible, sensitive teacher who knows the advantages of each.
The textbook and workbook are probably most familiar to elementary school teachers. Research strongly supports their use in teaching children because they present vocabulary and skills in an orderly, related way. But little research has been conducted on the relative merits of any materials for teaching adults. Experience has shown, however, that many textbooks written for adults seem to cover too much material in too little time. This suggests that the teacher will do well to avoid relying exclusively on texts or workbooks. Instead, several adult texts on the same readability level may be used in combination with other types of teaching materials such as programmed instruction, reading kits, and audio-visual aids.
A good supplement to the textbook or other core material is
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material written by students the'tllselves. Drawing on their own experiences, adults are asked to ~ll stories or anecdotes, either individually or as a group. The teacner becomes both secretary and editor. She helps students select appropriate words and structures the story while she writes it down on the board or on a chart. The class observes how the words in the story are written and learns to read it. An anthology of these stories can be typed (in many cases the students do the typing) and bound for use at another time or by another class.
Other techniques can be used, such as preparation of a classroom newspaper, but the essence of this approach is to prepare materials which are on the student's vocabulary and interest level. Their involvement in the process will be a source of pride which is particularly significant at the introductory level.
Once the student has progressed to the end of Level I, he can be taught effectively with materials of his own choosing. This individualized approach can be used exclusively or in combination with a standard textbook and workbook. It requires a well-endowed classroom library filled with publications classified according to level of readability. Publishers' catalogs list a wide variety of reading materials for adults reading on Levels I and II.
The teacher helps each student to select a book, being careful to steer him to books on his independent reading level since much of his reading will be done without her help. However, the teacher should be available to help with the more difficult words, and should schedule regular conferences with each student to diagnose his weaknesses and help him overcome them.
Perhaps the ultimate in individualized instruction is good programmed materials. Programmed instruction allows students to teach themselves and to progress at their own rate. It is designed to let the student know immediately whether his response is right or wrong, and is programmed to keep wrong answers at a minimum.
In spite of the obvious advantages of this kind of personalized instruction, programmed instruction cannot and should not be expected to replace a teacher. For educational and psychological reasons, this method should not be used exclusively. Instead, the free time gained by the teacher should be used to give tailor-made personal instruction to individual students.
The packaged program and the reading laboratory are two other products of educational technology. While both offer a wide variety of materials in an attempt to be comprehensive, it is
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doubtful that any standardized program can accurately reflect the interest range and requirements of any class. Again, technology has by no means replaced the teacher, although it may give her substantial assistance.
The packaged programs put out by various companies consist of different combinations of materials for teaching reading, such as film strips, teaching machines, and classroom libraries. Reading laboratories, on the other hand, consist solely of written materials and are, in effect, carefully chosen classroom libraries. They usually consist of 50-200 readings on a variety of subjects, color coded by readability level. They can be used by the class as a group or by individuals in independent work. Each of the units includes exercises for developing reading skills.
Regardless of which materials are used and how they are combined, each classroom must have an adequate library, amply stocked with reading materials on several grade levels. An adequate library for an average ABE class should contain at least 150 books, several carefully selected reading laboratories, and additional materials prepared by the teacher.
Preparing and Simplifying Materials
Since preparing supplementary material is often a necessity at Level I-and a good idea at any stage-it might be well to discuss here some techniques for devising and evaluating it. In order to create material on her own or choose wisely from available writings, the teacher must be familiar with the factors which make writing readable. She should also know how different levels of readability can be achieved or determined.
A readable book at any level has an appropriately large typeface, generous amounts of space between lines and in the margins, uncoated paper (to avoid glare), adult illustrations, and deals with subjects which are of interest to adults. There should be variety in the length of sentences and paragraphs, as well as sentence structure. The book should be long enough to allow for repetition of words, and provisions should be made for drill. Units of the book should be related in content, and should allow for expansion into projects by the students.
Factors which affect the ease of reading at different levels include the relative difficulty of the words, the number of new
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words introduced per hundred words, sentence length, number of different words used, density and abstractness of ideas, and the size of the typeface used. Two formulas have been developed which take these factors into account and translate them into a readability level.
These are the Graded Reading Difficulty Work Sheet (Garrard Press), and the Smith-Wheeler Readability Formula (Reading Clinic, Florida State University). After a little practice, it will take only about 10 minutes to apply these formulas. With further experience they will not be needed at all. When using them keep in mind that teacher judgment is a necessary supplement to readability formulas. The formulas are not perfect.
When preparing supplementary material, begin by outlining its objective-i.e., what skills is it intended to teach? Keep in mind, too, the learning objectives of the student. The narrative should be written in an informal style, using conversation whenever possible. The characters in a story should corne from a social and economic group similar to that of the students, and the plot should deal with something which is significant to them.
Unless a teacher is very experienced in writing original material, she will find it easiest to first write the selection in her natural style. She can then simplify it, shortening and breaking up overly long sentences, and substituting easy words for difficult ones. She can consult The Teacher's Word Book of 30,000 Words (Bureau of Publications, Teacher's College, Columbia University), or A Core Vocabulary (Educational Developmental Laboratories) to find the grade level of the words she is using or to find substitutes for difficult words.
Finally, the teacher should check the material with a readability formula, and then try it out on adults whose reading level is known, making revisions wherever they are needed.
Another method of devising reading materials is to simplify existing material. This method is particularly useful for making available to students factual material about vocations or other special interests which the teacher could not easily compile herself. She need not worry about violating copyright laws unless she quotes verbatim large sections of someone else's writing. (In this case, permission from the author should be obtained.) But it is not a violation of copyright laws to use the information which someone else has gathered and express it in simplified terms. Not the information but the way in which it is written is copyrighted.
When simplifying material, guard against oversimplifying to
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the point of being childish or patronizing. One of the readability formulas should be applied to make sure the job has not been overdone. (The Garrard work sheet will also be useful for finding words at the desired reading level.) The finished version should be checked in the same way as original material, to determine reading ease and suitability to the reading level for which it is intended.
How Long Does it Take to Learn?
Various claims have been made on this subject by proponents of one method of teaching or another. However, none of these claims is realistic. While ideally students should be separated according to their reading levels, in practice teachers can expect to have students on all three levels. Each student will have different abilities, different potentials, different objectives, and will have his own best way of learning.
On top of that, each student's progress depends also on the learning conditions in the class and in his home, his listening ability, the amount of effort he expends on outside practice, his general intelligence, the teacher's ability, and the size of the group. Doubtless there are many more variables which could be listed.
But one overqualified generalization is possible which may give the teacher a starting poin t for making her own predictions. Experience has shown that the majority of adults with good listening ability who are taught in a small group will move through each of the three levels in 150 to 250 teaching hours.
In any case, regardless of the time it takes, learning to read and communicate is the primary purpose of the ABE student. Teaching communication is therefore the primary purpose of the ABE program.
This chapter will be only an introduction to the subject for those who are teaching basic education for the first time. For more intensive study of the ABE reading program, a list of references follows. The new teacher will find that she cannot be too expert at teaching reading. It is the core of the basic education program, and all other aspects of the program depend on its success.
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Suggested Readings
Anderson, Clarence A. "In Adult Basic Reading Programs, Are We Teaching Students or Systems?" Adult Leadership, XVI, No.5 (November, 1967), 179-181.
Cirriculum Guide for Adult Basic Education. Atlanta: Georgia State Department of Education, 1966.
McKee, John M., et al. Improving the Reading Level of Disadvantaged Adults. Manpower Development and Training Act Vocational Experimental-Demonstration Project, Draper Correctional Center. Elmore, Alabama. (Undated.) (Mimeographed.)
Mitzel, M. Adele. "The Functional Reading Word List for Adults." Adult Education, XVI, No.2 (Winter, 1966),67-69.
Smith, Edwin H. An Annotated Bibliography of Instructional Literacy A1aterials for Adult Basic Education. Tallahassee: Florida State Department of Education, 1965.
Smith Edwin H., et al. Specific Techniques for Teaching Reading. Tallahassee: Florida State Department of Education, October, 1965.
Smith, Edwin H., and Mason, George E. Teaching Reading in Adult Basic Education. Tallahassee: Florida State Department of Education, December, 1965.
Summers, Edward G. "Adult Basic Education: A New Dimension in Reading?" Adult J,eadership, XV, No.1 (May, 1966), 2-4 and 25-28.
Thorndike, Edward L. and Lorge, I rving. The Teacher's Word Book of 30,000 Words. New York: Columbia University, 1944.
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There are two ways to teach mathematics. One is to take real pains toward creating understanding-visual aids, that sort of thing. The other is the old British system of teach ing until you're blue in the face.
-James R. Newman
VIII Teaching Arithmetic
The disadvantaged person whose mathematical ability depends entirely on his 10 fingers is as embarrassed about disclosing his ignorance as the person who cannot read or write. But the person who cannot do arithmetic has an additional reason for not admitting it-he does not want to be cheated in money transactions.
Thirty years ago, when adult illiteracy was more prevalent, the poor and illiterate were all too frequently victimized by store-keepers and salesmen. They therefore developed some elaborate schemes for protecting themselves, many of which are still useful today. They would buy in each store at anyone time only a limited amount of merchandise, so that the total cost added up to an amount of money they could count to. They paid for it in amounts which were close enough to that total so that counting the change was no problem.
Since budgeting or adding and subtracting long lists of figures "were beyond them, they budgeted their money by buying the most necessary items first. If enough money was left over after they had purchased the flour and the meal, they bought some side meat for seasoning. Then, if there was still some change left, it would be used for cigarettes or sweets.
Many of these methods are still in use today, because the uneducated person still faces the same problems of surviving in a world where some knowledge of arithmetic is essential. And these methods still work. Regardless of how he does it, any adult who has handled money for years will learn to count change and do
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simple problems in addition or subtraction. He may not be able to write, add a column of numbers, or even explain how he gets the answers, but he does get the answers and they are almost always right.
This kind of background in the sink-or-swim variety of arithmetic makes teaching easier for the teacher and learning easier for the student. The teacher will not have to start from scratch, as she often does in the communications skills, and the student will begin his work with the reassuring knowledge that he knows more than he thought he did about arithmetic.
The General Approach to Teaching Arithmetic
Arithmetic is best taught by following the same general rules that apply to teaching all aspects of the ABE curriculum. These five commandments of good teaching can be briefly restated as follows:
* teach what the student wants and needs to know * tie in lessons is communication and other subjects with the
arithmetic lessons
* use a variety of appropriate materials * begin instruction where the student's knowledge leaves off * teach by means of concrete, useful examples
In arithmetic, teaching what the student wants to know means showing the women in the class how to measure for sewing patterns, double a recipe, or put together the right amounts for the baby's formula. Practically every operation in the home be it cooking, sewing, or cleaning-requires some knowledge of arithmetic today. (Anyone who has ever put more than the required 2/3 cup of detergent in the washing machine has probably found out that those directions on the box are worth following.)
Teaching the art and science of measuring to the disadvantaged person may, however, require some preliminary discussion to convince members of the class that this kind of precision is worthwhile. The person who has grown up cooking with a pinch of this and a pinch of that may see no reason at first for being
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more precise about it. And the woman who has always used "about that much" bleach in her clothes may not realize that an overdose can dramatically shorten the life of her clothes. In other words, some homemaking education may be in order to acquaint the housewives in the class with the more scientific approach to products on the market today, whose manufacturers mean what they say in their directions on the box.
The men in the class will probably want to know how to weigh, measure, and compute things which deal with their jobs. However, it may be necessary to combine some consumer education and financial education in money management to make them aware of things they should know.
An introduction into the tangled world of credit, loans, carrying charges, and hidden costs may awaken new insights into the usefulness of simple arithmetic. Budgeting, banking, and comparison shopping are other useful concepts which mayor may not be suggested by members of the class.
Although banks today are bending over backwards to dispel the notion that they are an exclusive service for the wealthy, most disadvantaged people still feel hesitant about walking into a bank, regardless of how folksy the decor and advertising have tried to make it seem. If they did go in, they would not likely be found chatting with the vice-president about a loan, or about which form of checking account would be best for them. The ABE teacher may be their first contact with impartial information on money management.
Insurance, too, will be a useful subject for discussion and for teaching arithmetic. It is a lucrative field for those who prey upon the fears and misinformation of the poor. Many are paying small amounts weekly for insurance which they do not need (at least, they would be better off spending their limited funds on another type of insurance), and for which they are paying a great deal when the small payments are all added together. Since they are often afraid to approach the more formal offices of reputable insurance salesmen, they will tend toward the mail order or door-to-door variety which seldom offers a bargain. j The arithmetic of the paycheck is another area which will be important to most members of the class. Students want and need to learn computations involving their paychecks, including both the arithmetic and the purpose of deductions. Social security, medicare, and income taxes are subjects of general interest for discussion as well as being practical arithmetic problems. A pie
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chart showing how the students' tax dollar is spent can double as an example of how percentages are used and arrived at. Closely allied to the arithmetic of the pay check is the arithmetic of budgeting, which may be an entirely novel concept to some or a mysterious one to others in the class.
The field of consumer education is one in which even the middle-class college graduate can use some help these days. In spite of the more stringent packaging and labeling laws which have been enacted recently, comparison shopping still requires more slide-rule computations than it should. If two bottles @ 16 fluid ounces each cost 89, and one bottle containing one pint 4% ounces costs 67, which is the better buy? Or if 15 cans cost one dollar, how much are six cans?
The teacher has a good opportunity here to teach, in addition to the arithmetic involved, some of the precautions consumers must exercise to avoid being confused by manufacturers' claims, packaging techniques, or pricing policies. Unfortunately, advertising claims for miracle ingredients which claim impossible results will be most successful with the uneducated whose gullibility is a mixture of ignorance and hope. But they are the ones who can least afford to be deceived by that inert extra ingredient or that oversized box which contains 3 ounces less merchandise than its standard-size competitor.
In short, communication skills and general information must and should be an integral part of the arithmetic program. This is true partly because pure arithmetic is difficult to teach and more difficult to understand or apply. In addition, the ability to weigh, measure, and count is meaningless if the student does not know what and why to weigh, measure, and count. There is, after all, little point in being able to count your change correctly if you are purchasing a bottle of snake oil to remove warts.
Methods of Teaching Arithmetic
Since the ABE program is geared to teaching adults what is important and useful to them, the teaching of arithmetic must be as individualized and practical as teaching in the rest of the curriculum. And since nothing in the ABE program should be presented in isolated units, the teaching of arithmetic must also be a part of communication training and general education for life.
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Just as reading lessons also become listening, speaking and subject matter lessons, the arithmetic lesson should be part of a large unit of instruction. It may be the point of emphasis, but it should not be taught as an abstract, isolated skill.
The methods used to accomplish this integrated learning are the same as those used in teaching reading and other skills. Concentrate on one area~such as shopping or measuring-choosing that area which has most interest for the students. Start out with selected readings on that subject, followed by discussion and writing. When the arithmetic of the subject is explained, it will have been preceded by understanding and a heightened interest in mastering it. Use materials like coins which students are already familiar with, and other concrete examples which are or should be part of their daily lives.
Teach the mathematical realities of daily life by showing adults how to arrive at the correct answer to a practical problem. The concept behind this procedure is a confusing, extraneous part of the lesson which need not enter into the initial learning process. After some exposure to concrete examples, the concepts will become self-evident to the student anyway, even if they are not identified and labeled by the teacher.
The use of concrete examples allows students to learn from the specific to the general, and permits them to use many of their senses in the learning process. It also undergirds their motivation, by answering questions they want answered or teaching them to solve the kinds of problems they meet in everyday life.
Within the framework of a unit of instruction, many skills and facts are brought into play, and each can be geared to the level of all participating students. Computations in a unit on money managemen t or consumer education can vary in complexity, from simple addition for the beginner to compound interest for those who are further advanced.
Teaching Materials
As in every other aspect of the ABE program, a variety of materials should be used, concentrating on those which are concrete and familiar items in daily life. Textbook and workbook publishers are anxious to sell their products to teachers who may , march their students in unison from one arithmetic concept to the
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next. Obviously this technique is a far cry from the individual,

