Literacy Links

Getting Started: (Advice for New Adult and Family Literacy Programs)

Why Do We Do It?

by David Joost

Each of us are familiar with people who early in life, or even as pre-school children made the fortunate discovery of what they were going to do with the rest of their lives. To themselves and to many around them, it was clear that they were born to be doctors or lawyers or bankers or even educators. Somehow through an almost divine inspiration, these fortunate few saw in themselves the fields for which they were most gifted and once having recognized their talents, pursued those fields with a single-mindedness and certainty at which the rest of us can only marvel.

However, it is safe to say, that few, if any of the professionals currently practicing in the field of adult education had such an epiphany as children. In fact, the vast majority of people toiling in adult education probably had never even heard of it until well into their chosen careers.

Having established then that no one grows up as a young boy or girl dreaming intently of someday toiling in vineyards of adult education, the question becomes, "Why do people gravitate to adult education?" and further, "Why do they stay there?"

Based on my own perceptions, there are three primary sources of our colleagues. First, there are those among us who "backed into" adult education or more likely had adult education "backed into" us. Similar to stumbling onto a superb restaurant after unexpectedly taking the wrong exit off of a freeway we were trying to avoid, there are those who fell into adult education by accident but once having found it to our liking, decided to stay.

The second group and most probably the largest, is comprised of people who were at first in search of a supplemental income to their "real" job. In the beginning perhaps, they were frustrated teachers from the public schools, tired of too many students who did not want to learn and more tired of too many parents and school administrators who did not seem to care if they did either. However, after having breathed deeply the refreshing breeze of eagerness wafted over them by adult students craving to learn, they too found adult education to be professionally and personally gratifying.

The final group happily is a growing one. As the adult education field matures, it is carving out a place for itself that is recognized as legitimately separate from the traditional K-12 and post-secondary education systems. Increasingly, vigorous, able and progressive educators and administrators are actively choosing adult education as a career path early in their professional lives. They see adult education as one of the few remaining segments of education relatively free of convention and open to individual creativity and experimentation. Adult education for them is at a threshold of rebirth and renewal and they revel in the prospect of being able to mold its future.

We have then three disparate groups, each engaged in adult education for their own reasons. Where then is the commonality among them? That commonality clearly is the understanding of the social good and benefit all of us derive from improving the individual lives of people. That commonality clearly is the shared recognition that in an absolute sense, freedom and democracy rest upon the least educated, least privileged and least political among us. That commonality, is the belief that the human spirit burns in everyone, that every person has hope for a world that will be better than the one they were given and that somehow a better educated world will one day translate that hope into reality.

So then, why do we do it? We do it because we think its right. We do it because we believe it makes the world better and lives fuller. We do it because if we don't ... who will?

About the Author

David Joost is the Director of Community and Adult Education at the Houston Community College System, Texas' largest adult education consortium. He graduated from Texas A&M University with both a Bachelor of Science and Master's degree in Education. David has been involved in education for over twenty years. He currently serves as President of the Texas Council for Adult Education Cooperative Directors.