>> Judy Lee:
Okay. Well, good afternoon
everyone, and welcome to this
month's episode of the
Library of Congress Literacy 
Awards Webinar series.
I'm Judy Lee and I manage the
Literacy Awards program.
Today is our final webinar in
our five-part webinar series,
where we have
been celebrating the 2022
Literacy Awards winners and
honorees.
If this is your first webinar,
we're so glad you are joining
us. You can find recordings of
past webinars on our website and
if you've joined us for more
than one session, we want to
thank you so much.
We hope you're here to learn
about the amazing work our
winners and honorees are doing
around the world to promote
literacy. To wrap up our series
today, we will have a panel
discussion with three of our
2022 successful practices
honorees who'll 
discuss the topic
of advancing adult literacy in
the U.S. Before we meet our
outstanding panelists, I'd like
to go over a few housekeeping
items.
We are recording this program
so that we can share the
recording with you as soon as
we are able.
Please keep in mind that this
usually takes several weeks for
it to post on our website.
Please also note that as part
of the recording, any questions
or other participant
contributions made today can be
made publicly available as part
of the library's archives.
And finally, as you
see on your screen, please let
us know where you're joining us
from by using the chat box.
We'd love to get to know you a
little bit in this virtual
setting. If you want to use the
chat box and just introduce
yourself. If you want to share
your name and where in the
country or the world you're
joining us from, that'd be
great. Now that you're
familiar with the chat bots,
if you take us to the next
slide, I just want to show you
where the "Q&A" box is, which is
located to the left of the chat
box. Please feel free to use
the "Q&A" box throughout the
webinar to submit questions for
the panelists.
We did reserve time at the end
of this discussion to answer as
many participant questions as
possible, so please do not hold
back and feel free to submit
any questions you might have for
our panelists as they speak.
A few more announcements before
we dive into the panel
discussion. As you may already
know, the Literacy Awards
program celebrated its ten-year
anniversary last year.
2022 marked ten years of
awarding outstanding
organizations that promote
literacy and reading in the
United States and around the
world.
Over the past decade, the
Library of Congress Literacy
Awards program, with the
generous support of
philanthropist David M.
Rubenstein, has awarded more
than $3 million in prizes to
over 150 institutions working 
in 38 countries.
The awards recognize groups
doing exemplary, innovative and
replicable work, and they help
emphasize the need for the
global community to come
together in striving for
universal literacy.
We encourage everyone to view a
short video celebrating our 
ten-year anniversary by visiting
the Literacy Awards website or
by clicking on the link that
will be provided in the chat
box. We also want to invite you
to continue celebrating our 2022
winners and honorees and
learning from them by watching
the 2022 winners and honorees
video
which a link will be shared with
you shortly.
Also by scrolling through our
story map, as you can see an
example on your screen here and
by visiting the
"Winners and Honorees" section
 of our website.
All right. And without further
ado, I get to introduce today's
moderator. For today's panel
discussion,
we're so grateful to have
Lauren SproulL, the Vice
President of Communications at
the Barbara Bush Foundation.
The Barbara Bush Foundation
received a successful practices
recognition in 2021 for their
work in supporting teens and
younger children through their
Teen Trendsetters program.
The Barbara Bush Foundation is
a longtime advocate for
improving adult l
iteracy in the U.S.
They envision a country in
which all adults have the
opportunity to read, write and
comprehend in order to navigate
the world with dignity.
In her role as vice president
of communications for the
Barbara Bush Foundation for
Family Literacy, Lauren leads
the national nonprofit
organizations effort to raise
awareness about low literacy in
the U.S.
Lauren specializes in helping
nonprofit, governmental and
private organizations in the
education space communicate
effectively with their unique
stakeholder groups, telling the
right stories to the right
audience to achieve maximum
impact. Prior to joining the
Barbara Bush Foundation, Lauren
led communications efforts for
the State Library and Archives
of Florida and the Florida
Virtual Campus, which provides
library automation services for
the state's 40 public 
colleges and universities.
Lauren, we're so grateful that
you could join us today.
>> Lauren Sproull: Thank you
so much, Judy and everybody.
Thank you so much for being
here today.
I'm really am honored to be
here on behalf of the Barbara
Bush Foundation for Family
Literacy.
And I'm especially excited
about the topic we're going to
discuss today because, as Judy
mentioned, adult literacy is a
major focus of our work at the
foundation where we work at the
national what we call the grass
tops level in service of
grassroots organizations like
these outstanding honorees that
we're going to hear from today.
So with that, let's just go
ahead and get started.
I'm pleased to introduce our
first presenter, Dionne Kirby,
who is the CEO of Literacy
Achieves in Dallas. Dionne.
>> Dionne Kirby: Thank you, Lauren
Good afternoon, everyone.
I am thrilled to be joining you
and to be a part of this panel
this afternoon.
Literacy Achieves has been
around since 1997.
We were formed...