practical instruction which is required in adult classes and should

be avoided at all cost. On the other hand, if appropriate pages

from workbooks on different levels of difficulty can be distributed

to individual students, the workbook does have a limited place in

arithmetic teaching just as it does in the communication program.

Finding or designing materials for teaching arithmetic should

not be a strain on the imagination because so many everyday

articles can be used. A pocket full of change can, by itself, be the

source of hours of instruction in addition, subtraction, multiplica-

tion, division, percentages, decimals, and fractions, plus the

broader concepts of money management and consumer education.

The advantage of beginning instruction with coins is that, as

mentioned previously, the adult already knows how to use them.

Although most students will deny knowing anything about

mathematical concepts and skills, they will be surprised to find

out that they do, in fact, know a great deal about them. A unit of

instruction can be worked out where coins are used to express

abstract concepts, and in no time at all the class will be

comfortably working with the idea of fractions, decimals, and

percentages, as well as addition and subtraction.

A simple coin chart similar to the following can be used.

Common

Coin

Decimal

Percentage

Fraction

one cent-penny

.01

5 cents-nickel

.05

10 cents~dime

.10

25 cents-quarter

.25

50 cents-half dollar

.50

1%

1/100

5%

5/100

10%

10/100

25%

25/100

50%

50/100

Materials which have to do with the teaching of weights and measures are also easy to come by: rulers, tape measures, measuring cups and spoons, a food or baby scale, road maps, and recipes cut out from newspapers. Newspapers are also a plentiful source of materials for teaching the computational skills used in shopping as well as the broader knowledge needed to be an intelligent consumer. Advertisements can be the raw materials for grocery lists made by students, and for discussions of credit buying and comparison shopping.
Banks are often happy to furnish checks and information about their other banking services, such as loans, savings accounts,
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and Christmas Clubs.(It might be well, incidentally, to point out to the class that money deposited regularly in a savings account would earn interest, whereas the popular Christmas Club plan does not.) Banks might be a source of information about buying cars and major appliances on the installment plan. They often have charts showing how interest accrues on savings accounts and how sales tax is computed. Sales tax tables may also be available from supermarkets or other retail stores.
Blank budget forms and simple forms for keeping track of small business expenses can probably be provided by private accounting firms or agricultural extension services. While most teachers will not find themselves teaching bookkeeping, some very elementary procedures for recording expenses may be taught for the benefit of homemakers as well as owners of small grocery stores and other one-man businesses who often use their pockets as a cash register.
Pay checks can be provided by the students themselves, as can register receipts from supermarkets and sales tickets from other stores. These can be used to explain the benefits as well as the arithmetic involved in figuring sales tax, social security, and federal and state withholding taxes.
Local insurance companies may be able to provide information which will help to explain the types of policies available and how they work. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Internal Revenue Service can also be called upon for information or guest speakers. The Chamber of Commerce is often glad to furnish information about deceptive practices by fly-by-night merchants who prey on the more gullible citizens in the community. Information about other malpractices by merchants will be availabe from the federal government's consumer information bulletins and the Consumer's Union, publisher of Consumer Reports. The latter publication, which contains impartial ratings of products, may be the students' first encounter with a source of unbiased information about the things they buy.
All things considered, the student's prior knowledge that there are four quarters in a dollar will go a long way toward making the study of arithmetic a relatively easy task. It will also be an interesting, rewarding task if the teacher continues to focus her instruction on the arithmetic of daily life, and continues to teach arithmetic as only one of the many skills and talents needed by her students in their efforts to live a decent life in a complex world.
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Suggested Readings A Date With Your Future: Money Management for the Young
Adult. Institute of Life Insurance, Educational Division. New York: Health Insurance Institute, 1968. Adult Basic Education: A Guide for Teachers and Teacher Trainers. Washington, D.C.: The National Association for Public School Adult Education, May, 1966. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Office of Education. Bureau of Adult and Vocational Education. Curriculum Guide to Adult Basic Education. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Office of Education. The Low Achiever in Mathematics, by Lauren G. Woodby. Bulletin 1965, No. 31. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965.
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The close observer soon discovers that the teacher's task is not to implant facts but to place the subject to be learned in front of the learner and, through sympathy, emotion, imagination, and patience, to awaken in the learner the restless drive for answers and insights which enlarge the personal life and give it meaning.
-Nathan Pusey
IX Materials for Learning and Teaching
When the goal of literacy training was learning to read the Bible, selection of materials posed no problem. The task dictated the materials to be used, and the materials used reflected the purpose of the task. This simple equation is still true today. But today adult educators are reaching out beyond literacy and reading the Bible. Their task is clearly a more abitious one, and calls for an entirely different set of tools.
Everything we know about the goals of adult education, as well as the goals of the adult student, has implications for the .selection of teaching materials. The goals of adult basic education, for instance, dictate that a wide variety of subject matter must be taught through the materials students use to learn basic skills. And what we know about the undereducated adult suggests that the material must be practical, relevant to here and now situations, and suited to individual interests and abilities.
Finally, common sense tells us that reading materials should be chosen with the same care we take when we choose books for friends. We take into account their age, sex, occupation, hobbies, reading level, and all the social and geographic factors of their lives. Then, when we make a choice, we choose the book that will be hardest to put down.
Obviously, choosing educational materials for an entire class will require a substantial investment of knowledge, patience, and time on the part of the teacher. It is her job to sort out the many
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A variety of books and reading materials should be provided for students on all reading levels.
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requirements posed by her course and her students, and to try to apply them to the materials available.
There are two short-cuts which have been and may still be used. A few school systems have adopted a certain set of materials for system-wide use, while some teachers use one basic text for their classes. Unfortunately, both of these short-cuts represent short routes to disaster rather than education. No one book or set of materials could possibly be profitable to every member of a class, no less a whole school system.
This chapter, then, is a guide to the longer, more arduous route: the process of selecting, re-evaluating, and creating materials for the disadvantaged adult student.
It might be germane here to define the rather large and loose word "materials" as used in this chapter. It is intended to mean, in general, any object or device which will aid the teacher or the student. More specifically, it encompasses the more formal teaching tools (such as readings ranging from one page to book form), audio-visual and other equipment, and programmed instruction form workbooks to teaching machines. The definition of materials also takes in those impromptu devices which are sele-:ted or prepared by the teacher. These would range from tax forms to toothbrushes, from maps to measuring cups-as far as the teacher's ingenuity permits.
Perhaps the most logical way of choosing materials would be to look first at the materials already available on the market, choose the best of these, and then balance and supplement them with materials which the teacher collects or prepares herself. Since the materials available for adults are quite often inappropriate for elementary reading levels (Levell) and not necessarily in tune with the special interests of adults at higher reading levels, total reliance on commerical materials will hardly ever be the best course.
Choosing from Published Materials
In the early days of adult education, students used reading materials created for children. Occasionally the cover was changed and the word "adult" was substituted for the designation "fourth grade." For many reasons already discussed, this procedure was less than adequate. Many readers contain stories which seem inane to a child, no less a full-blown adult.
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As time went on and the demand for truly adult material grew, pioneer efforts at creating readings for adults were made. Outstanding among these was the Reader's Digest's First Patrol Series-booklets which dealt with adult subjects on a third or fifth grade level and are still in use today.
There were, unfortunately, also publishers who leaped on the adult education bandwagon with gimmicky materials geared to questionable methods of teaching reading. Most of these have disappeared, but teachers should remain alert to the possibility that publishers still exist who put forth untried schemes for teaching reading. In fact, every publisher's materials reflects that firm's particular bias or view regarding teaching, and his offerings should be examined with that fact in mind.
Of all the published materials available today, the wisest choice for teaching reading will be one of the series of so-called supplemental reading materials (also called reading laboratories). They encompass a wide range of adult subject matter, including social studies and science, and are graded for reading level. These series of publications are varied enough to be interesting and appropriate to individual members of the class, and fulfill the requirement of teaching subject matter while teaching reading.
Relatively little skill is required to use them, but it will take some experience to learn to use them to the best advantage. Although their initial cost is high, they last a long time. The only perishable items involved are the comprehension tests which students write on. But these can be duplicated if they are not copyrighted and used over again.
In any case, a variety of books and other readings, coded according to reading difficulty, should be provided for students on all reading levels. In addition, at least 10 books per student should be available for supplementary reading.
While textbooks or workbooks may be suitable to some teaching situations, they should be chosen carefully and used judiciously in small doses. Those which are childish or contain a disproportionate number of rote exercises and drills will not measure up to adult education standards. Furthermore, they will remind the adult student of the more discouraging aspects of his childhood schooling which he failed and which failed him.
Workbooks specifically designed for adults do have their place in the adult classroom if they are used properly. They do contain useful exercises for students at all levels, and do give the teacher free time for personalized insturction.
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When using workbooks, the teacher should tear out the particular pages which each student will work on, instead of handing out the workbooks themselves. This method prevents the student from knowing (and perhaps worrying about) the exercises ahead that he cannot now do. It also gives him a small unit of work to do, which is more manageable and more satisfying than the sight of a book full of work to be done.
A new kind of workbook for adult students has been designed to provide programmed instruction by means of self-testing devices. Material is presented in small sequential steps, moving gradually from basic knowledge to more difficult concepts. Using some technique to cover up the answers on the page, the student responds to the questions or choices given and then checks to see if he is right or wrong. If he is right, he goes on to the next problem. If wrong, he goes on to another set of choices which attempt to reteach him through alternate approached.
This type of programmed instruction may be the hope of the future. It has all the advantages of self-teaching methods: the student moves ahead at his own rate, he does not compete with others, and it gives the teacher free time to work with individuals.
But at the present time, this hope has not yet ripened into reality. While the concept itself is a good one, it is largely unexplored, and the techniques for carrying it out have not yet become sophisticated or helpful enough. Many of the programs which have thus far been worked out fall short of being either adequate or interesting to adults. In addition, while many skills can be programmed for adults who can read on a third grade level or higher, so far the technique offers little for those who are just beginning to read.
More information about materials and their relationship to methods of teaching will be found in the chapter on teaching reading. But one last observation should be made here about published materials, Books chosen for reading aloud to the students, especially those in the throes of learning to read, should be picked for their ability to captivate an audience. They must be convincing examples of the fact that books are a joy, and reading them is a delight reserved for those who take the trouble to learn. (One teacher got this point across successfully when he read The Old Man and the Sea to a spellbound class.)
Further information about materials is available from the National Association of Public School Adult Educators (NAPSAE) which publishes books and periodicals for teachers. Among these
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is Teaching Tips, a newsletter which often contains bibliographies and other helpful ideas about materials. Initial screening of publications can also be made easier by use of an annotated bibliography such as those in the bibliography at the end of this chapter and the chapter on reading.
Selecting Educational Hardware
Although educational technology is not quite in step with space technology, a creditable number of specialized machines for learning and teaching have been put on the market in recent years. Ever since federal, state, and local funds have become available for purchasing educational hardware, manufacturers have responded with all sorts of electronic and electric devices.
While many of these are either unnecessary, limited in usefullness, or still in the experimental stages, in general adult education has profited from this new trend. Experimental media centers are already in operation, staging a rehersal of the ABE teaching program of the future.
It is entirely possible that we will one day have media centers for adult basic education where language is taugat through taped programs much like foreign languages are taught today. We may have cognative subjects taught with the help of computers and video taped lesson by master teachers. Only those highly personal and individual aspects of the ABE program which elude the technologists will be handled by teachers and counselors.
It seems reasonable enough to assume, though, that education will always be the province of the skilled teacher, regardless of the amount of technological assistance she has at her command. This is certainly true today when much of the educational hardware is still being perfected.
There is on the market, for example, a kind of hybrid tape j recorder called the Language Master. It is used mainly for teaching
speech sounds with prepared tapes. The student hears the sound and repeats it as well as he can. His response is recorded on the tape and can be replayed so that the student can compare it with the programmed tape. The student's responses can be erased without damaging the programmed material, and the tape can be used over and over again. The same procedure is possible using a lesson taped by the teacher.
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The video tape recorder is another exciting new device which has much promise for the future. In essence it is a miniature television station one self-contained unit which includes both the camera and the screen. Until now it has been used mostly for teacher training. But it will have practical use in ABE classrooms when the quality of the picture is improved, the cost is reduced, and master teaching programs are prepared in sufficient quantity.
The number of machines for students and teachers is growing daily. Many are universally useful, many are good only for individual instruction, and some are not useful at all. In the latter category are those which require more than a third grade reading competency to understand the instructions and benefit from the program, or those machines which do not offer a good selection of programs.
