What will people think?

Thinking about what other people think can be a sign of inhibition or empathy. It can be timid and constraining or open-minded with active curiosity about other people’s perceptions, leading to deeper understanding and intellectual growth.

The “Three Rs” have been with us for a very long time and are the accepted basics of education. Technological and social changes mean that they are no longer enough to prepare us for a productive life.

The “Four Cs” of critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity are now described as key twenty-first century skills. They are essential elements of teaching and learning as we encourage students to be curious, aware and open to learning from different viewpoints. They are integral to education for social purpose.   This simple illustration can prompt a lot more thinking. It shows why dialogue is important.

We can explore the “Four Cs” in terms of teaching and learning, lesson planning and curriculum development. Adult educators might also think outside the confines of our own experience and enthusiasm to think about how others feel about the prospects and potential of adult learning. Do they see what we see?

What do you think?

Adult Education, Citizenship, Democracy and Justice

There was a lively buzz at a get together in Leeds this week that focused on adult education and an agenda for citizenship, democracy and justice. People who were in the room and beyond, connecting via social media, are excited about the traditions and promise of adult education for social purpose. It was good to see people of different ages and backgrounds exchanging experiences and ideas in a refreshing day of active learning and critical thinking.

Jol Miskin introduced the day’s activities, explaining that the aims of the event were to:

• raise the profile of learning for democracy;
• develop partnerships for learning for active citizenship;
• explore resources and approaches for a citizens’ curriculum.

The morning’s activity was made up of 3 sessions of 30 minutes. Each had a starter for ten (minutes) from professors with a wealth of academic knowledge and practical understanding followed by 20 minutes of discussion in small groups. The speakers were engaging and disciplined about timing.

Professor John Field (Emeritus Professor in the School of Education at the University of Stirling and Honorary Professor at the University of Warwick) started us off with a session on ‘Learning from experience: taking the long view of citizenship, justice, democracy and adult learning’. 

John said that adult education began with citizenship and mass membership organisations. He reminded us of how women and working class men have been excluded from democracy, sparking movements for equality that were bound up with adult education. He referred to important figures such as R H Tawney who paved the way for today’s education for social purpose.

Prof John Field quotes R H Tawney, who was the WEA’s President (1928–44) and Vice-President (1920–28 and 1944–48)

Tawney’s language might seem dated now but his ideas are still very relevant and important.

John asked the following questions as a stimulus for group discussion:

Professor Marj Mayo (Emeritus Professor of Community Development at Goldsmiths University and member of the National Advisory Panel of Class) moved us on to, ‘Identifying spaces, claiming spaces and using spaces for deepening democracy’. Marj reminded us of more recent work on active citizenship through Take Part initiatives, such as a Train the Take Part Trainers initiative run by the WEA and NAVCA. This was one of a range of Take Part activities involving many organisations, overseen by the Community Development Foundation and funded by the Department of Communities and Local Government.

Arguing that we can’t have social justice without social change and claiming spaces, she made distinctions between citizens as ‘active dissenters, subversive dissenters, self helpers and colluders.’

Marj’s questions for discussion were:

Professor Stephen Coleman (Professor of Political Communication at the University of Leeds) finished off the trio of talks with 10 minutes on ‘Voice as a subversive instrument’.

Stephen drew attention to statistics from the Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement, which is now in its eleventh year.

Discussing levels of alienation from politics, he suggested ‘playing the outcomes and impact game’ by having outcome measures for political and democratic engagement.

These were Stephen’s questions for group discussion.

The range of people, experiences and organisations represented at the event led to some very animated group discussions in the afternoon before a final plenary session.

Cheryl Turner and I had been given the task of summing up the day.

We noted how questioning and open attitudes had prompted a lot of active debate and participation, so finished by pulling together some of the basic questions and observations that had emerged.

What underpins a citizens’ curriculum?

• It should be negotiated locally;
• It should be relevant and based on people’s interests, concerns or passions;
• It should link with the global and connect people;
• It should address inequality;
• It should be challenging and make a difference.

Who is it for?

• It should be inclusive;
• It should be for collective learning and benefit;
• All participants should learn from each other, including teachers and politicians learning from students;
• It should be an important element of lifelong learning for people at all ages and stages of life, including family learning

 How? (Principles) 

• Respectful dialogue with active listening;
• Questioning and open-mindedness;
• Acknowledging different experiences and perspectives;
• Valuing people’s views and giving constructive feedback;
• Finding new ways of talking (and learning) about politics that are different from the remoteness of the political ‘class’ and based on everyday life;
• Collaborating, networking and sharing of resources;
• Developing outcome and impact measures for democratic and political engagement;
• Well advertised, accessible and welcoming.

