With all due respect to your knowledge, I have to
disagree with your interpretation of Dr. Stitch words.
 My own experience in early childhood (limited to only
three years) and family literacy (limited to one
semester) and in adult education in general (20 years
overall) informs me that indeed investing in adult
education and in family literacy programs can
potentially break the cycle of failure of children in
public education.  

This is not to say that a better salary, health
insurance and therefore quality pre natal and post
natal care, and a good nutrition (components that you
mentioned in your post) are not indispensable. 
However, adults with more information regarding
parenting skills, information regarding the school
system, and information regarding skills that children
have to learn in school will be much better equipped
to help their children succeed. 

My own experience with students: it is painful when
they tell me their child was held back because he/she
can decode but does not understand what is read to
him/her.   These are issues that can be approached in
programs that include family literacy as a crucial
component of their curricula.   In the family literacy
program I worked for in New York, literacy in native
language was encouraged consistently.  We had
illiterate mothers who were encouraged to "read" the
illustrations and ask questions to the children.  

As a teacher and as a mother I think that this is
crucial for the further development of reading skills
in children.   Quality adult education that includes
parenting skills in their curricula can make a
significant difference.  Some parents are afraid of
having a teacher parent conference because they do not
know what to say.  They don't know their rights, and
they don't know how to advocate for their children. 
Aside from the crucial fact that parents are
encouraged to read and speak to their children as much
as possible (which is how I interpret the significance
of the oral component of literacy in Huey's quote)
adult education and family literacy programs can
really help parents navigate such complicated
environments as the public education and  health
systems in the United States.   



Respectfully,
Nadia Quiroz-Colby
Houston, TX
--- BLAIRE WILLSON TOSO <bwt121 at psu.edu> wrote:


> >Hi all,

> >

> 

> 

> 

> This interaction has been fascinating to

> read.  I would like to caution that while Dr.

> Sticht's argument

> below may be considered a way  to promote  funding

> for adult

> ed,  it also continues to place the burden of

> education primarily

> on parents and maintains a discourse of deficiency

> for poor parents,

> and women in particular.  Mothers continue to be

> held accountable

> for their children's learning both in and out of

> school, which adds to

> their other duties and worries (for an insightful

> read see Griffith &

> Smith, Mothering for Schooling, 2005).  More

> unfortunate is how

> this argument continues to cast light on parents as

> being deficient

> (unable, unwilling, not educated enough, not smart

> enough, wrong

> values, etc.) rather than unable to "succeed" due to

> structural issues within society (race, poverty,

> gender, disability). 

> It keeps the equation much too simple; an educated

> parent equals a

> successful child.  Research has begun to indicate

> that other 

> factors link strongly to a child's success, such as

> school quality,

> school population, quality daycare, nutrition, and

> welfare policy. 

> Parents assist children in becoming literate

> citizens in many more

> ways than shared book reading.  There are many

> authors that write

> on this topic  (e.g. Panofsky, Delpit, Gee, Taylor,

> Lewis,

> Villenas, Vernon-Feagans, Cook-Gumperz, Okagaki,

> Morrison).  I

> realize that this perspective might be considered

> peripheral to

> workplace classes but the ideas we carry of our

> students into class

> are reflected in how we go about our jobs and how we

> lobby for

> change. 

> 

> 

> Blaire

> 

> 

> 

> 

> --- On Thu, 1/5/08, tsticht at znet.com

> <tsticht at znet.com> wrote:

> 

> From: tsticht at znet.com <tsticht at znet.com>

> Subject: [Workplace 1335] Re: A Nation Still at Risk

> - another question for Dr.

> Sticht

> To: workplace at nifl.gov

> Date: Thursday, 1 May, 2008, 8:47 PM

> 

> Ruth: You asked,

> "So could one not then say that it would be more a

> matter of the values

> and

> spirit of the time (zeitgeist)that promoted

> education for future

> generations rather than the education of the

> parents? "

> 

> My response is that the zeitgeist for public

> education was itself created by

> both better educated adults who saw the value of a

> better educated citizenry

> and by parents, many of whom were immigrants and/or

> disadvantaged,  whose

> life experience in the nation self-educated them

> about the value of

> education and lead them to be encouraging and

> supportive of their

> children's pursuit of education. However, not all of

> the disadvantaged

> reacted this way in historical perspective nor do

> they today. And national

> data for the period from the 1970's to the present

> indicate that, aside

> from the actual number of years of schooling a

> person has, the person's

> parent's education levels are consistently and

> positively most highly

> related to their children's acquisition of higher

> levels of reading at 9,

> 13, 17, and adulthood. This is why I started

> thinking abut the Multiple

> Life Cycles education policy that takes explicit

> recognition of this

> intergenerational phenomenon.

> 

> Interestingly, in the history of the U.S., before

> the K-12 public school

> system, the burden of basic education (reading,

> writing, arithmetic) fell

> upon the parents, particularly mothers. In his 1908

> book, The Psychology

> and Pedagogy of Reading,  Edmund Burke Huey  has  a

> chapter (Chapter XVI)

> entitled "Learning to Read at Home" in which he 

> talks about the

> intergenerational transfer of oral language and

> literacy from parents to

> their children and says,   "The secret of it all

> lies in the parent's

> reading aloud to and with the child. …The ear and

> not the eye is the

> nearest gateway to the child-soul, if not indeed to

> the man-soul. Oral work

> is certain to displace much of the present written

> work in the school of the

> future, at least in the earlier years; and at home

> there is scarcely a more

> commendable and useful practice than that of reading

> much of good things

> aloud to the children." (p. 332 & 334)

> 

> In another chapter (Chapter VI) entitled  "The Inner

> Speech of Reading And

> the  Mental and Physical Characteristics of Speech"

> Huey makes the point

> that "The child comes to his first reader with his

> habits of spoken

> language fairly well formed, and these habits grow

> more deeply set with

> every year. His meanings inhere in this spoken

> language and belong but

> secondarily to the printed symbols….To read is, in

> effect, to translate

> writing into speech."  So in these two chapters we

> find that parents

> transfer oral language to their children, partly by

> readng to them,  and

> then the oral language forms the basis for the

> written language. I made

> this connection in my report on Literacy and Human

> Resources Development at

> Work: Investing in the Education of Adults to

> Improve the Educability of

> Children in 1983.

> 

> In yet another chapter, (Chapter XV ) entitled "The

> Views of

> Representative

> Educators Concerning Early Reading," Huey relates to

> the need for what I

> have called a Multiple Life Cycles education policy

> that invests in the

> education of parents and says, "Where children have

> good homes, reading

> will thus be learned independently of school. Where

> parents have not the

> time or intelligence to assist in this way…the

> school of the future will

> have as one of its important duties the instruction

> of parents in the means

> of assisting the child's natural learning in the

> home."

> 

> Historically, then, from Huey's time (1908) to the

> present, there is reason

> to argue for making greater investments in the

> education of disadvantaged,

> undereducated adults, particularly in a workplace

> language, literacy,

> numeracy (LLN) program, since most disadvantaged

> adults are, in fact,

> employed, to break the intergenerational cycles of

> poorly developed

> literacy skills.

> 

> Hope this is of interest and use to you in your

> thinking about workforce

> education and development and hence the improvement

> of children's

> education.

> 

> 

> Tom Sticht

> 

> 

> 

> .uk

> 

> 

> 

> 

=== message truncated ===>
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