Caveat emptor is a good general rule. Perhaps it should become the role of the state departments of education to buy, field test, and demonstrate new equipment so that individual low-budget programs could make purchases with less risk. In the meantime, each teacher will have to investigate carefully. She must assess the value of each piece of equipment by its initial cost, the cost of maintenance, and its effectiveness, and match this against the cost and effectiveness of alternate methods.
At present, the old stand-bys are still the best value for each equipment dollar the overhead projector, tape recorder, 16mm movie projector, and record player. The overhead projector is particularly versatile and is a must for any ABE classroom. Teachers who have learned to prepare and mount overlays can flash clippings or any other prepared materials on the screen or wall. Tape recorders are a valuable asset in teaching disadvantaged adults to speak and understand good English. Pretaped materials are available, and many are helpful.
Collecting and Preparing Materials
If necessity is the mother of invention, imagination may well be the father. Most teachers will find the necessity for inventing their own materials and, perhaps to their own suprise, will soon find they also have the ingenuity to provide it. In most cases, the teacher need only turn a sensitive ear and an observing eye toward her class to see what materials her students need and want to work
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with. Most students know only too will what they want to learn or read, or they would not be in the class at all.
Perhaps the main points to remember in choosing or designing materials are that the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic should always be taught via something the student wants to know, or ought to know. Look at the current, the concrete, the timely, the practical, and the close at hand. Do not shy away from the unorthodox if it will do the job. If the reading materials that would fill the bill are too difficult for the group, rewrite them in simplified form as described in Chapter VII.
Even the most outstanding examples of published materials will never be up-to-date and personal enough to tell the student what he really wants to know today. And certainly arithmetic, that most abstract of sciences, is best taught by means of concrete, useful examples. It is therefore the teacher's responsibility to supplement or even replace commercial materials with items of current value and individual importance to students.
What might be called the pack-rat technique is a useful way of accumulating materials day by day. As items are added to the teacher's collection, it may begin to resemble a little boy's top drawer, so there should be some effort at categorizing the contents. Items may be coded and filed by subject, readability level, and any other helpful designation. Some may be duplicated for class use.
What sorts of items should be collected? Some of the current materials and concrete objects which teachers have found useful include: household objects such as measuring cups and spoons for teaching science or math (especially weights and measurement); checkbooks; city and county maps; tax forms; pamphlets from drug companies about prenatal or child care; election ballots; play food; cosmetic kits; and even old telephone directories, to name just a few.
One ABE coordinator collected several hundred old telephone books when the new books came out and used these as the class text in a city wide program. By looking up different names, students learned how to use a dictionary. The yellow pages were an endless source of information about the community. Students learned about the services of different businesses and government agencies, learned where the health department was located, and even discovered the library.
Teachers have long realized that the local newspaper is v irtually a cornucopia of teaching materials. Often free copies can
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be obtained for each member of the class. Shopping lists can be made from the food advertisements-a practical way of teaching nutrition, mathematics and writing. Recipes, too, offer practical arithmetic problems as well as good homemaking advice. Fractions, decimals, ounces, and dollars spring to life when they are discussed in terms of quarter pounds of butter or comparisons of two cans of peas at different prices.
Want ads, articles on local politics, advertisements, speeches on important local or national issues all these are found in the newspaper ready to be read, discussed, and used to teach various subjects. For students with little reading ability, articles in newspapers (magazines are a good source, too) may have to be rewritten by the teacher and presented in a simplified version. This will also be necessary, in some cases, when informative pamphlets from business, industry, or government are used as teaching materials.
Local small town weeklies have the double advantage of being easy to read and appealing to the students. Or, the teacher may wish to subscribe to News for You, a weekly newspaper published especially for ABE students on two reading levels by the Syracuse University Press. In many programs the students will find the Grit Newspaper a status symbol and they will want to subscribe to it.
Creating a Balanced Inventory of Materials
Somewhere there is probably a teacher of such high calibre that she can teach without any materials at all. Next in line would be her creative colleague who can ignore the publishers and the educational technologists entirely by relying solely on her own collection of materials. The great majority of ABE teachers, however, will probably be in the third category-they will take advantage of whatever teaching aids are available and use them to best advantage.
Ideally, the teacher will employ many kinds of materials on different subjects and from diverse sources. Her classroom will have a plentiful supply of readings for every reading level; at least one reading laboratory; a tape recorder and an overhead projector; and she will have access to a filmstrip projector and a 16mm projector.
She will try to get copies of the local newspaper for her class,
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or subscribe to News for You. She will make, borrow, collect, or rewrite materials that seem appropriate, and encourage students to bring in things which interest them. If, in addition to this, the teacher keeps informed of new developments and ideas for teaching materials, she will probably have very few empty moments or empty chairs in her class.
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Suggested Readings Aker, George F. "The Responsibility of the Publisher in Providing
Testing Materials for Adult Basic Education." Normline: Measurement of Progress. Edited by Lois Burrill. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967. Materials and Equipment List for Adult Basic Education. Atlanta: Georgia State Department of Education, 1968. Olsen, James. "Instruction Materials for Functionally Illiterate Adults." Adult Leadership, XIII, No.9 (March, 1965), 275-276 and 305. Puder, William H., and Hand, Samuel E., ed. Frontiers in Adult Basic Education. Tallahassee: The Florida State University, 1966. Summers. Edward G. Materials for Adult Basic Education: An Annotated Bibliography. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University, School of Education, March, 1967.
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Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that noth ing that is worth knowing can be taught.
-Oscar Wilde
It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.
-James Thurber
X Putting the Group Process to Work
Education has taken place in classrooms for so long that most of us have never questioned this traditional method of instruction. If we did, we would probably conclude that teaching groups of people is more convenient and economical than teaching individuals. Besides, where would we find a tutor for each child and adult who wants to learn?
Today, such tutors for individualized instruction are available. Assisted by computers, teaching machines, and all varieties of programmed instruction, adults can be taught individually at media centers (also called learning centers or drop-in centers). Here they pursue an individual program of adult basic education at their own speed at a time and place convenient to them.
Does this mean that the classroom and the teacher will soon be anachronisms? The answer to this is a definite no, and the explanation lies in the advantages of classroom instruction which go beyond mere convenience and economy. The explanation lies partially in the benefits of the group process which operates in a classroom.
What Are the Advantages of Group Learning?
One of the advantages of doing anything in a group-be it
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fighting alcholism or learning shorthand{is that it re<Ulires less self-discipline than learning alone. Put positively, a group cal1 bolster a student's ego and determination to proceed with a task,~ Not too many of us have the grit of an Abraham Lincoln or Eric Hoffer-men who have acquired college educations on their own by a planned and protracted program of reading.
If a group is important to a person, it can exert a tremendous amount of pressure on his behavior. It can egg him on to do better and try harder. For example, changes in students' appearance, manner, or social behavior will occur more quickly in the ABE classroom than if a social worker were to try to change each student's behavior separately.
'A group can also alleviate pressure on an individual by giving
him the feeling that he is not alone-everybody is in the same boat, so to speak. The doubts and anxieties ABE students bring to class with them are strongest at the beginning of the course. But whenever the program presents a new challenge to the student's customary way of thinking and doing, this anxiety reoccurs. A student who is part of a group feels less threatened by new challenges than an individual does because, as he sees it, there's safety in numbers. _
However, just because there are more than three people in a room does not mean that a group is present. A group is a cohesive collection of people who think and work cooperatively. Turning this collection of people in the classroom into a cooperative group is one of the primary functions of the teacher. She is not merely a fountain of knowledge in the classroom, dispensing bits and pieces of information to students. She is there to be a catalyst - to make learning happen as a result of her leadership and her ability to help the group organize learning situations.
This catalytic approach to teaching is the most effective way to transmit subject matter to the students. It will also teach students two concepts which are even more important than the subject matter and which they can learn only by being participating members of a group: it will teach them scientific problem solving and democratic cooperation. Learning to think clearly and act democratically may be the biggest lessons the ABE program has to offer. .
Students will not learn logic or democratic behavior from being told that these are fine attributes. They will learn them from imitating the teacher's examples and practicing them in a democratic group. This means that the teacher should be an expert
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at and believer in scientific and democratic methods. It also means that her most important task is to help students accept these methods and use them.
To do this she will have to know how to t11rn the individual members of the class into a group, lead this group democratically, and get each member of the group to participate. A participating member of a democratic group stands the best chance of learning subject matter and of having his ideas and attitudes changed. So the teacher who is an adroit democratic group leader is actually killing four birds with one stone: she is teaching democratic values, teaching students to think for themselves, teaching subject matter, and changing attitudes.
How Do You Teach Individuals in a Group?
Up to this point we have stressed that knowledge of the student and his aspirations is the key to finding the proper teaching technique at the proper moment, and this is still true. We have stated, too, that individualized instruction is indicated in most classes because of the wide variety of abilities and interests among students. This is also still true. We have added to this some specific suggestions for teaching reading, communications, and arithmetic, all of which still apply.
But the techniques which we will consider now are techniques of social organization for group learning. Individualized instruction within a group is not a contradication in terms. Students do not have to do the same work at the same time in order to derive the benefits of being part of a group, any more than members of a family need to be busy at identical tasks in order to have the feeling of belonging to a family. In fact, a student could be at home or in the hospital while class is in session and still feel a part of the group.
In a democratic group, participation by the members is the essential element. And participation means, in effect, individualized instruction. The student who asks a question he wants answered or expresses his own point of view in a discussion is pursuing his own interests at his own level of ability in his own way.
Since democratic procedure is so vital to good instruction (and good citizenship), democratic techniques are the most successful
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and most desirable ones to use in the ABE classroom. The word "democratic" can be translated into the word "informal," so long as informality does not imply unplanned or chaotic procedure.
Unfortunately, informal or democratic classroom procedure is more demanding of teacher and student than a more structured learning situation. Most of us find it much easier to simply get up and tell students what we want them to know, pausing occasionally to give them time to take notes. Professors have done this since time immemorial, often with the same set of lecture notes.
Students find this structured approach easier too. It requir_es nothing of them, except to sit quietly and look interested (or at least awake). Then, at the end of the week, they simply give back the information given to them during the lecture. The trouble with this procedure is that, while information has moved from teacher to student and back again, very little if any has stayed with the student.
ABE students in particular are at home with the autocratic approach. Most of them will have grown up in families where father or mother ruled supreme and children said nothing contradictory. In their adult lives, they have been on the bottom of the social and job ladders-always being told what to do by the boss, the policeman, the government, and others with power or prestige.
Their lack of confidence in their personal worth and their academic abilities reinforces this subservient attitiude. "Yes, sir," has become a way of life which is hard to change. It is extremely difficult for an ABE student to get up the courage to express any opinion at all, much less to challenge a teacher or fellow student. He prefers to be told, and is prepared to accept as truth anything the teacher might say.
However, it is exactly this attitude which needs to be changed. If a student remains unable to doubt, question, or think things through himself, his ability to read on an eighth-gracre level will do him little good. It is up to the teacher, therefore, to learn to use democratic group procedure in the classroom, and to teach he! students to participate comfortably in this kind of situation.
Each teacher will have to invent her own techniques for bJ;eaking the ice at the beginning of the program. The simple passage of time will have a very good effect in making a group out of quiet (even sullen) isolated individuals sitting in the class. They need time to get used to the surroundings, the teacher, and their classmates.
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Informality of procedure will hasten the process a great deal, especially informal seating arrangements, and an informal, friendly attitude on the part of the teacher. A sense of humor is a wonderful ice-breaker if it comes naturally to the teacher. It would be a mistake, though, to try to be funny or to use the wrong kind of humor, such as sarcasm, biting humor, or frivolous humor.
Another way of breaking the ice is to start with the more formal teaching techniques-the lecture, for example-and gradually wean the class away from the formal approach by encouraging them to ask questions or make comments. There are no rules for getting people out of their shells, although luring them out is usually preferable to dragging them out. The teacher will have to rely on her understanding of human nature to judge whether the lady near the window is secretly waiting for someone to ask her a question or wants to be left alone for the time being.
If the teacher is able to talk briefly with each student at the initial interview or some other time, she will know at least one subject that each is interested in or familiar with. The lady near the window would probably be embarrassed if she were asked, "What do you think about that, Mrs. Jones?" However, she might be induced to reply if the question were rephrased like this: "Has that ever happened in your husband's grocery store, Mrs. Jones?" Mrs. Jones may not trust her own opinion on any general subject, but she may not mind talking about something she knows.
Techniques for Group Teaching