We were a ministry of a church
here in Dallas
initially. Our name was Vickery
Meadow Learning Center, named
after a neighborhood in Dallas.
But we have three sites across
the city.
And so our name change to
Literacy Achieves a few years
ago. We can take a look at the
next slide.
You'll see that on the left is
a photo of our board of
directors. We have a very
engaged board.
Many of our board members teach
adult English language learning
classes with us as volunteers.
Volunteers teach all of our
adult English language learning
programs. You see our students
there waving at you.
And also that's a shot of our
staff team.
We have a very committed,
engaged staff team. Their
backgrounds are in film,
education, adult language
learning, multicultural women's
studies.
There is a range, and I'm very
grateful to work with 
this team in Dallas.
Our mission is to serve adult
immigrants and refugees.
In addition, we have an early
childhood program, and we can go
to the next slide.
Again, we're so excited to be
recognized as a successful
practices honoree.
Our early childhood education
program uses project based
learning, and we use a dual
generation model.
While adults are learning
English, their children are
engaged in activities and a
literacy-rich environment.
We have a partnership with the
Dallas Children's Theater
resident teaching artists join
each of our campuses throughout
the semester, and then students
and their families attend the
play that they've been
studying.
They take a look at the book
first, they study the
characters, and then they get
to join in and be a part of the
live theater production
throughout the semester.
So that's just one of the
partnerships that we have.
But we are very excited to be
able to offer both children and
adults, language learning and
preparation for kindergarten
simultaneously. These are our
highlights from our 21/22 school
year. Pre-Covid, we would serve
approximately 1300 people every
year. That includes students...
adult students as well as
children. And we have three
sites across the city
as I mentioned, we have a
student services program as
well, and that is intended to
support families with other
challenges that they might have
outside of the classroom so that
they can focus on English
language learning while they're
in class. That might mean
supporting a student who might
be having a challenge with a
landlord and communicating with
them, that might be connecting
to health care resources.
We have a licensed social worker
on staff that services families
across our three sites and
ensures that they're connected
to resources in their
neighborhood.
And I think that'll bring me to
the second to last slide.
We have families that join us
from all across the world
literally. If you were to take
a dart and throw it at the map,
I would be able to say to you,
yes, we do have families and
students who are joining us
from that part of the world.
So this map gives you an idea
of that.
We have many students,
especially this year, joining us
from Afghanistan in particular.
And that changes from year to
year depending on what's going
on in our world. And then our
last slide, I'm so excited to
tell you that we have a
podcast.
You can listen to our podcast,
which is entitled,
"When I Got Here."
It's available on any
platform and you can hear the
stories of many of our families
and board members and how they
came to this country, what
their literacy journey would
have been. Thank you.
>> Lauren Sproull: Thank you 
so much, Dionne.
That was fantastic. 
It just reminded me so much
of the line from our founder,
Barbara Bush, that we always
say, which is she said a parent
is the child's first and best
teacher.
And she was a huge proponent of
that family literacy model where
parents and children are
learning at the same time.
And I'm excited to talk to you
later during the conversation
and just hear I'm sure you've
got amazing stories from the
families that you've seen,
learn and grow together,
so exciting. Next, we'll hear
from Blake McDaniel, who is the
Chairperson of the Board for
Literacy Action, which is 
based in Atlanta. Blake.
>> Blake McDaniel: Thank you, 
Lauren. And I'm
honored to be here today with
two other wonderful nonprofits
here to to speak with you.
And I think you'll hear some
some themes with my presentation
as well as with Dionne's.
So Literacy Action was founded
in 1968, so we have over 50
years of experience providing
adult education services to the
Metro Atlanta community.
And so our mission here,
as you see on the slide, is to
build better futures by
empowering adults with literacy,
life and work skills that help
them to reach their highest
potential. And so, you know,
how do we do that and what
population we serve? You'll see
on the next slide here that we
have... yeah, there we go.
That we have 1 in 6 adults in
Georgia that read below a sixth
grade level. And so another
statistic that reinforces that
is that 1 in 14 adults don't
have a high school diploma in
the Metro Atlanta area.
And for them, that's impactful.
That represents a significant
barrier to obtaining stable
employment, earning a livable
wage and being able to provide
for themselves and their
families.
In addition to that low
literacy and numeracy levels,
people with those challenges
experience higher unemployment,
poverty and higher incarceration
rates than other adults.
So our goal is to meet students
where they are in their literacy
journeys and help them achieve
their goals.
And we do that in a number of
ways.
And you'll see on one of the
following slides the classes
that we have, 
well, maybe jump...
Yeah, sorry. You'll see on one
of the following slides
the classes that we have and
the courses that we offer, but
we serve about 400 adult
learners annually and we do that
through providing more than 20
structured courses.
And so now we can jump to the
next slide.
So what does that mean for us?
And here's our breakdown of
the students that we serve
 from a gender perspective.
So more than two-thirds female
students from an age group
perspective, two-thirds between
22 and 54 and then another
quarter, that's 55 plus here.
