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Monthly Archives: September 2015

Our Commitment to Adult Literacy

Sonia Socha and I are just finishing up an intense couple weeks working on the Maryland Association for Adult, Community and Continuing Education (MAACCE) with their GO GREEN for Adult Literacy campaign for National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week.

This has been a labor of love for us as we both serve on the MAACCE Board, where Sonia serves as the Chair of the Advocacy and Communication Committee, and I serve as Co-Chair. For the GO GREEN campaign, Sonia provided most of the strategic guidance, coordinated with the publicist, crafted the overall message, organized visits with congressional leaders and state leaders, and arranged for the proclamation from Maryland Governor Larry Hogan declaring this September 21-26 to be Adult Education and Family Literacy Week for the state. We were fortunate enough to be able to meet with Lt. Governor Boyd Rutherford for the presentation of the proclamation.

IMG950487 IMG950488For my part, I designed the mini–kits for MAACCE members to use in their awareness work, created the mini-cards to accompany our MAACCE Green literacy wristbands, and managed the social media aspects of this campaign. Check out the MAACCE Facebook Page or their Twitter Feed.

Sonia and I were both gratified to see how engaged the MAACCE members were in this campaign, sending in photo from across the state of adult education learners, teachers, staff, and other adult literacy supporters.

We went through all this effort because of our shared passion for adult literacy. Sonia and I both trained as educators, but like most people in the adult literacy field came to it sideways. For my part, it started when I volunteered for a local literacy program, not really dreaming it would be a whole new direction in my career.

I keep advocating for adult literacy education for two main reasons:
1. The Learners: I am constantly in awe of the courage and persistence that adult learners have. It takes incredible courage to seek out education, whether for basic reading skills or to finally complete a high school diploma. I have seen students persist in their goals despite family responsibilities, working multiple jobs, and learning differences. These learners are truly my heroes.
2. The Teachers: Teachers in this field tend to do this for love. In Maryland 89% of the teachers are part-time. Usually, they are contractors making less than $30 per hour. All of these teachers have at least a Bachelors degree; many have Masters and Doctorates. They lack the support that the K-12 system usually give their teachers in terms of professional development, curricular resources, and supplies. Yet, they keep doing incredible work in supporting learners in reaching their goals. For a blog post from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education about professional development for adult basic skills teachers, please click here.

In short, at Gold Apple Services, we care deeply about education for adults who were educationally under-served, and their teachers, and our aim is to help them have the excellence in support they deserve and need. Our services include consulting for nonprofit programs who want to start such a program or take their program to the next leavel of excellence. We also provide professional development for teachers in adult education, with an eye to developing the whole teacher.

Finally, for your further reading pleasure: Here is a link to MAACCE’s president Heather Ritchie’s blog about advocating for adult learners.

What is Gold Apple Services up to these days?

In the last several years as Principal Consultant of Gold Apple Services, I have had the wonderful opportunity to be involved with several interesting, important projects. My more recent work has included working with Family League of Baltimore by managing the Maryland Literacy Hotline and reviewing materials for readability by low literacy adults, editing for Community Sciences, writing for Professional and Scientific Associates, and performing qualitative analysis for an adult education research project.

Lately, Gold Apple Services is expanding into consulting for nonprofit organizations who want to establish an education program or take that program to the next level of excellence. In this effort, my colleague, Sonia Socha, has agreed to be an Associate Consultant with Gold Apple Services.  Sonia has a wealth of expertise and experience in the adult education and workforce field. You can read more about her at her LinkedIn site www.linkedin.com/pub/sonia-socha/28/383/b3 or under About Us on the Gold Apple Services website.

Our current project has been pulling together an awareness campaign for the Maryland Association for Adult, Community and Continuing Education (MAACCE) called GO GREEN for Adult Literacy for the National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week (September 21-25).  So far, GO GREEN has involved coordinating various adult education programs in their GO GREEN efforts with wristbands, mini-toolkits with sample letter to the editors and social media posts, and more!  Meanwhile, here is a photo of Sonia and me in GREEN for Adult and Family Literacy Awareness.

In GREEN for Adult Literacy

GO GREEN for Adult Literacy

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