ADTED510:

The purpose of this course is to help you become familiar with issues that are prominent in or otherwise important to the field of adult education. The first thing I need to clarify is what I mean by an issue.

What is an Issue?

The Free Dictionary (n.d.-a) defines "issue" as "an important question that is in dispute and must be settled." An issue is somewhat different from a "problem," which is defined as "a state of difficulty that needs to be resolved" (The Free Dictionary, n.d.-b).

There are many problems in adult education: low levels of participation, lack of access to educational opportunities, variable quality of services, lack of agreement within the field on key questions, etc. I'm sure you could add to this list. These are all problems that everyone can agree exist in the field and/or in society.

While most educators would agree that these are problems, they would NOT all agree on how they should be addressed. A problem becomes an issue when there is disagreement among those involved about the causes of the problem, about who has responsibility for the problem, and about the best way to solve it. What we will be learning and talking about in this course, then, are problems that those in the field generally agree are problems, but about which there is yet some dispute regarding causes, responsibility, implications, and/or solutions.

Additionally, because both problems and issues develop within specific historical and social contexts, we will be looking at the historical and social dimensions of several major issues. Not surprisingly, WHICH issues deserve time and attention is itself an issue. In identifying which issues we will examine in this course I have applied several criteria:

• The prominence of the issue in the literature (both adult education literature and that from related fields).
• My informed opinion (based on knowledge, experience, and professional philosophy) of the impact of the issue on educators, learners, the field, and the larger society.
• My assessment of the issue as a focus for thinking and discussion that will both sharpen and expand your ability to think and act as a "fully conscious, historical human being" who acts in the role of an adult educator. (I'll explain what I mean by the term "fully conscious, historical human being" later.)

Specifically, we will be examining issues related to the following overarching questions:

• What are the proper purposes of adult education?
• Who should be served?
• How should they be served (for example in terms of the relationship between teacher and student)?
• Who should decide (and who has the power to decide) the answers to the above questions?

Although you have been introduced to these questions in other courses, here we'll focus on them with specific application to five themes:

• Foundations of Adult Education and Alternative Adult Education
• Changing Perspectives on social and historical issues in Adult Education
• Experience and Learning

• Power in Adult Education Practice
• Technology, Precarity, and Adult Education

Although the issues themselves will seem somewhat familiar since you were introduced to them in ADTED 460, by this point in the program you should be able to take a more sophisticated approach to them. It's particularly important for you to make connections to your own practice context since these connections will be different for each person.

References

The Free Dictionary. (n.d.-a). Issue. In The Free Dictionary. Retrieved January 5, 2022, from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/issue

Some of the readings for the course might seem overly controversial or "radical." They seem that way even to me, and I chose them! My intent in presenting them for your consideration and discussion is to offer a counterbalance for the relatively stable perspective we all tend to take on an issue. It's a common tendency to read things that support the ideas we already hold, and therefore entrench those ideas even more firmly in personal and professional lives. This approach is comfortable and self-affirming.

However, sometimes change is desirable or necessary, and "comfort is the enemy of change." Becoming intellectually uncomfortable as we grapple with complex and significant issues is well worth the effort if it leads to positive change. However, I also want to note that change can take many forms. Sometimes it means that you change your perspective and/or behavior. Other times, it may mean that your opinions on an issue seem to remain the same, but they are now held more deeply and consciously because they have been tested against alternative perspectives or others' experiences and found to be worth maintaining.

You might also initially think some of the readings are too theoretical and wonder how they can help you in your particular practice context. Kurt Lewin (1951), recognized as the father of social psychology, once said, "There's nothing more practical than a good theory" (p. 169). All practice is based on theory, whether we recognize it or not. Some of our practice and day-to-day actions are based on relatively unconscious, informal theories, while others are guided by more conscious, formal theories. All theory and practice have assumptions embedded within them about humans, about learning, and about what is good and what is bad, what is better and what is worse, what is possible or not possible. Our job is to become aware of those assumptions and their theoretical underpinnings. If we don't, we might find that the consequences of our actions are actually quite different from our intentions.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Those of you familiar with the movie "The Wizard of Oz" will remember the scene in which Dorothy sets off into the deep, dark woods after being told that a) it's full of lions and tigers and bears, but b) it's also an unavoidable part of the journey to her ultimate goal: the Wizard, with his ability to send her back home to Kansas and all that is familiar and "real."

It occurs to me that this image of Dorothy in the woods--which is itself a metaphor for the strength one finds in meeting challenges on the way to a goal--is not an inappropriate metaphor for the experience of adult education students in this program (not to mention my own experience as your instructor!). Many of you--although certainly not all--entered the program with a specific goal in mind: a master's degree that would either safeguard your current professional position or that would qualify you to move into a higher or different position. The "lions and tigers and bears" of the program are the obstacles that stand between you and the goal. Some of these obstacles are merely annoying (more like mice nibbling at your toes): readings that seem to have little relevance to your practice or assignments that initially appear to focus too much on "academic" thinking and writing. Others, though, can be truly upsetting: they can challenge--even seem to attack--core beliefs and values, pressing you to question, however reluctantly, the foundations on which your practice is based, and the social structure within which you both practice professionally and live your personal life.