So primarily adults here as
well, although we have extended
some services down to the
16 and up age group as well.
And then you'll see from a race
and ethnicity perspective, a
very, very large percentage of
our population are African
American. And so there is a
true impact on that community,
both from the low literacy
experience and the lived
experience here and all of
those impacts that I was just
discussing. But, you know,
hopefully we're contributing and
giving back and you see it in
the passion of our teachers on a
daily basis and those other
staff members that support us
here. So if you jump to the
next slide, you'll see
the courses that we offer.
We offer up to, you know, GED
and fast track GED programs.
We also offer English as a
second language.
So we serve a broad spectrum
here from folks who are
immigrants that aren't yet
fluent to also people who,
again, didn't make it through
the K through 12 educational
cycle and a number of
other programs as well.
And how do we do it?
Well, we do it both by offering
classes at our site in downtown
Atlanta, but also through a
number of partnerships that we
have with other
organizations, other nonprofit
organizations, other economic
development organizations where
we provide some initial
services that can feed
people into broader programming
and those other wraparound
services, very similar to what
Dionne mentioned before as well.
And so with that, you know, I
like to think I hope and think
we see it in our numbers.
We have impacts on that
intergenerational cycle 
of low literacy.
We have a number of people that
come to us that are looking to
read for the sole purposes of
being able to help their
children or their grandchildren
read or bond with them, connect
with them through reading.
And then we also have people
who are actually looking to
advance their economic
circumstance by, you know,
getting to that next level of
employment or qualifying for
other employment assistance
programs that can take them
to that next level in their
employment goals and life cycle.
And so on the next slide,
you'll see a number of
statistics that we have from
our fiscal year '22 and the
mapping of that around 400 or
420 last year, individuals that
we served across all our
programs.
And so we have awarded 1300
certificates.
And we again, I think had an
impact on literacy.
But there's still a lot to do
and there's still a lot more
need in the community.
So back to that 1 in 6 and 1 in
14 number that are referenced
earlier in mypresentation.
So as long as there's a need, we
anticipate serving the community
for as long as we need to
to address the issues.
>> Lauren Sproull:
Thank you so much, Blake.
I'm just making notes as we're
talking, and I'm just really
enjoying the themes that I'm
hearing of all these wraparound
services and the recognition of
the learners as not just sort of
learners in a vacuum, trying to
acquire literacy skills for the
sake of literacy skills.
All these partnerships that you
all are engaging in to make sure
that they're really supported
as individuals and as families,
just, you know, you 
and I, we all
know that you're changing the
trajectory not just of
individuals lives today, but of
entire families at the
multi-generational level.
So it's just really
amazing to learn more about.
With that, I will introduce our
final presenter.
This is Jennifer Peterson.
She is the Associate Director
for Literacy Network 
in Madison, Wisconsin.
>> Jennifer Peterson:
Thank you so much, Lauren, and
thank you to the Library of
Congress for this recognition
and for the opportunity to speak
with you all today.
You can move to the next slide.
As she said, we're in Madison,
Wisconsin.
We served over a thousand adult
students last year from 79
countries, 65% of those
identified as women, 91% as
people of color. About half
were parents to school aged
children, and by far most were
in low income households.
The majority of our students
right now are English language
learners, but we also serve
adult basic education students.
One thing I'd like to mention
about the demographics of our
community, Madison, Wisconsin
is the fifth most educated city
in America, but it's not great
for everyone right now.
So we are 49th in the
educational attainment gap,
which factors in differences in
outcomes between Black and white
students and between men and
women.
So we definitely feel we have
work to do as a community in
that area. So to that end,
Literacy Network has been around
since 1974, and we offer
classes, tutoring and wraparound
support to adult students
working toward a number of
programs. And I think many of
you that work in the field that
are on the call will
recognize these services.
One that I'll point out that
is, you know, we've been working
on more recently is leadership
skills for students.
And that means looking for ways
for students to have input and
lead within our organization
and within our field.
That's been really exciting to
work on.
And also the personalized
wraparound support. One of
my co-presenters has already
mentioned student services, and
that's been extremely important
for us as well, especially
during the pandemic.
We've tried to keep up the
momentum with that support.
I imagine many of you will also
recognize the challenges many of
our adult students face.
Barriers from poverty is one of
the most significant.
Whether that's housing
insecurity, inadequate working
conditions, lack of childcare,
trauma, exhaustion.
Some of our students come in
with negative past educational
experiences, they might lack
confidence.
It might take them several
times to work up the courage to
call or come in the door.
And some of them do, you know,
grapple with learning
disabilities or might have
challenges with learning
retention for a variety of
reasons.
I was really excited about the
way the questions were posed to
us to talk about our impact.
Why is our service
important to the people that we
serve? What is the impact for
them?
And we did a survey last
year, so I have this in our
students words and excited to
share from them what the
impact of services like ours
can be for people.
We're so honored that they
shared this feedback with us.