What next?

Participants have agreed to share contact details and to follow up with actions.

As well as community learning champions, community activists, adult educators and academics, the group included representatives of Democracy Matters, the Electoral Reform Society and several other influential organisations. Look out for a “Declaration for Democracy: Our call for political education and renewal”, from Democracy Matters and other related activity.

Thanks to colleagues at the University of Leeds, NIACE and the WEA for organising the event.

The Twitter hashtag was #aecdj.

Women overcoming disadvantage through education

We are launching our “WEA Women overcoming disadvantage through education” campaign with a conference in Nottingham this Wednesday, 4 June. It’s at the ICCA, Hucknall Road, Nottingham, NG5 1QZ, with registration at 10.00 am for a 10.30 start and a 4.00 pm finish.

As well as our own General Secretary and CEO, Ruth Spellman and WEA colleagues, speakers will include:

• Dr Finn Mackay, feminist activist and WEA Ambassador
• Dr Anita Franklin from the University of Sheffield
• Cheryl Turner of NIACE
• Baroness Frances D’Souza, the Lord Speaker House of Lords

You can find more about the conference here.

The WEA has recognised, included and valued women’s contributions and has improved women’s lives through education for over 110 years, so the campaign is a continuation of a long tradition.

Albert Mansbidge established “An Association to promote the Higher Education of Working Men” in 1903 with his wife Frances, using two shillings and sixpence (12½ pence) from her housekeeping money, but the organisation changed its name to become the “Workers’ Educational Association” in 1905 in response to women’s demands for inclusion. This was before the fight for female suffrage was won. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Emily Wilding Davison was an early WEA activist. She was the suffragette campaigner who died after King George V’s horse trampled over her at the Epsom Derby in 1913.

Writing in the same year as the tragic event at Epsom, Ida Hony, the second WEA’s women’s officer, said,

“Of all the special efforts the WEA is making today, perhaps none is more important than the special effort it is making on behalf of women.”

Mel Lenehan, Regional Education Manager for the WEA in the East Midlands. has shared this short video giving an overview of our women’s education from the Association’s early days to today’s ‘Women Leading Learning’ and ‘Women into Politics’ projects.

 

We are inspired by our past and can learn from it but too much nostalgia can seem indulgent when inequality is still rife and there is so much work to do, so we’re focusing on current and future priorities.

Wednesday’s conference aims to:

• Define the skills and knowledge needed by learning practitioners to deliver the women’s learning programme model;
• Identify what difference the women’s learning programme model makes to students and society;
• Share and consider ways to embed equality, diversity and social purpose education within women’s learning provision.

It’s guaranteed to be a stimulating and stirring get together.

You can email Hanna Liljeberg hliljeberg@wea.org.uk or telephone: 01332 291805 to find out more.

Persuasion, politics and adult education

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Building on more than a century of adult education for community engagement, the WEA is running  ‘Why Vote‘ and ‘Deciding Locally‘ initiatives to boost voter registration. Dr Henry Tam from the University of Cambridge led a Twitter chat about it last week. There’s a Storify summary of tweets here.

The WEA doesn’t promote any individual political party but has a long tradition of encouraging people to vote and to go further by becoming active in politics, especially at local levels.

Practical political education aims to stimulate critical thinking about how democracy and politics work. It is important that people can make informed decisions and can develop the skills and confidence to get involved in shaping policies that affect them directly.

Critical questioning plays a key role in political judgments and in daily life. Information bombards us from several sources every day, but can we trust it? Are we being informed or manipulated – deliberately or inadvertently? Do we notice the difference between indoctrination, persuasion and education?

Indoctrination trains people to accept a set of beliefs without opportunities for questioning so that they conform to particular ideas, opinions and principles without considering alternatives.

Persuasion is more subtle. It relies on the assumption that most people will not sift through the range of relevant information even when they are free to do so. A persuader can impose their opinion by highlighting specific ‘information’ or by appealing to emotions.

In theory, education presents facts and logical arguments, encouraging students to think for themselves, assess all the relevant information and come to their own conclusions. In practice, education does not take place in a vacuum. Teachers are likely to bring their own perspectives and can be powerful persuaders, while students apply their own filters based on their personal experiences. Some adult students are very eloquent and informed before they begin a course. Others are more likely to accept ideas without questioning. These issues raise various practical and ethical questions.

As an adult education organisation, the WEA respects tutors and students as equals who share and learn from their differing experiences. Being able to understand and to apply principles of persuasion might be a useful part of the teaching and learning process.