Let us look briefly at some of the ways in which information can be presented to a group, and ways in which students can be involved in the group's activities. The techniques presented here are mentioned only to give the teacher some idea of the variety of presentations which are possible. The fact that a technique is listed here does not necessarily mean that it should be used at all. It means only that it might be useful in certain circumstances, or may be combined with other techniques to achieve the kind of learning situation which seems appropriate. All the techniques listed here should be modified by the insight and aptitude of the teacher, the desires of the students, and the requirements of the situation.
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Generally speaking, most methods of group teaching are some combination of the lecture with discussion. When the class or the subject matter are new, the approach will probably tend toward the formal. When students are more familiar with a topic and each other, informality will probably be more successful. Of course, those techniques which require a great deal of participation by students will have to be used when students are ready and willing to assume this kind of responsibility.
The Lecture
People have always learned by listening to others. Certainly children do. But we know that there are a great many important things which children must prove to themselves by experience or absorb through imitation. It might be said that what a child knows comes from listening, but how a child acts comes largely from imitation and experience.
Adults react in pretty much the same way. A lecture, therefore, is useful for general instructions, for orientation to a subject, for imparting specific facts, for sketching the background for individual work. The lecture is a quick way to cover a great deal of subject matter, and it permits the teacher to single out important points for a class. It is particularly useful in the ABE classroom when students are unable to read well for themselves.
But while a lecture does transfer information, it usually cannot be counted on to bring about changes in behavior, ideas, or attitudes. The lecture may acquaint students with the existence of make-up and deoderants, but it is not likely to convince them to use such grooming aids.
The first rule about using lectures, therefore, is to use them for the purpose for which they are best suited. The second rule is to keep the lecture short-3D minutes is about as much as most groups can profit from, according to some studies.
If a short lecture is the best way to get something across, keep in mind the following suggestions for keeping the class interested:
*organize the lecture well and make your plan of organization tion clear to the group
*then stick to this plan and to your subject *avoid technical language or illustrations which are meaning-
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less to the group *remain sensitive to the response of the class *if you lose your audience, be prepared to change your tactics
Since adults learn best by participation in the learning process, it is best to combine the lecture with some other forms of presentation. These may be sprinkled in between or tacked on to the end of the lecture. Demonstrations and illustrations are excellent ways of awakening and maintaining interest. They have the added advantage of communicating the subject matter through the student's eyes as well as his ears. Illustrations can be examples in words (supplied by teacher or students), or supplied by visual aids. The blackboard, chart, picture, map, film, or simple object are useful in helping to get a point across.
Question and answer periods during or after the lecture help to make the subject under discussion pertinent to each student's interests. And group discussion after a lecture will permit students to apply and think about the information they have learned. In general, then, the lecture is usually a prelude to some kind of individual effort. It should not be an end in itself.
The Discussion
Having a discussion presupposes that the participants are familiar with the topic and with the basic rules and courtesies which must be exercised. When a discussion fails it is usually because no one has anything to say, or a few have too much to say. It is for this reason that discussions are often most successful when they follow lectures, are announced in advance, and take place after the class has had a chance to become a cooperative g.!oup.
When these requirements have been met, a discussion will be a useful technique for clarifying ideas, indentifying problems, reconstructing ideas based on the experiences of students, applying ideas to the personal interests of students, encouraging student participation (for social as well as educational reasons), influencing or changing attitudes and values, reaching group decisions, and developing group plans.
Knowing and respecting the rules for good discussion is in itself an asset to the student. At the same time, the discussion will
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teach him to listen, to express himself, to inquire, to think, to evaluate, to challenge, to disagree, and to see different sides of a problem. A discussion will put his own ideas in perspective and give him a chance to test them on the open market.
The length of discussions should depend on the studen ts' ability and experience in the art of discussion as well as its apparent usefulness. It is better to terminate a discussion too soon (when interest is high) than to wait until it dies a natural death.
The teacher's role in the discussion is a crucial one. He will have to walk a tightrope between too much interference and too little guidance. He will have to do something about the probl~m members of the group until the group itself is ready to handle them. He may also have to work at getting the discussion started or keeping it going until students feel free to express themselves. Sometimes playing the devil's advocate-purposely taking a point of view everyone will disagree with-will get a reticent group or individual going. But the teacher's ultimate goal should be to stay out of the discussion as much as possible, except to steer it in new directions with a delicate hand when this seems advisable.
Variations on the Discussion Technique
Most of the variations of this technique require that the brunt of the discussion be carried by a few speakers or members of the class, with a general discussion or question and answer period following. The symposium, for example, is a method in which three or more people with different points of view discuss a many-sided question. The audience then participates by asking questions of the speakers. The symposium is usually most effective with a large group.
The panel discussion is somewhat less formal than the symposium. In this case, four to eight people who have special knowledge of a topic hold a discussion which illuminates different facets of the topic. Panel members state their views and ask each other questions. A skilled moderator is usually needed to keep one person from dominating the panel. This technique provides an easy transition to audience participation. Students can question panel members at the end of the presentation, or add their own views to those already presented.'!
c
In a debate forum, one speaker argues for and another
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against an issue. This approach requires that the debators are familiar enough with the technique to keep the argument on a factual level and to avoid emotional battles. It is a useful technique for clarifying and sharpening issues if it is followed by questions and comments by the class..
A less formal version of the debate is the forum dialogue which has been made famous on television by interviewers such as Johnny Carson. In this case, two people carryon an informal conversation on a topic. They mayor may not disagree, but they do try to draw each other out. The class is invited to participate when the conversation reaches the peak of interest. In effect, the participants in the dialogue break the ice and get the group started.
When one or more movies is substituted for the speakers you have a movie fonun. The film should raise real issues and should be followed by a group discussion.
: in the group interview, one person asks questions of a group of people who are familiar with a subject. That person must ask the kinds of questions which the class members would want answered. He must also be skilled JnOUgh to keep up a continuity of discussion by avoiding dea end questions. The discussion is then Op'~ned to the whole class.
[Role playing is especially useful in ABE classes where students often need a way of expressing painful or embarrassing ideas with impunity. When they are asked to assume a role, they can display their feelings and emotions fully in an acceptable way without being personally identified with their words or actions. In other words, they can be honest without paying the price for honesty ..
Through role playing, students can handle touchy subjects such as applying for a job, racial prejudice, or personal hygiene. Role playing can be done on a moment's notice to illustrate a point, or can be a long, elaborate situation involving a large number of people. In any case, it is always followed by a discussion of the ideas brought out.
Of course there are many other ways to teach the individual via the group process--the class project or problem, the field trip, the demonstration, and a thousand other techniques which probably do not even have a name. But they all have several important characteristics in common, the main one being that they utilize the power of the group to reinforce the power of the individual.
In addition, they all require from the teacher and student a
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certain amount of self-discipline, mutual trust, and individual initiative. In most cases, both teacher and student will have to strengthen these personal attributes in pursuing a democratic process of inquiry. But it is this strengthening which is, after all, the main benefit of the democratic process.
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Suggested Readings Bergevin, Paul, et al. Adult Education Procedures: A Handbook of
Tested Patterns for Effective Participation. Greenwich, Connecticut: The Seabury Press, 1963. Bergevin, Paul, and Morris, Dwight. Group Processes for Adult Education. Greenwich, Connecticut: The Seabury Press, 1950. How to Lead Discussions. Leadership Pamphlet No.1. Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1955. How to Use Role Playing. Leadership Pamphlet No.6. Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1955. Training Group Leaders. Leadership Pamphlet No.8. Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1956. Understanding How Groups Work. Leadership Pamphlet No.4. Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1955. Verner, Coolie. A Conceptual Scheme for the Identification and Classification of Processes. (Adult Education Theory and Method.) Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., February, 1962.
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I do not greatly care whether I have been right or wrong on any point, but I care a good deal about knowing wh ich of the two I have been.
-Samuel Butler
This intelligence testing business reminds me of the way they used to weigh hogs in Texas. They would get a long plank, put it over a cross-bar, and somehow tie the hog on one end of the plank. They'd search all around till they found a stone that would balance the weight of the hog and they'd put that on the other end of the plank. Then they'd guess the weight of the stone.
-John Dewey
XI Evaluating the Efforts of Students and Teachers
The titanic hope of adult basic education is to liberate the student from the ignorance and poverty which confines and enslaves him. When we teach him to add, to spell, and hopefully to !hink, we are striving to equip him for entry into American society.
We nurture the hope that we have knocked down some of his defenses and hostilities, and replaced them with confidence, dignity, and trust. We hope that he is becoming a working, voting, caring citizen and parent. We hope this and more for the student, but how do we know whether or not we have succeeded? How do YOU measure a person's liberation from ignorance anyway?
Evaluation is the process of measuring progress or weighing relative success in relation to what you set out to do. You evaluate by assessing the value of one lesson, an entire ABE program, or measuring in whatever units you choose the distance a student's
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grasp of his program objectives has travelled. It can be done by such simple, infomal procedures as asking those in the class who understood what you just taught to raise their hands. Or it can be a complex, comprehensive procedure involving written reports and observations, research, tests, and a computer or two to sort it all out.
Evaluation and testing became "The Thing To Do" at one point in educational history, and was quite often overdone in the sense that pounds of data were collected and never used. In adult basic education, on the other hand, the evaluation pendulum .has swung the other way. In an effort to disavow any resemblances to day school, adult education policymakers have sometimes bent over backwards to avoid giving tests to students.
This no-test policy has meant, in effect, a no-evaluation policy in some schools-a very unfortunate state of affairs in a new, experimental program such as basic education.
One ABE specialist has phrased the more reasonable middleground approach well: "Though all formal testing should be e:raluation, not all evaluation should be formal testing." The heart of the matter, as far as the ABE programs are concerned, is contained in that sentence. In other words, tests, surveys or other compilations of data should not be made unless they answer a question which someone needs answered to evaluate progress. On the other hand, evaluation should be neither entirely based on tests nor should it require a large number of tests.
On the contrary, good evaluation will be the result of putting together clues from many sources--including tests-in order to make a reasoned judgment from which, in turn, some constructive action can ensue.
Who Wants to Know?
When the ABE programs were going through birth and growing pains, teachers and administrators were too busy to handle more than the essentials for survival: recruiting students and teachers, getting materials, and planning the program. There was neither time nor procedure for evaluating the students who enrolled, or to follow up the graduates. There was no opportunity to experiment with ways of teaching or ways of learning.
But this is no longer true. It is now obvious to all concerned
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that evaluation of ABE programs, processes, and participants is
'at needed 'by least five different groups, each for its own set of
reasons. On a national level, Congres~ representing the taxpayer wants to know if federal funds are being used to good advantage. In this instance, judgment would be based on the goals of the adult education and poverty programs: making the disadvantaged person a self-sufficien t, participating citizen.
On a professional level there are the adult educators whose main concern is making adult education as effective as possible. They want to know more about the student: why does he enroll? How long does it take him to graduate? Why does he drop out? How many go on to high school? They also want to explore the merits of new theories of learning and teaching in the hope of finding better ways of doing the job.
The program administrator's task is enlarging and improving his own particular program. He wants to know how to recruit more students and good teachers, how to spend program funds most wisely, how to improve instruction and retention of students, and what effect ABE classes have on the students who graduate.
The teacher, who is even closer to the problem of providing good instruction to a well-attended class, needs answers to questions which will help her. She wants to know as much as possible about each student so that she can give individualized instruction. She must know who needs special help, and what each student's special strengths and abilities are, so that she can be a better counselor. She must also know about the interests and achievements of her students so she can plan her program, choose materials and methods, and fill out the required progress reports and records. Finally, she will want to check the effectiveness of her procedures so that she can do the job a little bit better next time.
The student has his own personal set of goals which were compelling and clear enough to bring him to the ABE class. He desparately needs reassurance that his classroom work is bringing him close to those goals. He wants to be reassured that he can learn; that he can accomplish what he set out to do; that the outcome is worth the time, effort and sacrifices he is investing, and that he's doing as well as the next fellow.
Evaluation, then, can be a many-splendored thing. It can and should measure many aspects of the ABE program, and answer the questions of a variety of people. But it is worthwhile only if it
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I will attend adult classes when I havy an imperative need and see more education as a way to meet this need.
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answers valid questions-if it is a means to a clear-cut end. It is certainly not a means for satisfying idle curiosity, collecting facts, or giving an enterprise that impressive professional touch. Evaluation must lead to enlightened decisions and to progressive action.
How Do You Plan for Evaluation?
Since the teacher's main interest will be in her own ability to teach and in her students' ability to learn, much of the evaluation which she deals with will be aimed at testing these competencies. However, she will also have an important part in comprehensive evaluation of the entire ABE program in her state and in the nation. She will be responsible for obtaining, recording, and reporting information which will be of use to others outside her classroom, and should have some idea of how she fits into the big picture.