And you know, this just really
reinforces that offering low
cost or free classes is really
important for our students
and just being welcoming, being
a safe place, offering
resources, whether people are
attending regularly or need to
stop out, you know, what do
they need in order to be able to
come back to class, in order to
be able to support their
families and take care of
themselves?
>> Lauren Sproull:
Thank you so much, Jennifer, and
thank you all for your work.
As I said, heard so many, you
know, themes, common themes of
the way you're all being so
thoughtful and intentional about
the way that you approach
helping adults learn.
Because we all know adults
don't learn the same way as as K
through 12 students or early
literacy learners.
And they just take a
different approach and you're
all doing a great job.
So to kick off the discussion,
I would love to hear from each
of you. Let's take a little bit
of a step back.
How do you define literacy,
especially for an adult learner?
Because again, they are so
different from a
younger student. So how do you
define it and why do you believe
promoting literacy is so
important?
>> Dionne Kirby:
I'm happy to jump in here.
I think we my colleagues have
probably mentioned the book
definition or maybe they will.
I'm not sure.
But what I think about is
literacy and the power that it
holds. To me, literacy and
being literate means being able
to teach yourself anything at
all.
And when you don't have the
literacy skills, the ability to
read and write, to be able to
learn about anything and teach
yourself something, then I
think at that point 
you're not literate.
You know, you don't have the
skills to be able 
to learn something.
>> Blake McDaniel:
So I think that's a great start
and a great perspective on the
definition there. What I'll add
and completely agree with that,
too. What I'll add though
is we try to work with our
students to define what's
literacy for them?
What are they hoping to achieve?
Are they looking to read to
their grandchildren or are they
looking to read at a
particular grade level that's
necessary to get into a job
training program?
Or do they need to get their
GED to go to a technical school?
These are things that we
discuss on the front end with
our students and ultimately
work to get them there, either
incrementally through
progressions, through our
classes and through 
the ABE levels
that we serve or otherwise.
And again, we look at those
wraparound services and those
partner organizations to figure
out how can we feed folks into
training programs and work with
those training programs for
individuals who may not have
the minimum criteria that they
need to come into the program
but are interested in
participating. And so
that's maybe a slightly
different perspective.
But I think the
definition can take different 
meanings for different people
and in different circumstances.
>> Jennifer Peterson:
I'd like to share one of our
students definitions of literacy
or what literacy means to him.
This is our student Claudell. 
He says,
"Learning to read opened
my eyes to the fact that there's
so much in this world that's
got to do with reading and
writing. To be 60 years old and
not know how to read is an awful
thing. And I don't want anybody
to have to go through what I
went through. Reading is a part
of survival in America.
So to survive, you've got to
know how to read and write and
comprehend what you read.
You're going to get all kinds
of doctor's papers, bank papers,
newspapers, magazines.
This whole world is made up of
knowing, to read, knowing how to
read. And if you can't read,
you'll be left behind.
I want my grandson to grow up
to be an educated and
intelligent man that can do
positive things and live his
life in a positive manner that
would make me proud of him.
He saw something positive in
himself when he was sitting
there reading a book in the
video we made. When he was
excited to show me that he can
read a book without me feeding
him all the words, it made me
feel like he understood what I
was trying to tell him all the
time."
>> Lauren Sproull: Wow.
That's amazing.
Yeah, it reminds me
I actually had the privilege of
speaking with an adult learner
earlier today, and he described
not being able to read as an
adult, as being like a car
without an engine or sort of
being a human without a user
manual,
right, like how to be a human.
He just had recognized that
he lacked access to so much
information that was truly
needed to fully participate in
his life and in society.
And Claudell just worded that
just beautifully.
So a lot of the 2022 Literacy
Award winners and honorees serve
children and youth.
We're familiar with that.
And you all sort of mentioned
this a bit in your
presentations, but I'd love to
dig a little deeper into what
it's like to serve adult
learners versus youth or
children, because we all know
they're so unique.
So what are some of those
unique benefits or challenges
that come with adults who are
trying to learn literacy skills?
>> Blake McDaniel: So I can jump
 in and start us off here.
But I'll call back to something
that Jennifer mentioned, 
which is courage.
So unlike with youth, I
think it requires an additional
amount of courage for an adult
to, you know, say that they
need help and to avail
themselves, especially when they
have past traumatic experiences
in the education system and
haven't otherwise achieved or
reached a level of literacy
that helps them to reach their
goal.
So that initial step of
reaching out takes a lot of
courage. And I think that's
something that's unique to
the adult learners that we
serve.
I also would say that a
lot of the broader needs are
probably, to some degree a bit
unique as well in terms of the
need for wraparound services
and quite frankly, the
opportunity cost it takes for
some of these adults to come and
work with these programs,
right? Because the time that
they spend in these programs is
time they don't spend working.
So even if it's upskilling them
for a better economic
opportunity, they're 
foregoing an
immediate economic opportunity
to get there, and in many cases,
that's detrimental,
right? We're talking about a
lot of people who are below the
poverty line as well.
