From the Field

A Response to AIA;
Democracy Begins in Conversation

Marilyn Gillespie
Senior Program Associate, Center for Applied Linguistics, Sunbelt Office,
Sarasota, Florida

Do I read Adventures in Assessment? Yes! Well, I try. Until recently, as the director of the National Clearinghouse on ESL Literacy in Washington, D.C., I received literally stacks of adult-literacy related materials every week—journals, unpublished documents, curricula, textbooks, junk mail. They came from around the United States and a few from as far away as England and Australia. I mention this because this position gave me the opportunity to recognize what a unique forum Adventures in Assessment really is. I have found nothing else — either in the U.S. or overseas — quite like it. There are a few journals and newsletters in the field that speak to concerns of teachers, but none I know of engages the writers, readers and responders in the kind of honest, dialogic process Adventures in Assessment does.

I’d like to use this occasion to thank all of you who have written for or worked on Adventures in Assessment for the tremendous effort that keeping such a work going must have meant. Your experiences have become models not only for teachers looking for information about alternative assessment, but also, I know,for many teachers out there around the country who ask questions about how to make learner-centered and participatory education work for them and who feel lonely and isolated in their own communities. Your articles allow us, as readers, to feel like we are truly in the midst of a conversation about teach-ing and learning. For me this was especially true of the articles that are followed up in subsequent issues with reflections on how the learners are progressing, which lessons worked or didn’t work, and what continues to need to be done. Janet Kelly’s articles about being continually reminded of the importance of consistent, frequent, informal communication with the learner, as well as her on-going reflections on various assessment tools that “seemed perfect until put to practical use” is one example. Janet Isserlis’ article about her student Rosalie, and the follow-up story, where she describes how Rosalie proudly took the article written about her home to show her family, is another.

I would like to comment on one topic, touched on by John Comings in Volume 3. In his letter he expressed the view that assessment can, at times, be a red herring, drawing attention away from the need for staff and program development. He implied, I believe, among other things, that it would be useful for teachers to direct their attention not only toward what happens inside the classroom with students, but also toward what happens outside the classroom. Massachusetts is a state where some of the most innovative work in staff and program development, as well as assessment, is taking place. Many of the most innovative curricula and assessment tools have had their origins there. Teachers involved in these projects, I believe, could do much for the field if they were to find ways to apply the critical analysis process they use in the classroom outward to examine how institutional supports and constraints affect their work.

While “changing the system” in the current social and political climate may seem overwhelming at best, I know there are people—even people in Washington offices, believe me—who would read your observations about your working conditions as teachers with attention and respect. We all know the status of the adult education workforce in the U.S. Most of us struggle for excellence in the classroom as part-time employees with no benefits, no job security, few opportunities for professional development, a lack of coordination among programs, and unrealistic funding guidelines. The teachers who write for Adventures in Assessment are in a good position to take up the challenge by reflecting upon how those conditions affect their work and how they might be improved.

I heard somewhere that when educator John Dewey was asked, toward the end of his life, what he had learned in all his years, his answer was elegant yet simple. “I learned,” he said, “that democracy begins in conversation.” Adventures in Assessment is special because, in this fast-paced world, it engages us as teachers and learners in true conversations. We need to cherish and nourish this activity as a genuine way to support one another as teachers, to improve what happens in the classroom, and to find better ways to include learners in our conversations. But we also need to extend our attentions outward to educate those who hold the power to make decisions about funding for literacy about the working conditions that affect our teaching and our lives.

Top of page

This article was published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 6 (Spring 1994), SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 1994.

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.