Breaking cycles of illiteracy through adult education and self-directed learning

Adult Education

Lesson

Undereducated and Disadvantaged Adult Learners

I am interested in the topic of undereducated and disadvantaged adult learners. I selected this topic because adult illiteracy is a pressing social issue. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 30 million people or 14% of the entire population has reading and writing skills that fall below the basic level. People with poor literacy skills are often unemployable and live in hopeless poverty. Since the adults themselves are barely literate or are functionally illiterate, they do not keep books in the home or read to their children. Their children arrive in the classroom with no book-handling skills or print awareness. They develop literacy skills much more slowly than their middle and upper class counterparts. As a result, children from poverty have high reading failure rates. As these children grow, they must deal with the primary effects of poverty such as poor housing and malnutrition, as well as the secondary effects such as unsafe schools, unqualified teachers and at-risk behaviors. Unfortunately, many of these children drop out of school, perpetuating the vicious cycles of illiteracy and poverty. The best way to break this cycle is to educate adult learners so that they can obtain satisfactory employment, develop self-esteem and confidence, and pass their new reading skills to their children.

Self-Directed Learning

Self-directed learning, or SDL, is a concept geared towards adult learners where the learners manage their own learning process through self-management strategies and goal-setting. Several years ago my mother returned to school to obtain her bachelor's degree. She was a non-traditional student and an adult learner, and returning to school was somewhat scary and frustrating for her at first because she felt like she didn't fit in with the young party crowd. She was really worried because she'd been out of school for a long time and didn't know if she would remember how to write papers or take tests. I saw self-directed learning in my mother as she set her goal, which was to complete each class, and to earn her degree.

Motivation to Learn

I felt like my mother was really motivated to learn. She was internally motivated because she had always wanted the opportunity to earn her degree in education and to become a classroom teacher. She often spoke about how she wanted to be able to help others to succeed, so she was motivated by the idea of encouraging and motivating her students. She was also externally motivated by the idea of financial rewards because she knew that she would make more money by working as a classroom teacher than as a teacher's aide. My mother had the internal drive to learn combined with the external motivation of making a better living.

Lesson 11

Importance of the Knowledge of Adult Development

According to Merriam (1984), it is critical for educators to have an understanding of the concept of andragogy. Adults enter the educational environment with a wide range of personal experiences, and they often return to school because they have realized that they need more education to be able to face the tasks that lie ahead of them. Educators need to know about adult development theory because it will help them to design and deliver lessons that are developmentally appropriate. It can also help educators make learning more meaningful for their students. Finally, educators should be able to recognize that the information they present will be better received if the teacher acts as a resource rather than an authority figure.

Maximized Learning Environment

Having an understanding of the stages of adult development can help both the instructor and students to maximize the learning environment. For instance, Merriam (1984) suggests that traditional classroom formats such as lectures and testing are not particularly effective. He suggests instead that hands-on learning should be used, as well as individual or self-paced learning, and that portfolios should take the place of traditional pencil and paper assessments.

Merriam also indicates that teachers act in the role of counselor. Adult learners are often in a stage of transition from one stage of life to another or from one career to another, and may need support as they undergo this difficult step.