To learn more, please visit: https://www.rethinkadulted.com/about-the-challenge/

• U.S. Department of Education competition to advance pre-apprenticeships. All providers funded under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act are invited to participate. 
• $750,000 in prizes. Up to 100 finalists will be selected to participate in a virtual accelerator from February - June 2021. One grand-prize winner will receive $250,000 and up to five runners-up will receive at least $100,000.
• Preliminary designs are due by November 25, 2020.

Adult Literacy Education: The International Journal of Literacy, Language, and Numeracy

The journal aims to publish research on adult basic and secondary education and transitions

to college and career programs. It will inform practitioners, researchers, policy makers, and funders about best practices in adult literacy, numeracy, and English language education.

Volume 2, Issue 1 is a special issue entitled Broadening the Lens on Adult Literacy Education Outcomes. The issue explores research, policy and practice that looks at adult literacy education through broader and longer-term lenses.

To access the ALE Journal, please visit https://www.proliteracy.org/ALE-Journal. The site also contains instructions and a link for submitting articles for future issues.

Volume 1, Issue 2 of ProLiteracy’s research journal,Adult Literacy Education: The International Journal of Literacy, Language, and Numeracy is now available.   Download here.

Adult Literacy Education is a peer-reviewed, online journal that will be available twice per year. The journal will publish research on adult basic and secondary education and transitions into the workplace and higher education. Research will reflect best practices in adult education to inform practitioners, researchers, policy makers, and funders.

The journal is  FREE and available as  one document or as separate articles  for download. We encourage you to circulate the journal widely to share timely, relevant topics and practices in adult education research. This issue includes:

Research Articles

• Health Insurance Literacy and Low Wage Earners: Why Reading Matters
• Journeys of Transcultural Literacies: Working toward Transformative Learning in Adult Literacy Education
• The PIAAC Numeracy Framework: A Guide to Instruction

Forum: Immigration and ESL

• Why White Instructors Should Explore their White Racial Identity
• “Race”ing White Instructors: Beyond the Black-White Binary
• Response to Stephen Brookfield’s Why White Instructors Should Explore their White Racial Identity
• Response to Edith Gnanadass and Shantih E. Clemans

Resource Review

• Foundations of Adult and Continuing Education
• The Open Door Collective: The Workforce Basic Skills Resources Collection

Research Digest

• Cultivating Creativity in Adult Literacy Education Settings

Technology Solutions for Adult Basic Skills Challenges

• Blended Learning Program Development

Please send questions or comments to ALEjournal@proliteracy.org. We hope you enjoy reading this issue!

The inductees honored in Belgrade, Serbia, September 19, 2019: Paolo Federighi (Italy), Jian Huang (China), Ana Krajnc (Slovenia), Jack Beetson (Australia), Eva Farkas (Hungary), Barbara Merrill (UK), George A. Koulaouzides (Greece), Peter Mayo (Malta), Sally M. Johnstone (USA); Rosa M. Falgas (Spain), Alberto Melo (Portugal), E. Paulette Isaac-Savage (USA), Gina Ebner (Austria), Regina Egetenmeyer-Neher (Germany), Dieter Dohmen (Germany), Ann K. Brooks (USA).

Congratulations to all inductees including AAACE members Paulette Isaac-Savage and Ann K. Brooks.

Patricia R. Brewer, Ed.D.

“Highlander is a sacred place built by communities of the most affected people and it has become a home to those who believe in freedom and collective liberation here in the south, across the U.S. and around the world.” (Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/highlandercenter/photos/pb.215912561774528.-2207520000.1557854304./2399343216764774/?type=3&theater)

When Susan Williams, Educator and Librarian at the Highlander Research and Education Center, presented a two-part workshop at AAACE’s 2017 Memphis Annual Conference, those of us in attendance had a unique and wonderful experience.  Ms. Williams brought with her photos and mini-biographies of some of the people who had been part of Highlander during the preceding four decades.  “Highlander Center – 85 Years of Social Justice Education in Tennessee” allowed AAACE attendees to portray one of those social justice advocates and to be introduced to many others.  I left that session grateful for the chance to learn more about Highlander’s story and influence in a way that was faithful to adult learning principles. 

Many adult educators are familiar with the Highlander story:  the co-founding of Highlander in 1932 by Miles Horton, Don West, and James Dombrowski; the creation of an adult education environment that reflected the ideas of Danish Folk Schools and the founders’ passion for social justice, literacy, and worker rights; the ultimate focus on civil rights that led to training some of the most important leaders of that movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and Rosa Parks; and the birthing of “We Shall Overcome” by Highlander musician Zilphia Horton.  In recent years, and after Miles Horton’s death in 1969, the Center focused on worker safety and environmental justice issues, primarily in the Appalachian region of the country.  The Center currently leads initiatives on youth immigration and democratic participation.