And so having the courage to
take that step, to make that
opportunity cost trade off,
that's incredibly 
unique, I think.
>> Lauren Sproull: Great. 
Anybody else want
to jump in on that?
>> Jennifer Peterson:
I'd also just like to
mention the benefits of working
with adult students and the
amazing things that they bring.
Many of our students have
been through a lot.
Maybe they're refugees, 
maybe they've had traumatic
experiences at home or in
school. Like Blake said,
they're probably juggling jobs,
families, maybe health
challenges,
and they're still
coming to school.
We feel like we learn from our
students every day, their
resilience, their integrity in
pursuing their dreams,
their sense of humor.
And it's incredibly meaningful
the way students come here
together every day and create
learning communities that are
caring, accepting and safe.
They support each other.
And I think I speak for all of
the staff and volunteers at
Literacy Network, and I suspect
for many of you as well in
adult education
when I say that working with
adult students
is the privilege of a lifetime.
>> Dionne Kirby:
Yeah, I love that. I appreciate
what Blake and Jennifer both
mentioned. Adult students are
the most grateful students I've
ever encountered.
I spent some time in teaching
English to sixth through 12th
grade students. Teaching adults
is nothing like that,
not at all. I think about their
survival
that has to be accessed and
acknowledged with adult
learners, the sacrifice and the
vulnerability.
You know Blake mentioned 
that with courage.
But you have to be very
vulnerable to be willing to
admit what you don't know.
And as adults, regardless of
our literacy levels, we're not
always good at that, admitting
what we don't know.
And so I think our adult
learners are amazing models of
the vulnerability that is just
there in humankind.
And I think that's amazing
about them.
And because it can be so
challenging to learn as an
adult, the peaks are that much
higher,
the joys, the triumphs,
you know. I feel like we feel
them on a much deeper level
because we know the difficulty
that it can be, you know, to
learn as an adult.
>> Lauren Sproull:
Absolutely. Yeah.
I think just putting yourself
in their shoes and wondering,
would you be as courageous and
as dedicated and persistent as
some of your students? You
know, you hope you would if you
were in the same boat,
but it's hard to say.
And, you know, to that end, so
we saw let's talk about Covid.
We saw Covid's impact on K
through 12 students.
We're still working through
that.
But what kind of impact did you
see Covid, the pandemic, have on
adult learners specifically as
it relates to their literacy
skills? I know that probably a
lot of y'all like me, were, you
know, found yourselves at home
with perhaps kids who had been
sent home from school, and you
were expected to have the
digital literacy skills to get
them on Zoom, to get them to
school and, I mean the teachers,
they did an amazing job.
But you definitely had to take
more responsibility for your
child's learning than you had
in the past.
And I just kept thinking about
the population that we serve.
And if it was this challenging
for me, how on earth were they
doing it? So I'd love to hear
what kind of impact you all saw
in your programs and your
learners.
>> Jennifer Peterson: I'm happy
to start off with this one.
The impacts were many and
profound.
First, we learned that 60% of
our students were laid off or
lost work. So there was that
period where everything shut
down and the...
just how thin that line was for
many of them between having food
on the table and not was really
just boldly apparent and
heartbreaking during that time.
Once we were able to help
people sort of stabilize in that
area, we focused a lot on
getting people online for
virtual learning, which we'd
never done, and that forced us
to overcome our assumptions
about what adult students would
do or wouldn't want to do or
would be able to do or wouldn't
or would be able to do.
So it really forced us to be
more innovative in all of our
practices. Not only do we now
still have...
We're still offering about 40 
or 50% of our
classes virtually, which increases
access. People can still study
even if they have transportation
issues or childcare or health
issues.
But also we are more innovative
in the ways that we use
technology with our students
and in our programs in a variety
of ways, because we've let go
of this assumption that we had
about what we could do
with our adult students.
So it was really eye opening
for us in that.
>> Blake McDaniel: So I'll build
on some of that as well.
And of course, the pandemic
affected our organization too,
and we had to quickly pivot
to offering virtual classes.
And in a lot of cases, that
meant, you know, figuring out
how we could deliver those
classes.
And it accelerated some things
we were already working on in
the remote learning space as
well.
But it also highlighted the
need for, you know, availability
of technology for our students.
In some cases, they they had a
greater need than others
necessarily. And, you know,
quite frankly, it highlighted
some shared resourcing
in different households
where you had a young, you
know, child in school who was
also doing remote learning at
the same time.
And that created some bandwidth
concerns or some hardware
concerns or things like that.
And so working through that
with students and
ultimately just figuring out a
way to deliver programming
remotely, I will say there,
you know, we did notice
some trends in terms of class
completion or lower class
completion while we were in a
more remote posture.
And so we have restarted our
in-person programming, but I
think we took some lessons from
the need to pivot.
