Women. Literacy and Poverty

Tomorrow evening I'm doing my presentation to the Provincial Council of Women of Manitoba, a body that presents resolutions to government at the civic, provincial, national and international levels. I've written a provincial one about adult literacy that goes forward in February, but I'm doing a presentation on the content first. Stepping out on a limb, voicing opinions about what I've seen in program planning for the disadvantaged. In this case, what's driving me is what I've seen in the housing development literacy program. It's a prime example of how a particular social mindset and value system shapes programming in subtle but absolutely critical ways.

In short, I've traced the history of literacy programming in Canada through various shifts from the more socially-minded to now, where literacy has become - in my mind - co-opted by big business. OK, that's a gross oversimplification, but the idea is accurate. National literacy levels have now been understood to affect our society (through various international studies and reports), but it's the economic perspective that's becoming the driver. Ie. better literacy = better employees.

So where do the women in the housing development fit into that mandate? They don't, and hence funding for programs (and people?) that are perceived as "lost causes" (ie. they don't have a fabulous return-on-investment in the economy), are seen as charity work. Funding goes to literacy programs that can demonstrate their connecting to Essential Skills, a work-related brand of literacy. What used to be "Literacy as Freedom" (the slogan for the UN's Decade of Literacy 2003-2012) is now Literacy for Work.

Which is great, unless you're a low literacy, low income, single parent trying to go back to school to improve your literacy levels so you can get a better job and improve the life of your kids.

Here's the problem: the vast majority of "single parents" are actually single mothers, and women at low levels of literacy earn about half what men at low levels of literacy earn, because they're working in different kinds of jobs that require different kinds of skills. They actually need to progress twice as far with their literacy skills before they get into jobs that earn the same as men with lower literacy levels!

That means that, if we want to improve our national literacy rates and prevent continuing low literacy rates in the next generation, and maybe reduce poverty along the way, we might want to develop literacy programs for low income mothers, usually with several children, because they need different scheduling, childcare and transportation help, counseling, onsite programming, and content relevant to their lives. Why teach them to read a book about an astronaut, when they need to be able to read about getting restraining orders?! In order for it to be "fair" and accessible to single moms (parents) living in poverty, literacy programming actually needs to be far better funded and better designed. While the kids are young, we can support the moms far better in getting to upgrading programs. Otherwise we're asking for these already discouraged learners to jump over much higher hurdles than we ask anyone else.

Indeed, it's an interesting example of how the larger social context, which values work over parenting, economy over society, and "men's work" over "women's work", is affecting literacy programming for those who are raising the next generation.

A New Year; A New Course

It's been a while since I last wrote, as so much happened this fall. Research about program planning went right to the back burner. Perhaps I'll have a chance to revive some of those thoughts and discussions during 2011.

My program planning work is currently most intriguing for the literacy program in the housing developments. I'm finding that I'm bumping up against major and significant power issues, not in the conventional sense, in that everyone working on the project is very much on board and supportive to the degree that they can be, but in a very subtle sense, in that community-based literacy for people living in poverty (especially moms living in poverty) isn't given nearly the resources it needs. It is assumed that regular funding will do, but that's a gross underestimation of what's required. A type of David and Goliath story. Tiny funding vs huge need. We are told it's because of the difficult economic times, and yet far greater monies are spent on other things. Why those and not this? Because we're dealing with marginalized people who don't vote and won't complain?

And so, program planning becomes political in that the focus is not only on helping these women learn to read and become confident in making whatever changes the want/can in their lives, but in that we need to fight for the very life of the programming, which can make such an impact on the lives of the students, their children and their community. Wouldn't it be nice to break the cycle of low literacy?

Hence, the program has taken a decided turn in the direction of trying to make it more difficult for funders to reduce the funding. We probably can't get the funding increased to what's actually needed, but we can't afford to lose even one dime. So we're chosing projects and approaches that will (hopefully) move the program into the media's eye. At the same time, we're helping the students to find their voice, and challenging some of the systemic assumptions that have led to their being under-resourced in the first place. The hope is that by moving these programs ... and their students ... into the light, we'll be able to get enough funding for the program to do its real job: helping people learn to read, write, learn, try new things, venture forth, and generally be productive parents and citizens.

The approach I want to take is one of "situated literacy", of drawing on people's lives to determine the learning that is needed to cope - not with MY kind of life - but with THEIR lives. In order to do that, we need to be prepared to listen to the students and their needs, to look at their community and their environment, and to be realistic about what can be accomplished with all the available resources: people, time, money, energy, hope. It should be an interesting year.

Follow-Up to Lesson

The open-ended lesson was piloted, and interesting things that would apply to emergent curriculum and emergent program planning came out. Specifically, what surprised me was the quiet in the room (I had expected spirited conversation and interaction), the mild confusion about being given freedom to move around the room at will (I had expected relief), and the slight discomfort with a less-guided activity (I had expected hunger to learn to emerge). Students did have a series of questions to consider, but it wasn't until they played around with another program planning model in groups that the connections to the other models placed around the room began to be made. Note to self: start with the safety of group discussion and shared dialogue to illuminate the topic and build a base of shared experience, and THEN get students to venture out alone.

Of interest for program planning was that this border between order and chaos, the structured and the unstructured, is probably important to emergent program planning as well. While some people thrive in the self-directed environment, and are comfortable with the unpredictability of "emergence", the diversity of the stakeholder group would suggest that the management of change, the management of connections, and the management of concept-reassembly need to be considered thoroughly. The program planner needs to be able to do this management, and to be comfortable with a certain degree of unpredictability and emergence. The idea of remembering that familiar ground makes for a better take-off spot than unknown territory is also valuable. (Ie. committees need to come to an understanding of something before they can move into new risks).

