Dear Reader, ABOUT PROGRESS
Progress is published by the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center Virginia Commonwealth University 1015 W. Main Street P.O. Box 842020 Richmond, Virginia 23284-2020 Permission is granted to reproduce articles from this newsletter. Please credit the author and Progress. Subscriptions are free to Virginia residents. To subscribe, contact the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center at 800.237.0178, 804.828.6521 or vdesk@vcu.edu. Progress is available online at: http://www.vcu.edu/aelweb/progress. Submissions and letters to the editor are welcome. Contact John Anderson, Progress Assistant Editor, at 804.828.6521 or 800.237.0178. We reserve the right to decline publication. Director of Adult Education and Literacy Yvonne Thayer, Ed.D. Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center Director Susan Joyner Editor Carolyn Harding Assistant Editor John Anderson Graphic Designer Tammy Wymer This product was paid for under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act of 1998; however, the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the position or policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and no official endorsement by the U.S. Department should be inferred.
PROGRESS NEWSLETTER
Whether you call yourself a tutor, an instructor, a trainer, or a facilitator of learning, chances are that your students call you teacher. Learners seem to have no trouble identifying a good teacher, yet educators have a hard time defining what it means to teach. I went into the family trade; both my parents were teachers. My first notion of teaching was to be like the teachers who taught me. With the admonition, “Don’t teach them, help them learn,” came the realization that the role of teacher is not so simple. Figuring it out can be a life’s work. A variety of perspectives on the teacher’s role are reflected in this issue of Progress. Clysta Walters’ conviction that learning should be an active role for both teacher and the student lead her to embrace the new GED as Project curriculum approach. The GED as Project inquiry-based learning template challenges the traditional notion that the teacher’s job is to get directly to the right answer. “The teacher as facilitator creates an atmosphere that supports both the right answer and the wrong answer as a means of understanding the content in the learning process.” In fact a wrong answer may be as helpful as a right answer. Different situations require teachers to take different roles. Michele Whitaker explains how she could relate to an adult student’s fear of facing a computer-based test. Taking the role of mentor, she used technology to recreate the test-taking experience for him. Kitti Mann, the teacher in Spotsylvania’s Bridges to the Future project, joined a team of professionals assisting welfare-to-work clients. In this situation, she became a counselor as well as an instructor for women struggling with multiple barriers to self-sufficiency. Teachers bring their personal lives along with their content expertise to the classroom. Trish McLaurin Rodriguez writes about incorporating civics. She encourages teachers to share their knowledge about their communities with the newcomers in their classes: “Your life can serve as a community resource.” The best reading experience is when you recognize yourself in a text but are able to learn something new. The editorial team hopes that every issue of Progress presents new ways to think about our roles in adult education and literacy. A readership survey is inserted in this newsletter. Please take a moment to let us know how we are doing. Sincerely,
2
WINTER 2003