And so similar to what Jennifer
mentioned, you know, we also
continue to offer some of our
programming remotely combined
with that in-person as well, so
that, you know, folks who do
better in person can attend
an in-person class and folks who
may be more independent in
their learning style and whatnot
can do so remotely.
>> Dionne Kirby: The three of 
us in our organizations
are very similar.
We also pivoted
and provided online learning.
Something we'd 
never done before.
I remember days of clearing out
our computer
labs and packing up laptops and
placing them in bags with
headsets and making sure they
had a mouse, each one, so that
we could issue those to our
students.
One of the other things that
shifted drastically was our
early childhood education
programming.
We basically made at home
projects.
There was a time where families
could come and they grabbed
their project to take home, and
we do at home projects typically
anyway throughout the year.
But this was different in that
the entire packet had several
activities or weeks worth
basically that we prepare and
give to families. When we could
we moved our
workshops outdoors so our
children and their families were
engaged in outdoor learning
workshops where we could be
outside and when the weather
permitted.
So those are a couple of
changes.
But I think one of the things
that you mentioned, Lauren, are
parents like they have to do
most times they truly had to
take a back seat during Covid.
So many of our learners just
had to pause and stop and focus
on the learning of their
children, although they felt ill
equipped, although they were
exhausted,
although, you know, all of
these additional barriers were
there. And I think for us, we
were that support system because
some of them did not have
laptops.
You know, their children might
have had a tablet, but they did
not have a laptop.
And so some of the laptops that
we issued, the children were
using those, you know, maybe a
fourth grade or fifth grade
student, which wasn't our
original intent, but those were
basically their connection to
the classroom and their
teachers so that, you know,
our adult students could support
their families, you know,
during that time.
>> Lauren Sproull: Yeah. Yeah. 
Again, lots of common themes.
I mean, the work that all of
you and the entire field did
during Covid to keep people
learning, just truly incredible.
So, Blake, earlier you in
particular talked about the
importance of really focusing
in on an individual student's
goals, right? Like I said, it's
not literacy skills for the sake
of literacy skills. It's what
does literacy mean to you as an
individual student? Is it that
you want to read with your
grandkids? Is it that you need
a better job?
You know, all these various
reasons. So for all of you, what
are some of the life goals that
you've heard your adult students
say that they hope to achieve
through literacy?
What is literacy the pathway,
to for them?
I'd love to know.
>> Dionne Kirby:
I love the way you worded that.
You know, just literacy
having a definition for the
individual. It varies.
Some want to be able to
communicate with their child's
teacher, you know, and to be
able to do that with ease, to
communicate with their doctor
without a translator.
But one of the things that
I think is common to just be in
the driver's seat of their life
and to not feel limited and not
to have boundaries and barriers
around them.
Many of our students have
become entrepreneurs, and I
think there's a veil that's
lifted when they feel like they
have the skills and the
capacity and ability to do that,
to truly be in the driver's
seat and determine when and
where they will work.
>> Blake McDaniel: So, you know,
 I think I covered
some of the pieces before
insofar as, you know, we think
of some students who come to
be able to read to their
grandchildren or students who
come to be able to get into
training programs.
I think the net new thing I'd
like to add here though is
that our instructors are
incredible at working with these
students on a day in
day out basis and understanding
what their needs are
specifically in the moment
and to get them to that next
level.
And so I honestly, you know,
I'm a bit further removed, but I
want to recognize that
our instructors and staff on
on a day-to-day basis interact
with the students and get,
you know, an understanding of,
wholesome understanding of
everything they need and
everything they need to
accomplish to be able to
move forward in their
educational journey.
And honestly, I'm in awe
constantly of their ability to
do that and their ability
to make meaningful impacts on
the lives of these
students and the students
themselves to have the
perseverance to work through and
achieve their goals and
make it through, you know, not
one course but several courses
to ultimately get to
their goal of better
employment, you know functional
reading levels to be able to
read with the grandkid 
or otherwise.
>> Jennifer Peterson:
One of the most rewarding things
about working in adult education
is people are coming in with
this whole kaleidoscope of
goals, and most students have
more than one.
So in preparation for this
panel, I looked through one of
our recent books of student
writing on the theme of
"Why I Won't Quit," 
which was during
the pandemic, and I just pulled
a few. So I'm just going to
pepper you with them all in a
row. Open a daycare, become an
electrician, get a degree in
political science to help women
and children, manage my diabetes.
Read to my kids, be a stylist,
get my GED, help my autistic son
be successful, become an
activist, become a nurse, study
radiology, teach dance,
make friends.
>> Lauren Sproull:
That's amazing. And you know,
the theme that I heard there, so
many of those goals and those,
you know, aspirations for
various professions and things,
they're about giving back.
So again, when you invest in
these learners, you're investing
in them, you're investing in
their family and you're
investing in the communities
they'll ultimately serve,
right? As a I think one said, a
nurse and an electrician.
And I mean, it's just good
all around, as we all know.