Walking the Talk

Tonight I'm going to practice what I preach. The purpose of the lesson is for students to understand the role of program planning models, to consider how different models reflect different beliefs and value systems, and to begin to develop their own model. Instead of teaching anything up front though, I'm going to start by putting information about different models, old and new (some by fancy theorists and some by former students of mine), around the room. I'm going to give some basic instructions and some basic questions, and then let students wander around the room discussing what they see. At the end, we'll have a discussion about the models. I have no idea where it'll go, but I trust that no matter where they go with it, it'll be relevant. I'll tackle whatever arises.

This is emergent lesson planning, but how does this link with emergent program planning? I think if I can get students to understand the interconnectedness of the pieces, then they'll be better able to see the whole. If they see program planning as a continual discovery of options, not the rigid carrying out of a predetermined process, then they'd be prepared for some of the chaos that is inevitable in program planning. That ability (capacity?) would allow them to approach a program planning task with greater openness.

Ie. is teaching how to plan programs really about helping people develop a process-based mindset? Is gaining comfort with emergence and the unpredictable, transformative aspects of the work as important as the technical-rational piece of "how to"?

One more quick addition:

It just occurred to me that program planning models, as far as I know, are missing the element of time. They describe program planning itself as a product, not as a process. We need a model that, like Picasso's "Nude Descending a Staircase", shows an ever-evolving, emergent planning process. When we start a program planning process from scratch, we have our preconceived ideas and a bit of information, but not much more. As we begin to work with various components and see how the various "ingredients" we have foraged from the landscape fit together, and new ones begin to reveal themselves, we begin to have ideas about what needs to happen next. We learn, we integrate, we apply, we fail or succeed, and we then continue on our path of foraging and assembling.

I think what I'll do is look at the various components of program planning as we tend to identify them today (needs assessment, for example, seems critical in a new way of doing things) and look at them from a technical-rational perspective, a practical perspective, a political perspective, but then also from an emergent/connected perspective. We'll see what that does!

I'm beginning to see how my science fair project in grade 8 (Time and Space), and my interest in emergence/chaos theory etc, what I learn from wilderness canoeing, and my newfound interest in program planning fits together. :) And too bad I now have to admit publicly what a nerd I am.

New Students; Fresh Start

I've started teaching Program Planning again with a small group of great students. The first class was about what constitutes adult ed and about the role of the program planner in that larger context. The conversation was rich and varied, and I watched them struggle with their assumptions about adult ed as being a structured, formal, authoritative "product". They made significant moves however towards the idea that adult education/learning is a process, not a product. And that conversation will continue throughout the course.

The link between adult learning as process and the planner's work as "process management" did not yet appear however. That will come. It's a process in itself. Learning is a process; planning is a process; learning about learning is a process; learning about planning is a process! :)

I also had a great conversation with a colleague this week. Not a colleague in the conventional sense, as it's someone I only connect with occasionally. She's a colleague in the sense that we both plan complex programs and struggle with the ethics and politics of programs that we plan. It takes concentration and mindfulness to maintain integrity (reflecting one's values in one's actions) when confronted with strong and potentially opposing forces.

Anyway, she thinks about these things too, and had some interesting ideas about the work of making connections and relationships in planning programs. It struck such a chord with my own ideas about what makes for a good (successful) program planning experience, and how without good process management we fail in planning good programs.

It all makes me think more and more about the ideas that keep rolling around in my head about needing to move to new models of planning programs. If I read the history of program planning, I see progression from Tyler (linear) through Cervero and Wilson (political) to Sork (practical, process-reflective) to Cafarella (organic), but I think it's time we take the next step. Each of the theorists in the past worked from within their times. They looked scientifically at their craft if their world was looking at things scientifically. They saw things politically when post-modernism and the different "-isms" were coming to the fore. They moved to systems approaches when systems theory was big. I think we now need to incorporate the ideas of social networking more firmly.

Last year, I had some delicious conversations with colleagues about connectivism, and I haven't stopped thinking (or writing) about it, although I've done it more privately. However, it keeps gnawing at me, and so I need to be true to that gnawing again and try - again - to come up with a model of program planning that reflects our times now. Not as a theorist, but as a practitioner. We need change in program planning. We need to take what we've learned from Tyler, Cervero and Wilson, Cafarella, and all the others in between, and take the next step. We need to use what we're learning about the online universe to come up with new ways of planning programs and supporting adult learning, in the broadest sense of the word.

Who will I find to join me in the discussion?

New Program Planning Theory?

Program planning is about taking deliberate actions to make learning possible. In the past, program planning was seen as a primarily technical-rational process of determining the necessary ingredients, steps and intended outcomes of a structured, educational program. The underlying assumption that it was a rational process was soon dispelled by theorists who introduced the idea that program planning was a negotiated process influenced heavily by control and power issues. Some theorists addressed the power imbalances by advocating for a learner-centric model (e.g. Freire), while others (e.g. Cervero and Wilson) directly identified the political responsibility of the planner in negotiating with multiple stakeholders. Other challenges to the traditional, rational model of program planning came from other influences: feminism, postmodernism, critical theory, etc because planning does indeed occur within a given context.

Because context is so much of a factor in program planning, we need to take a look now at program planning in the new age of social networking, not because of the technology involved but because of new understandings we've gained from the processes involved with social networking. Specifically, the concept of connectivism should make us take a fresh look at program planning.

(more to follow)