Response to "The CWE Qualitative Evaluation Report 2013-2014"

            I really enjoyed reading The Consortium for Worker Education’s Qualitative Evaluation Report 2013-2014. This surprised me, since at first glance, this type of text serves the dry and logistical function of helping to maintain and earn funding. I was impressed by the persuasive and personal touches that were featured in this report: dozens of voices of enthusiastic teachers, students and administrators; warm and personal letters from satisfied employers; and dozens of details that made each unique site tangible and inviting. On a metacognitive level, I realized that this is the type of writing my fieldwork report should seek to emulate, and on a personal level, I was profoundly inspired to learn more about Community Based Organizations.

            Before reading this evaluation, I had not known what a Community Based Organization was, never mind that this sort of deeply personal context for supporting language and literacy students would be a one that I would be highly interested in. More than any other document this semester, I believe the CWE Qualitative Evaluation Report had the most concrete impact on transforming my perspectives and provoking me to apply my learning. After reading this document, I decided to change my fieldwork site, suggested the Iron Worker’s union to a friend for her boyfriend, and scribbled several teaching best practices in my personal journal. It felt like a really authentic text. It was also a relevant text to my particular goals and interests in teaching English to adult learners, particularly my interest in promoting improvement of quality of life through literacy, and having a classroom that features a strong collaboration between teachers and students.

            I especially loved an anecdote from Nathaniel Eggleston, an instructor at the Community Walk-In Program for work training at Henry Street Settlement because he talked about his classroom like how I would like to talk about my future classroom. He was enthusiastic and described his role as primarily a facilitator in the classroom.

Eggleston’s final comments elaborate on the participants and staff learning from each other: ‘The staff that we have don’t see themselves necessarily as educators, they see themselves as job developers and recruiters. … I had one [especially diverse] training group … I did no instruction [with this group] — I walked in and said, “How do you do a cover letter?” The older women in the class didn’t know how to use a computer very well, so the young adults could help them out. But those women knew how to do that letter correctly—they knew how to do the paragraphs and the sentences and make sure the format was right. So they were able to help the young people. And I could literally just let it happen! … Collectively, the group in the room has twice the experience that I do!’” (D’Amico, 97)

This anecdote caused me to have a visceral reaction of excitement about my future career working with adult learners. Adult learners have diverse backgrounds and really bring a tremendous wealth of experience and knowledge they can share. I also liked that this was a concrete example of how to have a classroom where the teacher is an authentic collaborator in the classroom. In my last blog post, I wrote about my concerns about learning to achieve a classroom where teachers and students were co-learners. This model of a teacher posing a real-world task and encouraging collaboration to achieve it seems like a model I could easily apply in my own classroom.

            This passage shifted how I thought about several aspects of my career as an adult educator. I discovered that writing for funding and bureaucratic reasons can still be energetic and have captivating voice in its own way. I started to get closer to identifying how to put the model of teachers and students as collaborators into practice. I also got a glimpse into the way I would like to think about my future teaching. In many ways, this instructor’s quote resonated with me enough that I could use its content as a “pseudo rubric” for how reflection on effective teaching should sound. And last, but not least, I learned that I think a CBO is “right up my alley”; I would like to explore ways that I can simultaneously explore how adult language and literacy instructors can also touch on the exciting content of vocational skills.