The Educator I Want to Become - Learning Activity #1

My desire to teach has grown into a passion to create an adult literacy center. My youngest sister was tutoring adults when I was working in the banking industry several careers ago. Although she made no money, I knew from her conversation she enjoyed the little victories her students made. Many of them were old enough to be our grandparents. Unfortunately, my sister never realized her dream of teaching. She was tragically murdered leaving behind two young boys under 9 years old. This is what I bring with me into every tutoring session. This is what I bring into the classroom. It is not written on my sleeve or across my forehead nor do I announce it as a proclamation. It is a remembrance for me as to why I chose to be an educator. As a teacher of adults you know your students are in the class for a reason. They want to be there. The class may be required and therefore not what he/she would have chosen, but the end result is that the class or program is needed to complete the bigger picture the student has for him/herself. In teaching, you want to make sure your students are getting the information they seek from you. Their understanding of your material is priority for the class to progress. Their comprehension of the content is the major objective. However in planning a workshop or program, the focus is not just the students but all of the outside influences that exist before the class ever meets. In looking over the readings for this class, I tried to determine which piece of the basic elements of programming would be most challenging for me. But Thomas J. Sork’s model is pretty straight forward. The fact that one step can be started in any order without the dependency on the other does not feel restrictive in its approach. With the proper amount of dedication and time to each unit of the model, program planning seems manageable. However, it is his third dimension of the workshop planning model, the element one cannot write on paper, more or less, that gives me reason to pause. After a class conversation on what to do if given a task to create a program for a rural area infected with an unknown disease, I imagined the social-political and ethical issues I would face creating a literacy center. Would I be as determined in providing assessment data to my investors as I would be in creating a center where the adults are receiving the instruction they seek? What ethical issues would I be up against? Could I submit to the politicking that has to be done to achieve the outcomes I need? I admit, it shook me for a moment because I realized I would have to learn to balance the various hats a program planner has to wear along with the many considerations that have to be taken into account. I also realized during this instruction that not everyone is made to create programs. It seems an arduous task. But while I’m struggling to get these hats to fit, my history and my reason for why I am an educator, why I am working hard to create this center will allow me to keep my focus. I believe that education in any form is power. No matter how an adult accesses the content they need, they are empowered and it can change the trajectory of their lives. In the best case scenario the student comes out knowing more than she/he did when she/he went in. I see myself planning a literacy center with programs that will assist adults in accomplishing their academic, personal or professional goals with an approach that is more learner-centered than teacher focused. I want to create as many best case scenarios that I can and learn from those incidents that were not. In doing so, I can tweak my understanding, alter my strategies or create new ones that will ensure that the students are getting what they need to succeed. On the other side of the coin, I will have to balance the ethical and political complications of creating a literacy center and because I have not been in a situation where these skills could be developed, my first order of business will be finding a mentor or someone who can guide me through the process. Having someone who has developed adult programs to converse with during this process would be a great sounding board for me and would prove to be extremely valuable. However, if no person is forthcoming I will and must be prepared to learn by trial and error and not let the fear of the unknown deter me from my intended goal.