In the "no-tests" era of adult education, evaluation often consisted of asking students whether or not they liked the classes. Today evaluation rests on a more rational foundation. We know now that evaluation depends on a clear statement of specific, measurable objectives. We cannot measure progress against general statements, fuzzy concepts, or all-inclusive goals. Educational technologists with their programmed instruction have demonstrated that the objectives of adult education and those involved in it can be stated specifically enough to be measurable.
Since evaluation should be built into a program from the outset, objectives should be clear at the outset, too. Without such a purposeful approach, students and teachers alike may lose sight of why they are working together and to what end. The teacher may find herself spending disproportionate amounts of time on grammar or arithmetic if the broader objectives of adult education do not stay in sharp focus. The student, on the other hand, may become discouraged if his original motivations for attending class are not recalled to his attention and reinforced.
Once the objectives of everyone from students to tax-payers are clearly in view and have been translated into concrete questions, the next task is to choose the appropriate type of m~asurement to be used. Will it be formal or informal? Will the results be expressed in standard units of measure or in relative terms? How often should we measure and when shall we begin?
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Many of these questions will be answered by the powers that be on a state, professional, or national level when they request the teacher to provide and record certain types of information about the students in the class. There will also be specific requests for transfer records from the adult high school, or from potential employers of former students.
Many of these formal reports will have to be based on standardized tests, with the results expressed in terms of standard units of measurement. Information about a large group can only be expressed in standardized, impersonal summary statistics. Since these are gross estimates, the deficiencies of standardized measurement will probably not influence the results a great deal. Besides, this is the only way we know how to make comparative measurements on a large scale at this time.
However, assessing the progress of 15 members of a class or one particular member of that class is quite a different matter. There is no justification for gross, impersonal estimates here, nor would they be valid in such a small group.
When the teacher wants to assess her teaching techniques or the progress of her students, informal measurement should be relied upon as much as possible. Interviewing, counseling, examining samples of the student's work, observing, or giving tests on the material taught in class are all examples of the informal approach to evaluation.
These informal measurements should be matched by individual interpretation of results. The teacher will want to measure a student's progress against his own capacity and expectations, rather than comparing him with some mythical, average ABE student.
She should also remember that no test is perfect, and that test scores are at best estimates. (In fact, no standardized test is accurate enough to measure the tiny increments of learning at the beginning level.) Often a study of a student's mistakes will be more fruitful than counting the number of correct responses. For example, there is a great deal of difference between a paper with 10 random, careless errors and one with 10 errors which all follow the same mistaken pattern of thinking.
A test should never be used as an isolated or infallible means of revealing the true ability of a student. Much more information can be gained if scores of successive tests are compared, or if test scores in one subject are compared with those in another. For instance, a student who scores higher in a vocabulary test than he
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does in reading will probably need more instruction in reading skills. The one whose scores are reversed will probably benefit from vocabulary training.
More of the pros and cons of testing will be considered shortly, but it might be well to point out here that, regardless of their drawbacks, tests are here to stay. Until such time as someone comes up with a more accurate, fairer, less threatening way of measuring achievement, tests will have to be among the tools used to provide a useful and necessary index of progress.
The teacher's problem will not be whether or not tests should be used, but rather how to use tests to measure proficiency and accomplish other constructive purposes without unduly frightening or antagonizing students. He will also want to know more about how tests should be chosen, administered, interpreted, and blended with other methods of evaluation.
Overcoming the Student's Fears of Tests
Knowing as we do the deprivation, despair, and deficiencies which have been the fabric of life for the disadvantaged student, it will not surprise us that he reacts to testing with fear and hostility. To the student, the test is just another device for classifying him as \ inadequate. It will remind him of similar unsuccessful occasions when he did not know the answers (or could not read the questions), and did not measure up: school exams, voting tests, driver's license tests, and job tests.
He has been found wanting many times before, and each additional failure becomes more painful. Besides, he does not like to advertise his ignorance, especially his inability to read and write. In short, his initial reaction to the idea of being tested is a negative one. Often, his worst fears are confirmed when he begins to take the test.
First there is the rigid format. Many answer sheets have tiny spaces crowded together for writing answers or making choices. They're hard to see and hard to mark. Then there are complicated directions to read and remember: pick one answer, mark all the Correct responses, underline the wrong ones, circle the item that's different, and so on.
And then, of course, there's a time limit, which means hurry an.d worry. It also means making decisions about pace: do you
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spend a lot of time figuring out question 2, or do you go on to question 3? Will you ever get to question II? Maybe you should skip the hard ones and do the easy ones first. "Or maybe," the student is likely to say to himself, "maybe I might as well quit."
Many students unacquainted with the art and craft of test-taking give up quite easily as soon as one difficult question comes along. They give up because they are afraid to try or to guess. Not participating, they have found, is less painful than being wrong.
Standardized tests may have the added disadvantage of bt;ing phrased in language which is unfamiliar to the students. And the questions about dental check-ups or savings accounts, which were designed for middle class test-takers, may make no sense at all to the ABE student. Finally, tests which are oriented toward children will make the adult who is asked to count balloons or teddy bears feel rather ridiculous.
In other words, the teacher who is planning to give any kind of test is not likely to find a very receptive attitude in beginning students. But the disadvantaged student's allergy to tests and testing need not be cured by eliminating entirely the source of his difficulty. On the contrary, if he can be taught to take a test calmy and efficiently, he has learned a useful technique which can be applied to all future tests in and out of the ABE classroom. If, in addition, his suspicion turns to trust and his aversion to testing turns to a desire to know how he is getting along, he has learned some valuable new attitudes.
It will be part of the teacher's job to make testing more acceptable to students by modifying the procedure to accomodate the students, and persuading the students to revise their opinion of testing. To begin with, the teacher must choose a test suitable for adults and one which disadvantaged students can handle. She should test only for good reasons and make every test count-the test she chooses should give her exactly the information she and the student are after.
The teacher should, whenever possible, make the mechanics of test-taking simple, informal and natural, minimizing rigid procedures such as the use of complicated answer sheets. Explain clearly the instructions and give students plenty of practice in the techniques required. Explain, too, how the student should use his time when taking the test. Encourage him to try as hard as he can (reminding him again that mistakes are stepping stones to learning); to guess if necessary (he might know more than he
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thinks he does); to keep going if a question is more difficult, instead of quitting or stewing over it for an unduly long time. Above all, provide a calm, unhurried, reassuring atmosphere which will communicate, better than words, the constructive attitude you have about the test.
Finally, when the test has been marked, explain the results to the student and show him how he can gain new insight from them. Spend as much time as possible going over the test with the student, and avoid grading it if possible. The important thing is that he is making progress toward his goals. Ask him to explain what parts of it were difficult, what he learned, and how he feels about his progress, so that you can bring his own opinion of his performance in line with his actual accomplishment.
Explaining the Benefits of Testing
Any program of testing should serve either the student, the teacher, or the program. Carefully chosen tests, intelligently administered, interpreted, and used will serve all of these well. However, since any benefit to the teacher or the program is, in the long run, a benefit to the student, we can look at all the advantages and uses of tests from the student's point of view. All of these observations can be used as ammunition by the teacher to convince her students that testing has its brighter side.
Besides telling a student in what areas of learning he needs more help or practice, a test can be a vehicle for actually learning useful skills. The student will, for instance, learn to follow directions; learn to apply the skills he has learned to new problems or situations; and learn the rules of the testing game so that he can take the next examination more successfully.
The student can count on receiving better, more personalized instruction from a teacher who has evaluated her teaching techniques and planned her program with the help of test results. He will be reassured to know, for example, that he is not the only ~ in the class who did not understand fractions, and that his teacher is therefore planning new ways of teaching the concept. He can also be glad that his teacher noticed how frequently he confuses a 5 with a 2, and is planning to give him special help in shape discrimination.
Having done well on the tests which the teacher prepared
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covering the material she had taught, the student may be less rattled when he is faced with a standardized test-especially if it is administered when he is more familiar with the teacher, his classmates, and the testing procedure.
Chances are he can now understand that all those involved in the ABE program in a professional or administrative capacity need data on which to base their program analyses and their research. He is therefore more ready and willing to give them the wherewithal to work on his behalf. He may also see quite readily the need for standardized tests to furnish data for completjon records, transfer information and follow-up studies, once he has convinced himself that he can learn and can go in to a job or adult high school.
However, when he first enters the class, he is not sure he will return the next day, no less graduate. At this time, the procedure described in Chapter VII is most appropriate-that of using quick, painless word recognition tests or other informal methods to classify students for initial placement. There is no way of explaining the benefits of testing to a new student, and no reason for testing his mettle on the first day.
Making Evaluation Successful
Not only does evaluation answer different kinds of questions for different groups and individuals in the ABE program, but its success depends on the interplay of a variety of techniques and attitudes.
The classroom teacher needs to remember some of the basic requirements of sound evaluation-especially if she has had little experience in this area. She must know evaluation is a purposeful meansuring of progress toward clearly stated objectives; that evaluation must be built into the program and her own lesson plans; and that it should consist of a balanced mixture of formal and informal, individualized and standardized procedures.
The teacher must also be sensitive to the attitudes which are necessary to make evaluation, and specifically testing, successful. She must help the student acquire a new appreciation for tests, so that he can receive the many benefits which they offer. At the same time, she must exert her influence to change or modify unsound attitudes toward testing which may be expressed in terms
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of unreasonable requests for data about her students. Lastly, the teacher must search her own soul to be sure her
own attitudes toward testing and evaluation are constructive. She must be sure that her own mind does not harbor resentment against those requirements for testing, observing, and recording information which stem from valid professional and administrative needs outside the classroom.
She should be aware of the fact that all testing must be evaluation, but not all evaluation should be testing. Furthermore, she should remember that any assessment of progress becomes true evaluation only if it is interpreted and acted upon. Once she has grasped the value and meaning of evaluation, the teacher will find she has discovered a new ally-an additional source of learning for her students and herself.
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Suggested Readings
Baker, James F. "Evaluating Adult Achievement: A Plea for the Demise of the Number System in Continuing Education." Boston University Journal of Education, Vol. 51, No.3 (February, 1965),52-61.
Beck, John, and Saxe, Richard W., ed. Teaching the Culturally Disadvantaged Pupil. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1965.
Dressel, Paul L., et al. Evaluation in Higher Education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1961.
Mangano, Joseph A. "Set of Guidelines for Choosing a Test to Measure Students in Basic Education Programs." Normline: Measurement of Progress. Edited by Lois Burrill. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967.
Miller, Harry L. Teaching and Learning in Adult Education. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1964.
Neff, Monroe C. Adult Basic Education Seminar Guide. Chicago: Follett Publishing Co., 1966.
Pattison, Rose Mary. "Testing As Related to Adult Basic Education Programs." Workshop Reports and Resource Documents. Indiana Teacher-Trainer Workshops in Adult Basic Education, 1966. Indianapolis, Indiana: State Department of Public Instruction, Adult Education Division, 1966.
Pressey, Sidney L., and Kuhlen, Raymond G. Psychological Development Through the Life Span. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957.
u.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Office of Education. Bureau of Adult and Vocational Education. Curriculum Guide to Adult Basic Education. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966.
Wechsler, David. The Measurement and Appraisal of Adult Intelligence. 4th Edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1958.
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Whatsoever thou takest in hand, re-
member the end, and thou shalt never
do amiss.
-Ecclesiasticus, V II, 36
XII The Successful ABE Teacher
We can and do assume that the disadvantaged, illiterate person who comes back to school does so for good and sufficient~often urgent-reasons. And while we can guess at some of the practical benefits he may have in mind when he takes this big step, we have very little knowledge about which of these is the most prevalent or the most compelling.
We have perhaps been too quick to assume that, because they are so often poor or unemployed, disadvantaged adults return to classes in order to become employable or to get a better job. It may be a symptom of our inability to comprehend poverty and empathize with the poor that we say blandly, "Money is all a poor person wants." We know that money by itself has seldom been a primary source of satisfaction to a rich man. And we define education for the middle class as a source of personal enrichment, not financial gain. So why should we assume that the poor person cannot be stirred by the same aspirations?
It is just this kind of narrow, somewhat patronizing view of the poor which the ABE program's broad goals are trying to counteract. The ABE program sees the poor man first as a man and secondly as a person with a small bank account. As such, his main problems are his poverty of spirit and of opportunity. His reh~!ation will come in terms of mental and spiritual riches, of which a bigger paycheck is often a convenient by-product.
True, money makes many of life's problems more bearable, While lack of it will often turn a minor difficulty into a calamity.
But the experience of mankind has shown that it does not buy
happiness, self-esteem, or even personal success. If it did, there would be no reason for this country's Kennedys, Rockefellers,
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The teacher must know and understand his students. 132