So, you know, we've talked
about the issue of adult
literacy. We obviously know
it's a huge, huge problem in
your individual communities
nationwide and frankly, just too
big for any one organization,
either at the local or the
national level to tackle alone.
We rely at every level on
partners.
So how have your organizations
used partnerships, either with
businesses, institutions, you
know, your local communities to
expand your services and to
offer, you know, some of those
wraparound services that we
talked about.
Can you describe some of the
types of organizations you've
partnered with and why
those were valuable or
successful partnerships?
>> Dionne Kirby: Literacy 
Achieves partners with
several different organizations
across our three campuses.
So there's more than 30
partners.
But one I'll mention is our
support that we're able to lend
to students on the path to
citizenship.
I think many of us are aware of
how difficult that road can be,
how daunting. I would not
want to take a test
right now to become a citizen
because I might not pass it.
But we partner with an
organization that helps
students, adult students
complete the [inaudible] 400.
So complete that very lengthy
application.
So our partner takes care of
that.
We then follow alongside the
student and providing those
citizenship classes in a group
format.
Once a student has their
interview scheduled and they've
received communication about
that, we provide one on one
tutoring. And so that's one of
the partnerships that really
works well and we're able to
see the student through that
entire process as they work to
become a citizen.
And if in fact they don't pass
the first time, we prepare them
with even additional tutoring.
So that's one of the
partnerships that just wanted to
share about. But we definitely
can't do this alone and we need
our partners for sure.
I definitely appreciate this
question.
>> Blake McDaniel: So we 
actually share a space
with one of our partners and
have had various programs over
time.
They do technical
upskilling for, you know,
folks who are looking to get
into more technical lines of
work. And so in some cases,
they have students that come to
them that perhaps aren't at the
minimum level that's required
for their programming. And so
we can fill that gap for them.
We do that in other aspects as
well with other
organizations. I think, you
know, more recently we've had
discussions around the
partnerships that provide some
of those wraparound services
that Dionne just mentioned,
especially where there's
childcare need, right?
So we're not childcare experts
and we don't provide childcare.
But we do in some cases,
partner to offer programming
at different organizations that
can provide those services.
And so those are areas where I
think we leverage collective
strength to serve the
community.
It also gets us to the
population and where the need
is, quite frankly, because a
lot of these partner
organizations sort of have a
funnel for students that
have a need and it's a need
that where it's related to adult
basic education and literacy
skills, one that we can fill and
come in and help to provide
services.
>> Jennifer Peterson:
Again, I think we're sharing
themes and I'm sure with all of
you listening as well.
Dionne, you just described our
citizenship partnership to a 't'
like down to the exact moment
that students get a tutor.
So I thought that was...
It's just I always find it
really interesting when we get
together as professionals to
see those similarities in the
way that we're responding and
the creative ways we're trying
to solve things. So just thank
you for sharing that.
And likewise to what Blake
was saying,
we work with a lot of other
social services organizations to
make the most of what's
available in the community, just
trying to maximize what's there
for everyone.
And as I'm sure you all know,
funding for adult ed
doesn't really seem to...
Our slice of the pie doesn't
seem to increase very often, you
know, in the overall sense.
So I've really enjoyed some
creative partnerships and
opportunities that we've been
able to establish with
workplaces who might have
resources and modes of
delivering instruction that we
can create with them that are
really advantageous for our
students.
You think of a lot of
industries that do have
professional development for
their employees
that's paid for by the
organization, there's no reason
why our students shouldn't have
the same opportunity in their
jobs. So we have workplace
partners who, you know, often in
manufacturing or health care,
hospitality, who are paying us
to come in and teach their
employees English on paid time
for the employees. So they're
getting to do this on their work
time, just like people in so
many other industries.
So that's been really great.
>> Lauren Sproull:
That's fantastic. And actually,
Jennifer, that brings me to the
next question. What's your
organization's strategy for
teaching literacy skills to
non-native English speakers?
Obviously. Dionne, I
mean, that's your bread and
butter. That's what you all do,
right? So I'd love to hear just
a little more about it.
>> Dionne Kirby: Sure. I thought
about what happens at
the very beginning, you know,
when a non-native speaker.
comes in to register for
classes. What that often
looks like, I'll say 
a few years ago,
it looked like using a diagram
and pictures and images, you
know, to figure out whether the
student is interested in morning
or afternoon or evening
classes, you know and we're
using our hand gestures and
whatever we can to communicate.
More recently, you know, our
translator applications are a
lot easier to get to
and lots of adults have these
apps on their phone or they have
their identification and they,
you know, they...
Although they may not be
literate in English,
their survival skills are
amazing. So they understand how
to get things to come across.
So, you know, that registration
process can be challenging,
sometimes it's eased with
advances in technology. But once
in the classroom, you know, all
of our adult classes are taught
by volunteers. Volunteer signs
up to teach one day a week with
us for two hours and we have a
co-teaching model.
So that volunteer teacher is
aided by another adult
who may or may not have
experience teaching, and they
work through the curriculum
together.
