Dear colleagues, the following announcement is from Donna Brian,
Moderator of the Poverty, Race, and Literacy Discussion List.
 
Marie Cora
*******************************
 
Guest Discussion: Poverty, Race, & Literacy 
Monday, August 7-  Friday, August 11
 
Guest: Andy Nash- please see Andy's bio below
 
To participate, sign up for the list at
http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/Povertyliteracy
 
 
Literacy Discussion List Colleagues,
 
Next week, Monday August 7 - Friday August 11, we have the great good
fortune to have as a guest on the Poverty, Race, & Literacy Discussion
List Andy Nash, Staff Development Specialist at the New England Literacy
Resource Center at World Education.  As you can see from her bio below,
Andy has experience in lots of different adult education literacy areas,
but her overarching concern has been relating literacy to social justice
and advocacy for participation in our democracy.  
 
Andy introduces this discussion by asking *us* some questions (see
paragraph 2 below).  She intends to learn from us as we learn from her.
 
Please read her bio and look up The Change Agent (
<http://www.nelrc.org/changeagent> www.nelrc.org/changeagent) and, if
you would like to participate in the discussion, join the list at
<http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/Povertyliteracy> and be ready
starting Monday to participate in a lively discussion about literacy and
social justice issues!
 
Donna
 
Donna Brian, Moderator
Poverty, Race, and Literacy Discussion List
Center for Literacy Studies at The University of Tennessee
djgbrian at utk.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Andy Nash's bio:
My work in adult education over the past 20 years has focused on
building the capacity of adults to use their developing skills to be
more informed and active participants in a democracy. I've brought this
perspective to my work in ESOL, civic participation, worker education,
family literacy, standards-based education, and many years of resource
and professional development.

Having just finished editing a new resource about bringing issues of
social justice into the classroom (see below), I am interested in
thinking about the role such materials can play in adult ed. Do you find
resources for talking about issues such as gentrification or
globalization useful, or do you think educators should stick to more
immediately tangible issues such as advocating for more affordable
daycare, interpreters at clinics, etc.? In the short amount of time we
have, is it necessary to stick with the "local," which is often speaking
up for better community services, or are your students also interested
in more general problems such as growing incarceration rates, the
war(s), or the current debate over whether a president has the right to
sidestep federal laws passed by Congress? In the interest of being as
participatory and responsive to students as possible, does it matter if
an issue gets raised by the teacher rather than being initiated by the
students? And, of course, what does it all have to do with improving
basic academic, language, and job skills?

These are all questions we think about when we work on The Change Agent
(www.nelrc.org/changeagent), a biannual social justice newspaper for
adult educators and learners published by the New England Literacy
Resource Center at World Education. It was conceived in 1994 as a tool
to educate and mobilize teachers and learners to apply advocacy skills
in response to impending federal funding cutbacks for adult education.
The first issue was so well received by teachers that we continued to
produce more issues. Now well established as a unique resource within
the adult education community, The Change Agent continues to promote
social action as an important part of the adult learning experience.
Each issue explores a different social justice theme through news
articles, opinion pieces, classroom activities and lessons, poems,
cartoons, interviews, project descriptions, and printed and Web-based
resources.

"Through the Lens of Social Justice: Using The Change Agent in Adult
Education" is a newly published book that celebrates The Change Agent's
first decade by gathering its best and most timeless pieces and by
offering guidance for educators in how to use the paper.

Chapter 1 introduces readers to the kinds of articles and tools that are
available in The Change Agent and how they can be used. These
include: "Ways In," short visual or textual prompts that can be used
with students to draw out their experiences, questions, and concerns
about social issues; "Issue Analyses," articles that examine an issue
(prisons, school vouchers, health care, etc.) by looking at how our
systems work and for whose benefit; and "Students Making Change,"
accounts of students who have used what they have learned to take some
kind of individual or collective action outside the classroom. 

Chapter 2 provides guidance in how teachers can use the articles to
build thematic curriculum units, with sample units for ABE, ESOL, and
GED. And Chapter 3 is a collection of articles about the challenges of
bringing social justice issues into the classroom and the creative
strategies that teachers have used to deal with those challenges. To see
sample pages from the book, go to www.nelrc.org/publications/cabook.html





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