Fords, Harrimans, and even Lyndon Johnsons to be engaged in the kind of demanding public service work to which they often dedicate their lives.
The basic education student himself, painfully aware as he is of the value of money, does not define his goals in terms of dollars. In recent interviews conducted on a limited basis, a number of ABE students were asked why they were willing to come back to school. Interestingly enough, 70 percent of those who responded gave personal satisfaction as their reason. They wanted to be able to help their children with their homework, read the daily newspaper, the Bible, or write a personal letter.
This is not to deny that they also wanted a decent wage in order to buy the artifacts of the decent life. It means, only, that in the overall scheme of things, personal satisfaction seemed more important to them than dollars and cents.
This insight into the motivation of the student, unsubstantiated though it may be, takes on added importance when we consider that many of those who enroll in basic education programs drop out before the end of the year. Undoubtedly some of them had to leave because of some personal crisis which prevented further attendance, but most of them leave because they did not find whatever personal satisfaction they sought in the class. And, by and large, the person responsible for what they find in th~ classroom is the teacher.
The teacher cannot consider each drop-out a personal failure because there are many other reasons for a student's discontinuing his ABE education. On the other hand, since her influence can keep these external factors to a minimum, and because her own performance as a teacher is the one factor which she can effectively control, this chapter will be devoted to those principles and practices which make her a successful teacher--a teacher who can retain her students.
Why Do Students Drop Out?
The life style of the deprived person is not conducive to regular attendance patterns. He lives from crisis to crisis in an atmosphere of impending disaster. Minor illnesses, which he has long since learned to disregard, will seldom keep him home. But major illnesses and death, trouble with authority or the law,
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unemployment or the need to hold two jobs, eviction, car trouble, or even bad weather which makes the unpaved street he lives on impassible-all these things hang above his head like the sword of Damocles. When the delicate thread breaks, as it often does, he is physically unable to come to class.
There is little that can be done about some of these catastrophes, while others can be alleviated with the help of community agencies. But even if he cannot help, the teacher can ~eep in touch with the student who has been struck by some personal disaster through a counselor or a teaching aide, as will be described later on in this chapter. The point here is that, although the student may have to miss one class or many, if the teacher has established sufficient rapport with the student and continues to keep in touch with him, he will return to the program sooner or later when he is able to. He will not be among those who are permanently divorced from the program but will, instead, be separated from it temporarily.
The student's hand-to-mouth existence also means that his life fluctuates too rapidly to accomodate long-range plans. Many of those who drop out do so because their lives have taken a sudden turn which makes their original expectations impossible to fulfill. Here again, the teacher has no control over the events of the student's life. But she can~through proper counseling, especially at the initial interview-help him to steer slear of long-range plans which are predicated on a continuation of the status quo. If the teacher helps the student to set short-term goals, any reversal in his mode of living will not necessarily upset his motivations for returning to school.
Often neither teacher nor student but the school system is responsible for students leaving the program. The long vacation period between June and September is often the culprit. Many of the students who leave the class in June do not return in September because they face the prospect of starting all over again and getting used to a new teacher. Although the teacher may need (and doubtless deserves) a vacation, the program should continue throughout the summer for the benefit of those students who want to attend class without interruption. Since the summer break is purely an administrative device, the teacher may have some success in modifying it in her school system.
The vagaries of federal funding and accounting procedures too often result in uncertainty about the funds available to the ABE program, or even sudden discontinuance of a program. When this
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happens, ABE students are not only abruptly dispossessed from the classroom, but their faith in the stability and concern of the sponsors of the program generally suffers a mortal blow. Many do not recover sufficiently to attempt another venture into adult education. Teachers, too, are often discouraged sufficiently by such a sudden discontinuation that they conclude that an in-service course in something as unstable as adult education is a waste of time.
Efforts are being made to change funding procedures so that " money is allocated on a two-year basis. This would permit more
long-range planning, to say nothing of the difficulties this technique would prevent. At the moment, however, there is not much a teacher can do except perhaps to cushion the blow for her students if this kind of unfortunate circumstance does occur.
Barring personal disaster in the life of the student or some form of administrative snafu, the student who fails to return to the classroom is reacting to an unsatisfactory course taught by an unsuccessful teacher. The kindest thing which can be said for both course and teacher is that neither has sufficiently risen to the challenge of the student's expectations to hold him in the program even though, relatively speaking, the program and the teacher were not ineffective enough to drive the student away. As we have seen, the difficulty in adult education is that there must be a positive attraction in the classroom. Lack of negative factors is not enough.
Let us look more closely now at what these sterling virtues are which a teacher must display if her classroom is to be a positive attraction to her students.
What Makes a Successful Teacher?
Fortunately for the imperfect among us, the ABE teacher does not have to be perfect. Nor does she have to follow one set pattern of behavior or assume one stereotyped personality. Many roads lead _to Rome and to success in the ABE classroom, and each teacher will have her own special contribution to make.
Without engaging in the debate about whether successful teachers are born or made, let us consider some of the approaches to.!uccessful teaching which can be learned by any conscientious person. Many of the techniques for teaching have already been discussed throughout these pages, but perhaps it would be well to
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pause here and think about the basic premises which underly all these methods.
First, last, and always, the bull's eye which adult basic education is shooting for is the student. His dreams, his hopes, his potential, even his limitations are of overriding importance in every aspect of the program. College professors may be absorbed in their subject.matter; elementary school teachers may follow the dictates of a school system; military school teachers may hew to the requirements of society. But the ABE teacher must not and cannot divert her attention from the expectations of her students.
This one basic tenet of adult education has many implications for the teacher. The most important of these is that she must understand her students in order to cater to their needs. This means she can neither guess at their motivations or their goals, nor fail to bend every effort to find out what they are. The process of understanding people requires time and patience, sensitivity and tact, and a relaxed, receptive manner which indicates to another person that they can speak freely and will find a listening ear.
However, the teacher is not expected to be a kind of human sponge or vegetable. She is expected, by her students among others, to be understanding but to know what she is about. Even in a democracy, a leader must lead. If a student's hopes are too high or his efforts misdirected, he wants to know and looks to the teacher for guidance. She will be able to offer such guidance if she is competent in her subject matter, well versed in the theory and practice of adult education, and informed about her students.
Unlike elementary school children, ABE students will not follow their teacher single file. There will be an individual here, a group there, and a few stragglers behind. A teacher whose main preoccupation is the academic progress of her students will have to begin teaching where each student's knowledge leaves off, and continue to guide each one individually along the road he has chosen.
If she is looking closely at each unique person in her room, the teacher is not likely to forget that each one is an adult. Like other adults he thrives in a pleasant social atmosphere, whether it is a party or a classroom. The deprived adult will need this kind of atmosphere even more than the more privileged for whom life is a succession of socially pleasant circumstances. In fact, the classroom can become a refreshing social outlet for the deprived person and help him acquire, perhaps for the first time, a social identity. Needless to say, humiliating questions about tardiness, absence, or
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homework are not conducive to this type of adult social climate. The second basic tenet of adult education is professional
competency which means, in terms of the student, teaching him whflt he wants to know in an interesting, understandable way. The teacher who is drawing on a variety of materials, the assistance of school and community, and the resources of her imagination is not likely to find anyone dozing in the back row. As for getting her message across, she will know how to reach her students if she knows where they are, where they came from, and where they are going. Psychologists call this being able to relate to people. Students will call it good teaching.
Admittedly, both experience and continuing programs of inservice education will be needed to provide the competency and personality growth needed to become an eminently successful teacher. While more good teachers are made than born, they generally do not begin their careers at the pinnacle of success. But as long as students sense (and they will) an integrity of purpose, a sincere desire to help them, and a thorough knowledge of materials and techniques, they will readily forgive and forget any newcomer's honest mistakes.
In most cases, the decision to drop out or stay will be an emotional one, not a technical evaluation of progress made. The student will either sense that the course is worthwhile or he will have the opposite reaction to the climate for learning which the teacher creates. A little rain will discourage no one if the climate is generally sunny. / It must also be admitted that the teacher's twin jobs of teac~ing and counseling are big ones. Teaching adults individually and empathetically is demanding of time and effort. It seems reasonable, therefore, that the teacher should take advantage of any help she can get from community agencies, from educational technology, and from teacher aides.
Using Teacher Aides
The employment of aides in the classroom will help the stUdents in a number of ways. Besides giving the teacher more free time to give personal attention to students, they can help create the kind of emotional security which was once generated by the one-room school house. In addition, some aides can carry out
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certain classroom functions better than the teacher. Volunteers and paid helpers, college graduates or disadvan-
taged adults, thousands of auxilliary teaching personnel are already working in ABE classrooms. Aides have been so effective in helping teachers that, in the Education Professional Development Act, legislation providing funds for their training has already been passed.
Most states restrict the use of non-professionals in the classroom by state regulations ("The aide will not be responsible for any portion of the instructional program," or "The aide will work only under the direct supervision of the certified teacher.") These restrictions are sound because an aide should not be expected to replace the teacher in any way. However, after completing a training program and spending a certain amount of planning time each day with the teacher, the aide can become familiar with the duties she is to perform.
Aides are classified roughly into two categories: instructional and clerical aides, and social aides. Aides who are used to help with instruction are usually chosen from among persons who have some college education. The same background is helpful for clerical aides who are also given responsibility for instruction. But in some cases, persons who come from the same population as the class members can be trained by the teacher to help with instruction and clerical work.
Leadership qualities rather than formal education are required by social aides whose job is to bridge the social and communications gap between teacher and students. The aide should come from the same background as the students (in fact, she may be a student or a former student), and should be able to speak their language. This is true literally as well as figurativelybi-lingual persons are sometimes employed. Of course, the social aide must also be able to speak the teacher's language if she is to be the interpreter between teacher and class.
The trained instructional and clerical aide can take on routine assignments such as making and showing flash cards and charts, arranging and conducting field trips, arranging for outside speakers, and helping students practice reading or speech sounds.
They also can relieve the teacher of some of the housekeeping chores, such as gathering and distributing materials; checking books out of the library during the day; taking charge of the borrowing, returning, and maintenance of equipment; cutting stencils of vocabulary lists, instructions, or tests, among others.
138

