Layers, Brushes, and Multi-Lane Highways: Examining Accountability in a Non-Traditional Program

Marie Cora
Editor
SABES Central Resource Center / World Education

This article was written in spring of 2000 as I prepared to leave my directorship of Swearer Center for Public Service programs after nine years. The Swearer Center for Public Service is a non-academic department of Brown University whose mission is to engage undergraduate students and community members in examining issues of social justice, and to develop collaborative programming responsive to the needs of the greater Providence community.

Our work at the Swearer Center is pretty messy stuff. We develop non-traditional models of education that meet needs not met by traditional systems already in place. Much of this work involves tailoring programming to individuals. Having worked in education for 16 years, the biggest lesson I have learned is that there is nothing as individualistic as a person's education. Swearer Center programs strive to help people identify what works for them in the learning process, and then to help them acquire the resources necessary for supporting their efforts. For this methodology to be successful, it means that the many players involved must collaborate carefully and consistently. We must be able to count on each other.

The Programs

The language and literacy programs that I supervise are focused on helping people gain basic skills they need, for example, to find a job or a better living wage, help their children with schoolwork, or conquer ESL at the high school level. Presently, there are seven programs that follow this focus on three ABE programs (Adult Basic Education) and four ESOL programs (English to/for Speakers of Other Languages). Each program is supervised by a part-time, paid program coordinator and staffed by volunteer tutors. All coordinators and volunteers are college students, the majority of whom are studying at Brown University. The language and literacy programs receive funding from the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) in addition to being supported by the Swearer Center. All the services we provide to the community are free of charge. This web of individuals presents significant resources brought to bear on the literacy needs of Providence communities, with student leaders at the helm.

Molly, a sophomore concentrating in History and Latin American Studies, coordinates Partners in Education (PIE), an adult basic education program which works exclusively with teenage mothers. PIE pairs female Brown students with female community members who have children and have left high school before graduating. PIE provides individualized educational programming at learners' homes, making schooling accessible. Presently, PIE maintains twelve learning partnerships that meet for approximately three hours per week.

Allison, a senior concentrating in English, coordinates the Pawtucket ESOL Program, which offers small group instruction four nights per week to immigrant community members from an area just north of Providence. Three levels of instruction are offered: ESOL Literacy, for individuals with no literacy skills in any language, and Beginning and Intermediate ESOL. Volunteers team-teach classes until they are comfortable enough to lead a class on their own. Presently, the Pawtucket program engages 12 volunteers and 40 adult learners.

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The Layers

Neither the program coordinators nor the volunteers necessarily have a background in literacy or teaching. It is my responsibility to provide leadership and support for them so that they in turn can effectively provide educational opportunities for community members. The programs' structure and methodology stem directly from the learners' needs and strengths. The college students, while new to the craft of teaching, also offer their optimism, energy and creativity to the community, making learner-centered, progressive classrooms a possibility.

In my role as the supervisor of these programs, I am responsible to our learners and the new skills and knowledge they seek; to program coordinators and volunteers and the guidance and training they need; to funders who seek concrete results; and to my colleagues who trust my leadership and rely on my expertise. Each of these roles requires different behavior, involves different expectations of me, and is driven by different assumptions of the roles I play. As with many other areas of work, responsibility and accountability come in layers. And because we are an educational institution, the learning comes in layers as well. As I said, this is messy work.

Brushes with Accountability

As I enter my ninth year in this job, I realize that my expectations and assumptions have changed drastically since 1992. I entered this job fiercely believing (and still believe) that effective teachers must necessarily have formal, rigorous training, and without it, they cannot possibly be held accountable for their work. How can someone who has never digested theory and tested their practice be an effective educator? I entered this job somewhat skeptical that youthful volunteers could carry out work that I had spent six years attempting professionally. This was my first brush with accountability at the Swearer Center: I took the job, so it was my responsibility to figure out how to educate and support a novice group in this vital endeavor.

I lost a little bit of weight and a lot of sleep those first years. I thought my role was to coordinate and support teachers in their effort to bring literacy services to members of the community. But my role is actually to develop those teachers while they struggle to help other people learn. I thought I would be working with teachers of a certain caliber, but I work with student-teachers who are striving to build their teaching skills. While I had to change my assumptions about who I would be working with, I also learned that I was now among a real community of learners. In our programs both the "students" and the "teachers" were clearly learning new skills.

My second brush with accountability involved one of our funders, the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE). As the director of these literacy programs, I am responsible for making sure that RIDE receives documentation which indicates that we are indeed conducting our literacy business as outlined in the grant guidelines. Often in adult education this is our first responsibility; after all, without funding, we won't exist.

I have slowly shifted my perspective about accountability to the funder. The grants that I write are practical, carefully crafted, and feasible. Over the years my student staff and I have done our best to fit into what the grant states. But I have come to believe that the funder is the least important player in this game, even though we depend on that money. Regardless of new guidelines or requirements or federal programs, I must remain accountable first to the adult learners who attend our programs.

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Expectation and Assumption

In the cascading structure of our programming the question of who is accountable to whom and for what is significant; embedded within are each person's expectations and assumptions. In thinking about what the adult learner needs from us, I find myself working backwards: if the learners needs x, then the volunteers need y, which means the program coordinators need z. I can only make myself accountable to the learner through the work I do with the program coordinator. It is crucial then, that I fully understand what each constituent needs and how he or she defines expectations of one's self and of those with whom he or she is working. Those expectations must be the same. The content and the process might look different depending on the individual and their role, but each person must be challenged, must be presented with relevant material, and must be given opportunities commensurate with his or her capabilities.

In a staff meeting with my program coordinators we were discussing uses of creativity in language teaching. It emerged that many volunteers had been using games such as "Simon Says" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" in their classes in units on the body. This is a viable technique, but one that must be used with other methods to connect new vocabulary with experiences that are a part of learners' lives. In other words, this vocabulary must be put into a context that is relevant to the learner. Otherwise, "heads, knees, and toes" are words in a song that is remembered for only a short time.

In further discussion, it emerged that many volunteers were having difficulty providing real and practical context when teaching new vocabulary. I asked, "What methods and activities do YOU find to be most helpful when learning new vocabulary in another language?" and the response took me by surprise. None of my program coordinators felt that using game techniques would be effective for their own language learning. Why, then, I asked, should they assume that adult learners would find this method helpful or appropriate? Shouldn't the adult learner studying the names of body parts be equally as engaged as the Brown student studying microbiology? Shouldn't the adult learner be presented with material relevant to her life ("How will you describe to your doctor the kinds of pains that you feel in your chest?") just as the Brown student should be presented with the practice of microbiology in the 21st, not the 17th century?

Accountability is a Multi-Lane Highway

What does it mean to count on someone? What does it mean to be counted on? With the layers of staff we have at the Swearer Center, accountability becomes not a two-way street, but a multi-lane highway. The adult learner is counting on her volunteer tutors to teach her what she wants to know; the tutors are counting on their program coordinator to help them figure out how best to help people learn; the coordinators are counting on me to help them be effective administrators and teachers for their volunteers.

These layers of trust demand that we continuously examine our assumptions and expectations. To be effective, we need to identify and articulate our expectations of one another, utilize our assumptions in productive ways, and develop methods for accountability for all participants. If we do this, then we are ahead of those grant guidelines: the grant can then reflect the work, not vice versa. With a structure of accountability and trust in place, we create room for creativity and growth for all of us. We take advantage of the messiness to explore new and effective ways to learn and teach together.

Originally published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 13 (Spring 2001),
SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 2001.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.