Aristotle’s Rhetoric defined these principles many centuries ago, identifying the three elements of logos, ethos and pathos.

• Logos – logic, facts, evidence, reason
• Ethos – ethics, credibility, dependability
• Pathos – emotion, appeal to people’s feelings

 

Watching a news bulletin on television can be a good opportunity to look for the three elements of rhetoric. We can assess how much of what we are told is based on facts and evidence and can think about whether we trust the source. We can decide whether we are being swayed because of substance, spin or charisma.

There are some good free resources to help with analysis of political parties’ policies and statements of fact, including:

• Vote for Policies at http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/ which provides a test of what policies you might agree with if bias towards a particular political party is removed.
• Full Fact at https://fullfact.org/ which is an independent fact checking organisation which provides free tools, information and advice, so that anyone can check the claims we hear from politicians and the media.

Anyone who thinks that politics has no place in education or vice versa should think about how many cabinet ministers of different political parties have studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics degrees at the University of Oxford. 

Recognising the elements of rhetoric is a tiny step in comparison but can give people some tools to assess information and more skills in getting messages across for themselves.

Any other useful websites, resources or comments?

Who and what is education for?

Eavesdropping on a Twitter conversation this week, I ‘overheard’ this snippet from NIACE’s David Hughes: “Some people think the only need is for education in transition from childhood into work…”

His tweet summed up a view of education that has to be challenged and changed. Of course education is for children and young people and it’s about preparation for work but it’s also about a lot more.

Education is not just for children and young people

Data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that approximately 23% of the current population is aged under 19. The biggest growth in the next 20 years is forecast to be in the over 65 age group.

Children’s education and their transitions into work don’t just depend on schools. They also rely on adults who are themselves adapting to parenthood, changing stages of life, relationships and circumstances. These adults should have access to education too, for their sakes and for their children’s, especially if they are among the people who left school with poor levels of skills and confidence.

School leavers will have to adapt to many developments as they grow older. Jobs that exist now will disappear and they will need to adjust to changing demands for new and as yet unknown skills. As England’s last deep coal mines close, marking the end of an era, coal mining will disappear as a job. It will join the list of roles that have become obsolete during my lifetime along with working in typing pools, film processing, type setting and many more employment options.

Changing jobs need new skills

Adults who are in the workforce now will need to learn new skills for new jobs. Learning how to be adaptable, resilient and creative will help them to deal with change. Better still, developing critical thinking and problem solving expertise could equip people to shape progress instead of simply responding to it.

People don’t have to work for someone else despite the dominant messages about learning to please employers. They can learn to be self-employed, to work in co-operatives or social enterprises or to become employers themselves. The current narrative for school leavers and adults can be quite limited in its implied ambition.

Education is not just for work

One online calculation about the proportion of a person’s life spent in paid work suggests that someone who works for 40 hours per week from age 18 to age 65 will spend approximately 14% of their life working. That’s a very rough estimate but it gives an indicator of non-working time, including an eventual transition from paid employment into what should be an active, independent and healthy retirement.

The WEA has three educational themes as well as Employability. You can find out more about the four educational themes here. These themes, including Health and Wellbeing, Community Engagement and Culture, reflect a belief that education has social and cultural purposes and not just a narrow economic focus – although there are economic benefits of living in healthy, tolerant and inclusive communities.

There is a strong alignment between these approaches and the “Purpose of Government Supported Community Learning”, which is outlined on page 14 of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ 2011 policy paper, “New Challenges, New Chances: Further Education and Skills System Reform Plan“, but not enough recognition beyond the community learning sector.

Education in a civilised society is for collective as well as individual benefit. It should be lifelong, life-wide and full of inspiration and challenge, whatever the student’s age, stage of life or circumstances.

Who and what do you think education is for?

Health, wellbeing and adult learning

Improved health and wellbeing can be a driver, a vehicle and an outcome of adult and community learning. This summarised part of an online discussion today with colleagues from other organisations. We agreed to think of some examples from our organisations. Here are some from the Workers’ Educational Association.

Health and wellbeing as a driver for adult learning 

Many people get involved in adult learning to improve their physical and mental health.

The WEA carried out an impact survey in 2013 of 522 students who had taken part in a range of our adult learning courses in the autumn of 2012. 45 per cent of the people who responded said that their main motivation was ‘to improve wellbeing or keep mind and body healthy and active’. 31 per cent said that they had wanted ‘to improve self-confidence’. The full results of the survey are available here.

Health and wellbeing as a vehicle for adult learning 

The WEA runs many courses and projects with health and wellbeing as a focus. Community Learning for Healthy Living (CLHL) is just one from many examples.