The social aide's success will depend pretty much on her ability to establish a rapport with the students. If she has a feel for the values, life style and self-image of the students, she can become a more effective counselor than the teacher in some areas. The social aide can, for example, find out informally what is bothering a member of the class and correct a potentially serious problem before it gathers steam. She can help recruit students, make visits or phone calls to absentees, bring their problems to the attention of the teacher, and help them take advantage of community services. If the aide has been or is a student herself, her arguments for staying in school will probably be more convincing than the teacher's.
Although some teachers feel that the ABE students who are used as aides will miss some of their own instruction, others see teaching as an effective method of learning. When a student helper (preferably one from another class) teaches another student, his own understanding of the material increases as well as that of the student he is tutoring. Besides, the student has the advantage of having more in common with the other students than the teacher does, and may therefore be able to explain some things in a more understandable way.
In any case, if the school you teach in does not yet use teaching aides, you should talk to your ABE director about the possibility of recruiting college graduates, high school students, former adult students, housewives, Neighborhood Youth Corps or VISTA workers to lend a hand. Or you might look to ABE graduates and others in the students' community. If aides are carefully selected, trained, and supervised by the teacher, the result should certainly be more successful teaching, learning, and counseling.
139

Suggested Readings Brazziel, William F. Orienting Basic Education to Occupations.
Washington, D.C.: National Conference, Manpower Training and the Older Worker, Sponsored by the National Council on Aging, Washington, D.C., January 17-19, 1966. Leading the Learning Group. Leadership Pamphlet No. 18. Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1963. Let's Teach Adults. Tallahassee: Florida State Department of Education, July, 1954. Pearce, Frank C. "Basic Education Teachers: Seven Needed Qualities. " Adult Leadership, XVI, No.7 (J anuary, 1968), 255-258 and 278. Working With Volunteers. Leadership Pamphlet No.1 O. Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1956.
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The ability to think straight, some knowledge of the past, some vision of the future, some skill to do useful service, some urge to fit that service into the well-being of the community -these are the most vital things education must try to produce. If we can achieve them in the citizens of our land, then, given the right to knowledge and the free use thereof, we shall have brought to America the wisdom and the courage to match her destiny.
- Virgin ia Gildersleeve
XIII What Can We Expect of the ABE Program?
What Are Our Motives?
Rightly enough, society has always seen the seeds of revolution in education. "And the truth shall make you free" has been the reason for denying an education to the minority groups who, if kept ignorant and poor, would continue to be a never-ending supply of cheap labor. In the South, for example, education was denied the Negroes on the theory that it would "spoil a good cotton hand." In all other parts of the country, education raised the spectre of greater skill and higher ambitions in the poor- a man with some education will try to get a less menial job with shorter hours and higher pay. He might even get it into his head to join a union!
While cheap labor was of prime importance to some sectors of society, this anti-education movement held away, based on the notion that education for the illiterate poor would upset the nature of the economy. Instead, the poor were blamed for being shiftless and for perpetuating their own poverty.
141

The ABE program is a means of bringing the student closer to his own goals of self fulfillment.
142

After a while, however, it became apparent that everyone stands to lose when the educational level of a few is depressed. An automated society cannot absorb large numbers of unskilled, unemployed and unemployable workers. Nor can suburbanites escape the effects of riots in the central cities. Those who for selfish reasons opposed education for the poor in the past, now switched over to the pro-education camp, again for selfish or "realistic" reasons. They wished to avoid violence and revolt.
Clearly there is not much to be said on behalf of selfish motives, except that realistically they do and will continue to exist. This being the case, perhaps it is fortunate for the ABE program that the self-seeking, the realistic, and the idealistic thinkers today are all agreed that adult basic education is necessary and vital.
Needless to say, however, those who determine the policies and procedures in ABE programs should count themselves among the more idealistic thinkers. Hagestrom said that the purpose of educating affluent adults is self-realization, while a major objective in educating the poor is to control them. This statement is true enough to give us pause. While it is true that education for the poor will lessen the chances of civil disorders to some extent, the motives of adult education should coincide with those of ABE students: personal enrichment and self-realization.
As was discussed earlier, the long-range commitment of adult education should be that of making participating citizens out of people who are now contributing little to themselves, their families or their community. Peace in the streets and better employment opportunities for the poor are a part of this goal, but are not in themselves ultimate goals of the ABE program.
What Can We Hope For?
Assuming that our motives for sponsoring ABE programs are in line with those of the deprived student (and, incidentally, in line with the federal act which makes ABE possible), how much success can we anticipate? Unfortunately, the answer cannot be an unqualified one, although one generalization can be made: the kind and amount of change will be directly proportionate to the kind and amount of effort made by the teacher in the classroom.
The teacher who lays great stress only on academic skills can
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expect to find her students excelling in this area, to the detriment of other important changes. The teacher who emphasizes selfrealization in its highest form may expect to graduate students who become better parents, consumers, workers, and citizens. The extent of the change in both cases will depend on the teacher's success in communicating with her students.
Although research and statistics on the outcome of adult basic education is sadly lacking, the few studies that do exist can be considered encouraging. Even though they may not be typical, they indicate that it is possible to create dramatic changes in the life patterns of students through the adult education process. This knowledge of what can be done should be a source of inspiration for the teacher-a goal to reach and, preferably, to surpass.
There is a pattern of change which seems to be fairly typical of ABE classes. After a few days or even weeks of class, the deprived adult student will begin to communicate with his teacher and fellow students. This communication develops slowly, usually after a somewhat sullen, discouraging silence at the beginning.
Once a bond of trust has been formed, and communication takes place more freely, some outward changes will be noticed. In a matter of weeks, a bedraggled-looking group of unsociable students may be transformed into a class which looks and acts very much like any group of middle-class adults. Students will become more aware of good grooming habits, will dress more neatly and carefully, and will develop the kind of social skills which are commonly referred to as friendliness and courtesy.
As the course goes on, this group will not only look and act like middle-class students, but will begin to think like middle-class citizens. The ABE student begins to adopt middle-class concerns and values. He will, for example, become more aware of his home and family, and become more involved in his community. In fact, as time goes on, he may begin to think in terms of leaving his community, if it is an unsatisfactory one.
Toward the end of the course, many adults will respond to their educational experience with a new-found confidence in themselves and the process of education. They will realize that education does indeed offer them a key to a better life and, even more important, that they can learn and profit from it notwithstanding their earlier fears to the contrary. This renewed faith in themselves and in education manifests itself in plans to continue their education on a high school level or to take advanced vocational training.
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Perhaps the greatest value of the adult's new, more optimistic outlook on his life and his work is its impact on his children. Children who grow up in a home where there is hope, work, and concern for the future are in a good position to break the cycle of poverty and ignorance. A child who sees his father or mother working, studying, trying and, above all succeeding is not likely to be gripped by the failure syndrome which prevents so many poeple from even trying to get ahead.
One thing which probably should not be expected of the adult who is completing his ABE education is his immediate transfer to a skilled, high-paying job. An eighth-grade education is not sufficient in itself today to qualify most adults for any skilled job. Besides, many disadvantaged students are too old to qualify for those few good jobs that do exist.
On the other hand, while an eighth grade education does not guarantee employment, lack of an eighth grade education practically guarantees unemployment. Not only are the ABE graduate's chances of finding a job better, but he is in a better position to train or retrain for a vocation. He may choose to go ahead with his secondary education (a 12th grade education is a better indication of "literacy" in today's world), or go directly from the ABE program to a training program in a company, a vocational school, or the Manpower Development Training Program (MDT).
Although the federally-financed adult basic education program extends only through the eighth grade, there are many secondary education programs sponsored by various cities and states. In fact, public school systems have been more active in providing adult secondary education than elementary education, partly because teachers seem to be more comfortable working in their specialties, and partly because adults who needed a high school program were easier to recruit into programs.
Adults can continue their education in a regular high school diploma program or in the General Education Development (GED) Test Program. Many choose the latter because it requires a smaller investment of time. A GED certificate of equivalency to high school graduation is awarded to students who can pass a test in each of five different subject matter areas: English, literature, social science, natural science, and mathematics. While some students will want to attend classes in order to improve their chances of passing the tests, class attendance is usually not required. A GED certificate has the legal status of a high school diploma in most states, and may be used as such for job
145

applications or community and state college entrance requirements.
In the school year 1964-1965, the Adult Education Section of the Florida State Department of Education issued 3,009 GED certificates. Other states have made no state-wide provisions at all for administering or sponsoring secondary education for adults. Obviously this is an area for future growth in adult education.
What Are the Statistics?
Since facts and figures on the outcome of ABE classes are scarce, no claims can be made for the following statistics except that they represent the possible. They do not represent the typical, the average, or even the best that can be done. But they do serve to give teachers of adults some inkling of what has been accomplished elsewhere.
In an ABE program in Butts County, Georgia, a survey was made of the 75 adults who were enrolled in a basic education program to determine the changes in their life patterns. The results were as follows:
Of 75:
50 indicated that their children would stay in school
31 influenced a friend to attend ABE classes
31 used a family budget for the first time
24 subscribed to a magazine or newspaper for the first time
18 opened a checking or savings account for the first time
17 learned to read
10 registered to vote for the first time
8 found a job as a resu It of attending classes
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6 found a better-paying job
5 were promoted in their jobs
5 enrolled in a high school program
3 voted for the first time
Let us look now at the record of a rather special group of 1495 so-called hard-core illiterates~migrant and seasonal farm workers~who were enrolled in a full-time training program for 12 weeks. The students came from 12 counties in central and south Florida to take part in 420 hours of instruction under the direction of the Ad ult and Veteran Education Section of the Florida Department of Education. All the students were unemployed heads of households who participated in the summer program instead of following the migrant stream of workers out of Florida that summer.
The group can briefly be described as follows:
1495 enrolled
average age: 39
average no. of dependents: 2%
1423 participated in some instruction
212 dropped out
142 men
70 women
1283 completed the course
760 women
523 men
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It is interesting to note that, while the drop-out rate was relatively low, twice asmany men than women dropped out. In addition, more women registered for and completed the course.
At the end of the program, figures show that the older adults achieved higher grade level gains than their younger classmates. Composite grade level gains by age were:

Age 18 - 27

Grade Level Gain .70

28 - 37

.74

38 - 47 48 - 57

.93 1.24

58 - 67

1.20

Two months after the end of the program, 69% of those who had finished the course (59% of those who had enrolled) were continuing in some kind of educational or vocational program, and 10 had earned their GED certificates.

1283 completed the course 885 (69%) continued in an educational or vocational program 208 were in an educational program 81 were placed in jobs 193 entered Manpower Development Training programs 403 were waiting to enter MDT programs 10 received GED certificates
Impressive as these results are, they do not carry the flesh-and-blood story of the tremendous changes which probably took place in the life styles of these previously nomadic people. 148

The fact that they were able to stay in one place, earn a living, and become increasingly useful to themselves, their families, and their communities is one that cannot be expressed in numbers.
In answer to the question,"What can we expect of the ABE program?" words are as inadequate as numbers. We cannot talk about average ABE students in typical classrooms. We cannot in good conscience talk about the prospects of a student with poor native ability unless we are prepared to gage the power of his dreams. In fact, we must not hamper his prospects by such predictions, if we are to avoid shackling his progress with our lack of faith and vision.
Perhaps the best we can do is to try to match the strength of our efforts to the strength of the students' hopes for a better life. Perhaps the question each teacher should ask herself is, "What can I expect of myself?"
149

Suggested Readings Marshall, Jon C., and Copley, Patrick O. "Problems of Adult Basic
Education Teachers." Adult Leadership, XVI, No.2 (June, 1967),55-56 and 61. Neff, Monroe C. "Issues in Adult Basic Education." Adult Leadership, XVI, No.9 (March, 1968),331-332. Passett, Barry A., and Parker, Glenn M. "The Poor Bring Adult Education to the Ghetto." Adult Leadership, XVI, No.9 (March, 1968),326-328 and 348. Puder, William H., and Hand, Samuel E., ed. Frontiers in Adult Basic Education. Tallahassee: The Florida State University, 1966.
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I t was the old notion that justice should not arise from laws, but laws from justice.
-Joseph Joubert Too often our Wash ington reflex is to
discover a prob lem and then th row
money at it, hoping it will somehow go away.
-Senator Kenneth B. Keating
Appendix A
Organization of The National ABE Program
The legislative history of the ABE program began in 1964 when funds were allocated by the Office of Economic Opportunity for a basic education program to be administered by the U.S. Office of Education. Since this program was funded late in fiscal year 1965 , little was done until after June 30, 1965 at the end of that first year.
The following year, the ABE program was made a part of the Elementary Secondary Education Act. Described in Title III of the amendments to the Act, it was formally titled the Adult Education Act of 1966. ABE was now officially in business.
Administration on the Federal Level
As the chart shows, the ABE program on the federal level is administered by the chief of the Adult Education Branch of the
U.S. Office of Education and his regional counterpart in one of the
nineregional education offices. The branch has two sections, one
151