Highlander’s history is also filled with negative reactions, accusations of communist sympathizing, charges of violating segregation laws, and other state-approved harassments that forced the relocation of the Center to New Market, Tennessee in 1971.  More recently, on March 29 of this year, a fire destroyed the main office building that housed many of the archives associated with the Center.  Although no one was injured in the fire, the Center lost decades of historic documents that told the Highlander story.  Some of those very pictures and biographies that Susan Williams shared with AAACE members just two years ago may have been part of that loss.  A White power movement symbol was found painted on the parking lot near the burning office.

Local, state, and federal agencies continue to investigate the fire, but as of now, the cause of the fire has not been determined and no arrests have been made. Staff and supporters of Highlander are committed to continuing the Center as that sacred place for freedom, liberation, and education. As adult educators, we have a vested interest in ensuring their success. To read more about Highlander's mission, or to donate to their recovery efforts, go to https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1417777

The issue includes:

Research articles
Adult Literacy Teachers’ Perspectives on Reading Difficulties and the Origins of These Perspectives
Linking Root Words and Derived Forms for Adult Struggling Readers: A Pilot Study
The PIAAC Literacy Framework and Adult Reading Instruction

Forum: Immigration and ESL
Immigrants Learning English in a Time of Anti-Immigrant Sentiment
How Policy Changes Affect Local Immigrant Learners
Showing Up for Immigrant Learners (and Each Other)

Resource Review
The Mayor of Moultrie Avenue

Research Digest
Fostering Transformative Learning in Educational Settings

Technology Solutions for Adult Basic Skills Challenges
The CrowdED Learning Solution

Please send questions or comments to ALEjournal@proliteracy.org.

https://www.proliteracy.org/ALE-Journal

2018 Adult Learning Summit

Sponsored by
The Council for Accelerated Programs

Saturday, April 21, 2018, Nashville, TN

 Topics/What to Expect

The course learning objectives are:
-Describe the prevalence of hypoglycemic events among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and risk factors leading to an event.
-Introduce methods of assessing health literacy and numeracy of patients and caregivers.
-Review effective ways to incorporate patient preferences into care plans and differentiate A1C target values for individuals.
-List the action steps to reduce the likelihood of a hypoglycemic event for a high-risk patient.

Partners who assisted in developing the course content include:
-U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Food and Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s Professional Affairs and Stakeholder Engagement, Safe Use Initiative;
-HHS, Indian Health Service;
-HHS, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Health Care Quality and
-U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

 
Leadership Training Workshop
@ProLiteracy Conference

Thursday, September 28
3:45pm - 4:55pm

VALUEUSA will be at the 2017 ProLiteracy Conference on Adult Literacy in Minneapolis, MN.

We will have a workshop about our Leadership Training on Thursday, September 28 from 3:45pm to 4:55pm and will be presented by Marty Finsterbusch. We hope to see you at this workshop as we will explain how the Leadership Trainings can be a tool to improve literacy programs as well as prepare them for WIOA student engagement requirements among other benefits.

For the programs that have previously participated in our Leadership Training, we recommend to attend this workshop to share their experience and how the training has affected their program.

Click here to register for the conference or learn more about our Leadership Training. We still have 1 or 2 more slots open, so contact us soon to schedule a training with your program.

Literacy opens wide a door to the world but millions of adults are still locked out

On the 50th Anniversary of International Literacy Day Dr Katarina Popović - Secretary General of ICAE (International Council of Adult Education) and Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia, talks to UNESCO about how, despite the evolution in our thinking on literacy, adults are still missing out.

"Literacy is an entrance to the world,” said Ms Katarina Popović, Secretary-General of ICAE and member of the core group of the newly launched Global Alliance for Literacy.

“There have been many changes in our perception of literacy in 50 years but the greatest has been in our awareness of its deeper importance. It is not just a technical skill. It really is, as Paulo Freire said, not about reading the word but about reading the world. It is, above all, a human right and a doorway to other rights.”

She said other major changes included getting rid of the old reductive methods of testing and teaching literacy and numeracy although something between self-estimation and reductive testing of only applicable skills was still needed.

“We recognize now that not only is learning literacy a continuum and social context important but that there are many types of literacies including financial, political, health, civic and technical,” she said.