Snapshot from a CLHL flyer

This was a three-year project (2010-13) that aimed to improve the health and wellbeing of over 3,000 adults in predominantly BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) communities through provision of structured courses that combined preventative health education with physical exercise. The project addressed the problem of obesity and related risk of chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease that are prevalent among targeted communities in disadvantaged areas of Birmingham.

The project involved extensive community outreach to encourage people to take part in activities especially designed for their needs. Activities also focused on building partnerships with community organisations and key agencies to develop a comprehensive, inclusive and culturally appropriate health provision programme.

You can read an evaluation report of the Community Learning for Healthy Living project here.

Health and wellbeing as an outcome of adult learning 

Nearly all respondents (98 per cent) in the WEA’s 2012-13 impact survey reported a positive social or health impact as a result of doing their course, whether it had a direct health focus or not. The majority (87 per cent) noted the course had kept their mind and body active. This figure rose to 94 per cent in those with a long-term physical or mental illness.

Overall, 69 per cent of respondents said the course made them feel better about themselves generally and this increased for those with children under eighteen (75 per cent) and for those with a long-term physical or mental illness (73 per cent).

A virtuous circle

‘Health and Wellbeing’ is one of the WEA’s four educational themes. The others are ‘Employability’, ‘Community Engagement’ and ‘Culture’. All the themes are interlinked and it’s interesting see students like Melrose Logan from Dudley, who has contributed to community engagement as volunteer improving other people’s health.

Melrose was keen to improve her own health through better diet and regular exercise, but she also gained an unexpected knowledge and understanding about anatomy and physiology from  being involved in the WEA’s Tandrusti health project.

After training as a volunteer with Tandrusti, she regularly takes large groups for health walks around Dudley and promotes and encourages the regular exercise message within the community. Following her successes, Melrose now has a full-time job.

Background to this blog 

This blog was prompted by a discussion of issues relating to health literacy and numeracy. Colleagues involved in the collaboration include:

• Jonathan Berry, Community Health and Learning Foundation
• Sarah Gibb, National Numeracy
• Annie Gilbert, Merck Sharp & Dohme Limited
• Tricia Hartley, Campaign for Learning
• Ann Malone, Health Evolution
• Prof Gill Rowlands, King’s College London, who is leading the initiative

Ron Moreton – WEA Bradford Treasurer

WEA colleagues in the Yorkshire and Humber region and beyond are paying tribute this week to Ron Moreton who died peacefully on February 25, 2014 at the Marie Curie Hospice in Bradford aged 82 years.

Ron always introduced himself at meetings as the temporary treasurer of the WEA’s Bradford Branch. He’d had the voluntary role for over 40 years and his summary says a lot about him. He had a wry sense of humour and a strong sense of duty. He played a pivotal role in supporting WEA courses in Bradford and was active in regional governance, being a key member of the Regional Finance Committee for many years.

Ron was a straightforward Yorkshire man who gave a lot of time to his voluntary work. He worked tirelessly for the WEA and inspired a great deal of respect and affection. We were always pleased to see him and to hear from him.

We send our thoughts and sympathy to Ron’s wife, Audrey, and his family. We will be paying our respects at his funeral service at the Parish Church of St. James, Tong Village on Friday March 7, at 12.00 noon.

Education, the electoral roll and access to benefits

Should access to benefits and public services depend on inclusion on the Electoral Register? This idea is being considered in the Electoral Register (Access to Public Services) Bill 2013-14, which  is expected to have its second reading debate on 28 February 2014. Did you know about it? There’s a summary of the Bill’s proposals and progress here, with a partial screen shot shown below.

Democracy has been a hot topic this week, with a new national campaign urging people to ‘Bite the Ballot” and, in twitter-speak, to #takepower. February 5 was designated as National Voter Registration Day, although it’s not too late to register. The WEA supports the Bite the Ballot initiative with enthusiasm as we’ve been committed to education for democracy for over a century. There’s more information on the WEA’s website here, where you can see a short animated step-by-step guide on registering to vote and a film of Dr Finn Mackay talking about the importance of democratic engagement. Finn is a WEA Ambassador, founder of the London Feminist Network and reviver of London Reclaim the Night.

Much of this week’s media debate has been about voter apathy and disillusionment with politics and politicians – but we should be aware of other aspects and impacts of Parliamentary action on voter registration.