Chart A- Federal Ad:rninistra.tion of ABE Progra.m
VI tv
-u:s. OFFICE OF EDUC.A.TION
BUREAU OF ADULT, VOCATIONAL and LIBRARY PROGRAMS DIVISION OF ADULT EDUCATION ADULT EDUCATION BRANCH
CHUl"
State Plan Iprogram. Program. Develop-
Operations m.ent Section section
Regional Program. Officer
of

of which handles plans submitted by states, while the other is responsible for materials, supplies, and data about basic education.
The branch develops guidelines for the state plans which are required under the 1966 Act; is responsible for teacher training and education programs; and encourages the introduction of innovative materials and methods into local ABE programs. It is a source of help and guidance to states, especially those who are just starting ABE programs.
The regional program officers of adult education are located in the regional offices which were created in 1966 to decentralize the operation of the federal office of education. Although the duties and responsibilities of this new position are not yet fully developed, the program officer works with state directors of adult education in his region on all facets of ABE programs, such as state plans or budgeting problems.
Administration on the State and Local Level
The full responsibility for financing and administering the national program rests on the states-specifically the state department of education. Its fundamental role is that of providing leadership and assistance in developing local programs. It also has certain regulatory functions in regard to use of funds, certification requirements for teachers, and other aspects of the program as prescribed by state laws.
The typical state usually has, within the state department of education, a state coordinator for adult basic education who is responsible to the state director of adult education (see chart). The state coordinator's staff usually consists of two or three "consultants" to local programs and a fiscal officer.
In order to be of maximum benefit to the local programs, the adult education staff of the state department of education must provide a full measure of creative leadership in addition to carrying out its regulatory functions. It should take the initiative in working with the university and local programs toward overall growth and improvement of ABE programs. It should also work with state professional adult education organizations to gain legislative support and additional state funds for ABE programs. (Three states in the nation are already contributing more funds to the state ABE program than the federal government.)
153

State Departmen.t of Ed.ucation

State Dlr8CJtor of
Adult Educa.tion
E- Administration of the AEE Program on the State Level

154

Asst. Supt. for
Vooa.Tech.
& Adult Ed.
Chart C AcUrunlStraUon of the Looa.l ABE PrDgran>

Members of the adult education staff in the state department of education are often the only resource lecal programs have for evaluating methods and materials, and providing in service education programs. For this reason, they should be professionally competent to give this kind of consultative service, and should be administratively free to provide it.
The state consultative program should provide services to local programs that are not available locally. Testing and appraising new equipment and instructional materials is a priority function. If the state department of education consultants will either test or pass on information concerning new equipment and instructional materials, they will provide a service to local programs who can afford neither the funds nor the time to conduct field tests.
On the local level, the local coordinators for adult basic education are usually responsible to the county director for adult basic education (see chart). Each coordinator administers to the needs of the ABE classes in several schools, via the principal of each school. While the administrative hierarchy will vary from county to county and from state to state, it will follow fairly closely the organization described here and in charts A,B, and C.
Financing the AS E Program
Federal funds to states under the Adult Education Act of 1966 are allocated on a formula based on the number of persons, 25 or older, who have had a fifth grade education or less, accordingto 1960 census figures. While originally the minimum allocation to each state was $25 ,000 a year, this figure was increased to a minimum of $100,000 per year in 1967.
In order to receive federal funds for ABE programs, each state must submit a comprehensive state plan according to the guidelines set up by the State Plan Program Operations Section in the U.S. Office of Education. This plan outlines in some detail the state's intentions in regard to program operation, priorties, methods of funding, and methods of instruction and counseling. The plan should be inclusive, imaginative, and flexible within the prescribed regulations, since it is difficult to amend once it is submit, ted and approved.
The plan should provide a theoretical and practical guide for the orderly development of and ABE program for the entire state.
155



I

I

I

I

I
~

.A. J.O peroent
<.::,:. . of federal grant~

I
k.dditiO~

~J.O,O. I ~; " ~iniInU0r0n0.

~
;'

lOto20% for tra.ining & resea.rcn.

Of' ,

tate Dep

,

Education

d.>

Looal Sohool System

156

It should, for example, provide for:
* program continuity through sound funding procedures and
leadership
* involvement of state universities in training leadership and
developing programs
* adequate staff in the state department of education to
assist local programs with instruction, materials, research, and fiscal problems
* personnel for a statewide teacher training program
* keeping of adequate records on students and funds
* a total agency approach to families of ABE students
* an equitable system of fund allocation to local programs
* the development of additional state support for ABE pro-
grams
In addition to this plan, states must provide matching funds equal to at least 10 percent of the federal grant. Federal funds are granted only after a state's comprehensive plan for adult basic education has been approved, and must be spent according to the state plan as well as federal, state, and local fiscal procedures.
Funds are then appropriated to local school districts in one of two ways. Most usually, a specified amount is allocated for specific class units, covering teaching hours, instructional supplies, and an amount for administration. Some local or county school systems are asked to write a plan (similar to the state plan) which includes a budget, and submit this to the state for funding.
Although regulations permit advances to local systems, most states distribute funds to local districts on a reimbursement basis. Equipment purchased on a state or local level with ABE funds belongs to the federal government and may not be disposed of unless cleared through the state office.
There are a number of problems which this method of funding produces. First of all, fiscal control tends to be cumbersome when federal, state, and local regulations must be adhered to before funds can be expanded. It sometimes becomes difficult for admini-
157

strators at all levels to prevent fiscal procedures from dictating the
educational program. Difficulties are also encountered at the end of every fiscal year
when, on June 30th, funds for the program run out before Congress has time to act on a new appropriation measure. To take care of this penniless interim period, Congress has provided that federally funded programs may continue to expend funds on the assumption that they will receive the same amount of money as they did in the previous fiscal year.
However, each state may spend only 1/12 of its last annual appropriation each month. This month-at-a-time budgeting makes it impossible for states to make any large investments in materials, personnel or programs. Then, after several months, if a state receives a new appropriation which is higher than that for the previous year, it may not have enough time to spend this increased amount. Since unexpended funds revert back to the federal government, the state will have lost the opportunity to use these funds.

Funds for Training and Research

In addition to funds which are allocated to states, section 309 of the Adult Education Act of 1966 provides that 10-20 percent of federal funds appropriated for the ABE program may be set aside, at the disgression of the Commissioner of Education, for teacher education and special projects. States must apply for these funds separately. The following chart shows the total amounts appropriated for the ABE program and the amounts appropriated for teacher education and special projects in the last four years.

Fiscal Year
1965

FEDERAL EXPENDITURES FOR ADULT BASIC EDUCATION administered by the U.S. Office of Education

Total
- - - Allocation
$19,000,000

Am!. Spent for Teacher Training (309a)
$ (none)

Am!. Spent for Special Projects (309b)
$ (none)

1966

21,100,000

(none)

(none)

1967 1968

30,000,000 38,640,000

1,400,000 1,500,000

1,520,000 6,550,000

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Congress has recognized the increasing importance of teacher training and special projects, and has supported many innovative approaches. One of these efforts is the series of summer institutes which was held for teacher trainers and administrators beginning in the summer of 1966. Each institute provided an intensive training program lasting from two to four weeks which was instrumental in helping states obtain a corps of experienced teachers and teacher trainers. In many cases, local school systems were able to begin their own programs of in-service teacher training and preservice training as a result of these regional institutes.
As state and local programs of in-service education develop, there will be less need for these types of summer institutes, although the need for research and special projects is not likely to diminish. There will also be a continuing need for university participation in adult basic education.
The Role of the University
In the past, a regional university could adequately provide professional education for several states, often with a single professor of adult education. There was little demand for professional preparation in public school adult education, and there seemed to be little inclination on the part of school superintendents to require graduate courses for their adult administrators and teachers.
The rapid growth of adult basic education programs, however, has demonstrated the need for professionally prepared adult education teachers. The state university today has some responsibility for in-service education courses across the state, as well as courses on campus leading to the master's or doctor's degree. With several hundred new teachers in the adult basic education program, ongoing secondary program, and various community programs, there is a considerable demand for teacher education.
The U. S. Office of Education increased the demand for teacher education in adult basic education by funding the series of regional teacher training workshops. Many adult teachers received graduate credit in adult education and became interested in purSUing advanced degrees in the field. It appears that the trend towards university involvement in the field of education for the disadvantaged will increase rather than diminish in the years ahead.
159

The Future of Adult Education
The ABE program has grown. In less than two years, enrollment has soared from a few thousand disadvantaged adults to over 300,000. Certainly the Adult Education Act of 1966 has been the magic wand in the hands of the federal government for getting the national ABE program started. But federal support, both administrative and financial, will not by itself create a lasting program of adult basic education. Four other elements seem to be necessary if the ABE program is to grow and prosper in the coming years:
1. State and local awareness of the need for strong basic education programs, coupled with a willingness to allocate funds for the program.
2. A commitment from at least one state university in each state to develop graduate education programs in adult education, so that the quantity and quality of professionally trained personnel can be increased.
3. A strong state department of education which recognizes that its function is to improve and extend educational opportunities in the state.
4. Strong, responsible professional organizations of adult educators to promote the development of high standards to quality education.
Each of these four elements is dependent on the others for a successful program on all levels, and each has a responsibility to work in harmony with the others. Working within this administrative framework, the conscientious teacher will want to draw on all available assistance to make a continuing contribution to her profession and her personal professional growth.
160

APPENDIX B
An Evaluation Model
The following evaluation program was used in an adult basic education class. While each program should differ, it is used to illustrate one such evaluation program.
Adult Basic Education Class of Fifteen Adults Program Objectives
a. Improve communication skills b. Improve computational skills c. Improve consumer practices d. Become a better parent e. Become a better citizen f. Become a better employee g. Become a better user of leisure time h. Become a more effective member of a family unit i. Become involved in a process of education
Evaluation for Initial Placement
a. Administer word recognition placement test b. Open permanent record with personal data c. Administer standardized achievement placement test
after a few weeks in program
161

Instructional Program Based On Objectives
a. Administer teacher-prepared tests for student appraisal and to assess teacher effectiveness
b. Administer standardized achievement tests for grade level progression
c. Record observations on student's progress in remarks section of permanent record
Guidance Program Based On Program Objectives
a. Administer intelligence tests for possible later research studies
b. Keep cumulative folder with all records
c. Record counselor observations
Follow-up Evaluation
a. Administer questionnaire
b. Visit for observations if possible
c. If student is in continuing education program, secure records of progress
Evaluation for Programed Improvement
a. Check student progress in comparison with program in other states by comparing achievement tests, etc.
b. Check teacher effectiveness by examining student achievements
c. Check achievement of adult students in fulfilling objectives of instructional program
d. Provide diagnostic information to the teacher so that intelligent decisions can be made to improve the learning process.
162

Evaluation for Research Needs
a. Provide a national data bank on student progress in achieving goals of instruction
b. Provide demographic information on the deprived adult
c. Provide a climate favorable to records keeping and evaluation for cooperative programs with the U.S. Office of Education and State Departments of Education
d. Provide an orderly and efficient channel to pass on program information to the proper group and to share with other local programs
The following questions were used to check the fulfillment of the program objectives used in this model. They are not complete, but illustrate one objective measure for program evaluation. These questions are appropriate for use while the adult is still enrolled in the program, or for follow-up after the adult leaves the program.
1. Can you read and write better since you enrolled in adult basic education classes?
2. Do you plan to continue a training program when you leave ABE classes?
3. Are you a registered voter?
4. If yes, did you register after you enrolled in ABE classes?
5. Are you employed?
6. Have you changed jobs since you enrolled in ABE classes?
7. Do you read the local newspaper?
8. Did you read the paper before attending ABE classes?
163

9. Are you more aware of the need for preparing nutritious meals since joining ABE classes?
10. Do you prepare a budget or make a grocery list since enrolling in ABE classes?
11. Have your children used the public library in the last few months?
12. Do you have children in school?
13. If yes, have you been more aware of your child's progress in school since you joined an ABE class?
14. Would you go to your teacher for help with a personal problem?
15. Have you talked to any of your friends about enrolling in ABE classes?
16. Did (does) the teacher have interesting classes?
17. Since enrolling in adult basic education classes do you have a better understanding of the police and law enforcement officials?
18. Since enrolling in ABE classes have you attended any community or neighborhood meetings?
19. Did you vote in the last city election?
20. Since enrolling in ABE classes have you participated in family activities such as a picnic, movie, etc.?
21. Would you advise any adult to enroll in ABE who has not completed the eighth grade?
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Date With Your Future: Money Alanagement for the Young Adult. Institute of Life Insurance, Educational Division. New York. Health Insurance Institute, 1968.
Adult Basic Education: A Guide for Teachers and Teacher Trainers. Washington, D.C.: The National Association for Public School Adult Education, May, 1966.
Aker, George F. "The Responsibility of the Publisher in Providing Testing Materials for Adult Basic Education." Normline: 1\:leasurement of Progresss. Edited by Lois Burrill. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967.
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CREDITS
Photographs by Clate Sanders Charts by Jan ice H. Denson
Cover design by Rita Thorlen