Another change in adult learning is the fact that they are no longer restricted to using materials designed for children. Adults are more engaged by custom-made materials and can absorb other messages about maternal health or HIV protection, for example, while learning. One of the biggest evolutions has been in the use of Information and Communication Technologies. While appreciating the benefits of technology as a tool, Ms Popović is wary of it being used as a substitute.

“Innovative programmes, making creative use of mobile technologies, have a place, but will never replace the need for face-to-face and dialogue-centred learning. Research has proven that teachers are needed, especially if literacy is to have a transformative role and inspire positive changes.”

Political will and funds needed for greater progress

Yet despite innovations and campaigns sparked by new global awareness of the importance of literacy - the World Lit­eracy Forum estimates the cost of illiteracy to the world economy as 1.2 trillion dollars – the rate of progress in adult literacy is slow. She is also unhappy with the imprecision of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 target for literacy. 4.6, which aims “by 2030, to ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.”

“For me this target demonstrates a lack of political will. We cannot sign up to 100 per cent and we have no moral right to propose 50 per cent so we go for ‘substantial’” she said.

Lack of resources is another huge stumbling block to progress

“To make progress literacy must be more strongly related to the other goals such as those related to poverty as there is evidence that it has an impact on positive health outcomes, increased longevity, reduced criminality rate, increased quality of life and informed environmental behaviour,” she said.

She would like to have seen the inclusion of the idea of family literacy, given the research proving the power of educated parents and especially mothers and to have literacy restored as an indicator in the Human Development Index after its removal in 2010.

Although she remains pessimistic about the future for adult literacy, she is heartened by growing awareness and engagement among a more diverse group of stakeholders.

“We already have all the evidence and research we need on the importance of adult literacy. Now we need to put it into practice,” she said.

And having worked for peace in South Eastern Europe and in particular ex-Yugoslavia she is aware of literacy’s other critical function as a builder of peace.

“We have done some very interesting experiments with overlapping maps showing conflict areas and literacy and illiteracy rates. Of course we cannot say that literacy brings peace but we can say that literacy allows critical thinking which can lead to different choices, choices other than extremism.”

Source: UNESCO http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/resources/online-materials/single-view/news/literacy_opens_wide_a_door_to_the_world_but_millions_of_adul/#.V8_c4DWz314

Related Documents

• Global Report on Adult Learning and Education calls on countries to invest in lifelong learning
  http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/global_report_on_adult_learning_and_education_calls_on_count/
• New Global Alliance for Literacy pledges partnership and innovation to boost progress http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/new_global_alliance_for_literacy_pledges_partnership_and_inn/
• UNESCO calls for renewed efforts on youth education at UN High Level Forum on Antisemitism
  http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/unesco_calls_for_renewed_efforts_on_youth_education_at_un_hi/
• Award Ceremony of the UNESCO International Literacy Prizes 2016
  http://en.unesco.org/events/award-ceremony-unesco-international-literacy-prizes-2016
  
  

1. President-Elect
2. Secretary
3. Treasurer
4. Director-at-large
5. Director of Membership

The following link will take you to a nomination form. Please identify those people you would like to nominate to one or more of the positions. Please check with the proposed nominee before placing her/his name in nomination. The AHEA By-Laws will define the position requirements and expectations.

You will note on the nomination form names of members who have agreed to have their names placed in nomination. Please feel free to add your nomination.

AHEA 2017-2018 Nomination Form

Nominations close as of: December 2, 2016.

I am writing to announce that I published a book of SCUTREA honorary member David Jones.

I met David in 2007 at Isle of Mull and I invited him to Japan for his Lecture on adult education and the arts in 2008. He was so kind and the time with him is a beautiful memory for me. By his consent since then, I had been translating his book "Adult Education and Cultural Development" . And at this spring, the translation was published at last. I attached some information on the book, his photos in Japan and my CV.

It is very sad that David and his partner Matthew passed away, but I believe that all the efforts of David will surely encourage Japanese people who are interested in lifelong learning and the arts.

I am planning to visit UK in this summer. I would like to participate in SCUTREA conference at this July, but it is sorry that I cannot, because of the schedule. I am going to participate in the international conference in Glasgow (http://www.isme2016glasgow.org/) on July 24-29 with my doctoral student, who is a joint translator of David's book. After or before this conference, we would like to visit Mull or with individuals who knew David, if possible. I hope to have conversation on David and  activities of SCUTREA. I can go anywhere in UK with your request. If it would be difficult at this July, I hope to meet you someday for another time.

I really appreciate all your kindness.

Yours sincerely,
Hironobu SHINDO

Download CV