Part of the WEA’s educational work and campaigning is to raise awareness and understanding about how Parliament and local government works on our collective behalf, whether we have voted for our elected representatives or not. We put this into practice recently by drawing people’s attention to the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee’s Inquiry on adult literacy and numeracy. The WEA’s written response to the Inquiry was based on collated views from students, tutors and others across the Association following some in-class discussions about the Select Committee, its workings and its call for views.

Our involvement in active citizenship and political education over the years has highlighted some of the difficulties that homeless people have in registering to vote if they have no fixed address. We have explored some of the issues that people face if their personal details become relatively easily available online when they join the Electoral Roll and it’s been enlightening to hear testimony from political refugees who have been denied the right to vote and been persecuted by ruling regimes in other countries.

It’s debatable whether we have a functioning democracy if voter registration and the turnout at elections is low and we should make people aware of their rights and responsibilities as citizens. There are many powerful, but not apparently sufficiently compelling, reasons to use the right to vote. People, including the WEA activist and suffragette Emily Wilding Davison, who campaigned and died so we could have this right – but should access to benefits and public services be linked to compulsory registration to vote?

Whether this is ‘Civics’, ‘Active Citizenship’, ‘Practical Political Education’ or any other labelled learning, it’s an important area of education for social purpose that doesn’t receive nearly enough attention in what should be an educated democracy.

Thoughts?

Family Learning – 10 top tips from adult and community learning

The NIACE-led independent Inquiry into Family Learning has shone a light on an important aspect of education that has been in the shadows for too long. Family learning is a positive and proven way to tackle educational inequality across generations so it’s good to see that NIACE and Ofsted are now calling for examples of good practice and that the Family Learning Works report is inspiring action instead of gathering dust after its publication.

The WEA has a long and successful tradition of working with schools, children’s centres, parents and carers. As a national organisation covering England and Scotland, we work at strategic levels but are also embedded in neighbourhoods.

Ten tips

1. Develop local networks around each school. Contacts are not enough. Nurture relationships.
2. Stay in the community for the long haul. Don’t do one project and move on.
3. Talk with teachers and head teachers about making parents and carers welcome in schools. Work together to deal with concerns about school security and safeguarding.
4. Agree ground rules for all relationships to avoid misunderstandings or inappropriate behaviour by anyone.
5. Negotiate the curriculum and learning outcomes so that they are relevant and appealing.
6. Don’t stereotype or patronise people or make assumptions that might limit their learning.
7. Enlist successful adult learners as role models and community learning champions to engage others and show what’s possible.
8. Celebrate achievements of parents, carers and children!
9. Inspire parents and carers to keep learning, to take the next steps and to motivate their children.
10. Collaborate. We all need to keep learning and improving.

Our top tips for working with parents and carers in family learning reflect the networked and supportive approaches that we use in general adult and community learning practice. Good quality teaching, learning and assessment are at the core but learning activities are set in a wider context and don’t take place in isolation. They need groundwork, learning support and pointers for moving on.

Do you agree with the list or have you got other ideas?

What works in your practice and what can we learn from, or teach, other sectors?

You can find more about the NIACE and Ofsted joint project on illuminating excellent practice in Family Learning here.

List of UK FE and adult education tweeters

Like most busy people I don’t have time to read all the tweets in my timeline every day, but I find it very useful to have quick scrolls through lists and hashtag searches to pick up relevant snippets. There’s a handy list of people who tweet about FE and adult education here and the author has done a grand job in collating the list. It’s not obvious who has done all the work and I don’t want to blow anyone’s cover but I hope they’ll take a bow .

There was a little flurry of interest after I tweeted the link on Friday evening, with others adding more suggestions, so I’ve created a new twitter list here.

Inclusion isn’t an endorsement and the list isn’t comprehensive. Please let me know if I should add you or anyone else to the list and apologies to people who aren’t listed yet.

I found the FE Culture Blogspot link via #UKFEchat, an interesting drop-in twitter discussion held on Thursday evenings. You can find more information about #UKFEchat here or by searching for the hashtag on twitter. It took me a while to notice the ‘Top/ All / People you follow’ option, which gives different search results. Sarah Simons (@MrsSarahSimons) oversees the chats and gives people a warm welcome when they join in.

There’s also a list of tweeters from the WEA at:

https://twitter.com/AnnWalkerWEA/wea/members

This includes staff, tutors, volunteers, ambassadors and students, mostly tweeting in a personal capacity.

Finally, there’s a list of tweeters from NIACE at:

https://twitter.com/AnnWalkerWEA/niace/members

(For less experienced tweeters, just open any of the live twitter links shown in blue or purple above and click the ‘subscribe’ button as shown below to create direct access to an extra customised timeline featuring tweets from listed people.)