Dear friends,

    !n 2003, the New York City Department of Education announced that they 
were closing the Basic Education and GED classes at Our Lady of Refuge 
Church in Brooklyn, NY.    This action would dramatically affect the 70 
students that I was teaching in the basement of the church.   These were 
free classes and there were few other educational opportunities for adult 
students in the area.  Most students were women, minorities, immigrants and 
working class.   They have less access to many social services, including 
childcare, legal aid, health care and advocacy, etc., because of budget cuts 
and the low priority that these occupy in governemnt agendas - city, state 
and federal.

   The urgency of the issue provided an opportunity to hold several 
important discussions in classes
for students to learn and articulate their concerns.  They studied and 
discussed what they could do
to keep the classes open, organized a student committee and elected their 
leaders.  They looked at past efforts to organize including the antislavery, 
labor and civil rights movements.  They began to organize support in the 
church, the community, the teacher's union, and other classes.   Several 
small news articles drew attention to the injustice that they were 
describing and they forced the school superintendent to meet with them.  In 
a larger public forum they got him to sign an agreement to keep the classes 
open and provide many resources to the classes.

   This process changed the view and understanding of many invloved.  It was 
clearly educational in many ways, and illustrated how they could change 
conditions if they understood what was going on.
Students developed research, organizational and public speaking skills.  
This provided an opportunity
to have the most relevant learning and discussion about government and 
democratic participation.
It clearly allowed for and promoted a critical examination of our realities 
and promoted a 'we can solve this' approach.

   There are many issues affecting adult student lives and they are a 
vitally important and relevant medium for learning and critical thinking, 
questioning and understanding what is going on around us and why.   In our 
world today, we face uncertain economic changes that are affecting all of us 
and
particularly the students we teach and work with.    We don't need to import 
an 'activist agenda', but adult education particularly needs to integrate 
the real world issues that confront all of us.
The fact that adult education/literacy classes reach only a small fraction 
of the potential population and that funding for these programs is woefully 
inadequate, should clearly illustrate that the survival
of classes is dependent on social awareness.    Greater understanding of 
social issues, learning that is based on real life student problems and 
civic literacy (including organizing and advocacy) are subjects
that should be taught in every program.

David Greene