I hope by this point in the program, everyone understands that while it is an expectation that you examine your "taken for granted" assumptions (those ideas about how the world "works" that you bring with you into the program) in the light of the readings and discussions that take place here, it is not an expectation that you change them in particular ways. Differences in personal values and experiences will lead honest, intelligent people to different answers to the same questions, even when they are presented with the same information about them. And, as noted above, change takes different forms, and not all change will be readily or immediately apparent.

What's very important, though, is that everyone focus closely on what is actually being said in the articles we read and in our discussions about them. It's also important to recognize that what is a dangerous lion or tiger or bear (oh, my!) for one person may be a loving companion for another. Similarly, what one person considers irrelevant may have deep importance to another person.

First, it's very important for all your readings to make sure that you understand and appropriately reflect what an author actually says, rather than respond to words that have perhaps been a "trigger" for strong emotions in the past. 

Second, a related aspect of understanding an author's point of view is distinguishing between their own thoughts on an issue and a discussion of other authors' ideas within the same article. It's sometimes necessary to read very closely and carefully to avoid confusion about this since each article includes multiple references to others who have written on the same topic, and a superficial reading can lead you to think that an author's statement of another's belief represents their own thoughts about the topic.

Back in Kansas?

Metaphors are great for helping us to see a situation in a different way, but they have limitations: they are never exact reflections of the phenomenon being examined. How well does the "lions and tigers and bears on the road to Oz" metaphor fit when applied to this class? Where I hope the metaphor diverges from your experience in this class is in the likelihood that you will leave this class only to return to your own "Kansas": only those ideas that are familiar and comfortable. I hope that some of your ideas will have been changed and that some will have been confirmed, but at a more deeply reflective level. Come to think of it, though, isn't that what actually happened to Dorothy? She returned home, but with a new way of looking at home and what it meant. What was true for Dorothy may be true for all of us as a result of our time together in this course: "I have been lifted up in the middle of my life, given a great shaking and set down in the exact same spot. Everything is new, unexplored, changed. Everything is the same."

References

Baldwin, C. (1990). Life's companion:Journal writing as a spiritual quest. New York: Bantam Books.

Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers. (D. Cartwright, Ed.). Harpers.

Throughout the course, then, we will be grappling (internally as individuals and in discussions) with some complex, often emotionally charged, topics. We all need to take responsibility for maintaining a learning environment in which people feel challenged, but not threatened. I hope that we can develop the level of respect and trust necessary to take risks in sharing perspectives, recognizing that it is only through such sharing that we can all make progress in better understanding our field and the issues that characterize it.

Following are some guidelines for our interactions about the course content and topics related to it:

1. Remember that text-based communication lacks the non-verbal clues we get in face-to-face conversations. A comment made with a smile can signal a much different meaning than the same words without the smile. Before sending a message intended to communicate your passionate, heartfelt opinion on a topic, ask yourself, "Will these words alone communicate the message I want to send? Is there a possibility for misunderstanding my tone? Might the readers feel attacked or "disrespected."
2. My father used to say, "It's not right to say that everyone has a right to his or her opinion. Everyone has a right to an informed opinion." Before posting a message to a discussion forum, ask yourself whether you've provided support for your ideas. Tie your opinion to your personal experience or to material you've read for this or other classes. For example, it won't take us very far if you say, "I'm sick of the way this author keeps bashing schooling." Instead, tell us where, specifically, you think the author is wrong in his or her argument and what evidence you have that calls his or her conclusions into question.
3. When responding to the ideas posted by classmates, make sure you distinguish between the person and idea in your response. Posting something like, "You only care about maintaining your own power and privilege" is an unacceptable attack on a person, whereas a statement such as "The evidence I've seen indicates that those government policies have contributed to an increasing gap between the rich and the poor" focuses on an idea, rather than the person stating the idea.
4. Maintaining respectful interactions doesn't mean that we need to be accepting of everyone's opinion as equally valid. We will all have different opinions based on our knowledge, experiences, values, and beliefs about how the world works. It won't be much of a stimulus to intellectual growth if we do nothing more than reinforce each other for the ideas we already have, rather than challenging those ideas that we think are misguided or poorly thought through. A good way to challenge a post you disagree with is to ask for further clarification or support for the idea stated: What have you read that supports that idea? Is that the way it happens in your practice as an educator? Have you thought about this implication of your idea? What about this different experience that I had? etc. We should feel free to challenge each other, but also to recognize our responsibility to "listen" to others' perspectives and consider them thoughtfully.

Even with the best of intentions, discussions can get "overheated." What we don't want is a real "melt down." If at any point in the course you are feeling like an individual (including me) has not interacted appropriately, send me a private e-mail and I will work to resolve the situation. Often, other class members will jump in and try to smooth things over. Working together, we can usually "fix" discussions that have gone astray. The best solution, of course, is to keep problems from developing in the first place.