Our curriculum uses a lot of
models for conversations.
And so with two people who can
model that conversation before
the students try, that's one of
the modes that we use that helps
people in learning the
language.
Post-Covid, we've relaxed that
co-teaching requirement.
Some prefer to teach on their
own, and so that's been okay.
But it definitely helps to
support new teachers who might
not have taught adults before
and might not be accustomed
to English language learning.
And I believe studies have
shown us that
language learners need to hear
different voices, different
tonalities. I may say carpet
different than the way you say
carpet, for example.
And this really helps them to
tune their ears, to learn and
accelerate their learning of
the language.
>> Lauren Sproull: Absolutely,
Jennifer. Blake, you want
to jump in or I can move on?
>> Jennifer Peterson:
Well, we try to use as many of
the current best practices that
we can when we're working with
English language learners,
that's the majority of our
students as well.
Our staff are all trained in
plain English.
We try to have them attend
conferences in our field
regularly, get certifications
when they can, if they don't
already have them. We have...
So we have paid instructors
delivering group classes and
then we have one-on-one tutors
and the tutors are available
both for ESL and for GED, as
well as some basic skills 
and digital literacy.
So for our ELLs, you know, the
basics is are they 
getting all four
skills? We've got some good
texts we use like ventures and
future and are they getting
lots of opportunities to
practice? Is there a focus on
student talk time and student
centeredness? Hopefully it's
not lecture with the teacher
talking most of the time.
Hopefully the students are
getting a lot of opportunities
to produce language as well as
listen.
And then just the trust and
mutual care that's established
in a lot of the classrooms, not
only by the teacher, although of
course the teacher makes an
impact, but as I mentioned
before, by just the spirit
of helpfulness and friendship
that our students bring into
the classroom. With humor
and creativity, people can
communicate and 
learn quite a bit.
>> Blake McDaniel: So what I
would add there
is that, you know, from my
perspective at least, I
really rely on the experts
here.
And that's our programs
director and our program staff
who are well trained in this
and go get certifications,
keep up on industry best
practices, but maybe even more
importantly understand what the
student need is and where
they're coming to us from in
terms of their current level of
literacy and what would best
help them achieve their goal if
they're, you know, learning
English as a second language.
>> Lauren Sproull: Right.
So, you know, we've also through
our conversation today, we've
thrown out mentions of laptops
and tablets and phones and tech.
And, you know, clearly 
it's a huge part of everyone's
life. It's becoming a larger
and larger part of literacy
instruction and I don't see
that changing anytime soon.
So given that we're living in
this fully digital age, how does
this context play out in your
classroom of adult literacy
learners? And I'm thinking I
mean, I'm sure there's a lot of
ways, but I'm thinking about
digital literacy skills,
particularly what did you see,
especially during Covid?
Were there gaps that you
thought, "Oh, wow, this isn't
just, you know, about
traditional literacy,
this is, you know... there's a
digital literacy gap that we
need to address here because,
you know, all the phones,
tablets, everything in the
world can only do so much if
the person at home does not
have the skills to use them.
So I'd love to hear your
thoughts on that.
>> Jennifer Peterson: Well, one
of the things
that we've done is...
Oh, excuse me. Go ahead, Blake.
We've embedded digital skills
instruction into our ESL
programs and into our reading
and writing programs. So, you
know, many students say at
intake and I love that Blake
has been emphasizing how
important it is to ask students
what their goals are, what they
need skills for, what they want
to study, how they like to
study. Many students say,
"I need computer skills.
I need computer skills."
We find that attendance at
computer skills only classes,
though, is it's okay, it's
okay.
Whereas with our ESL or reading
and writing classes, it's pretty
robust. So because we know that
students do want those skills,
we've been weaving them in at
level two.
We start with a couple of
digital literacy units per
semester and then we increase
that as the levels go up.
Since the pandemic, we've only
increased the way we're using
PowerPoints, online surveys, you
know, online quizzes.
We use QR codes for everything
now to get information across,
asking students if they'd like
to follow us on social media.
So we're just, you know, again,
what we had to do during the
pandemic really increased our
ability as an organization to go
further with that and it was
our responsibility.
It was time we, 
you know, it's...
I think it seems like such a...
It can seem like such a big
hurdle when your students don't
have a device or they don't
have Internet.
Internet is still a burden.
We've been able to get funding
for devices, but getting
consistent Internet for people
remains a challenge, I'm sure
in a lot of communities.
But yeah, I feel that we've
been leaning into it a lot
harder and doing a lot
better with that to respond to
that request from our students.
>> Blake McDaniel:
So digital literacy was a
programming track that we
offered even pre-pandemic.
So fortunately we were able to
leverage, I think, a lot of the
learnings there. But obviously
those needs and the
baseline there increased and
had to increase in an
environment where you couldn't
actually point to something for
someone to. So, you know,
I'll maybe risk a bit of
repetition here and just
point to our instructors and
their ability to sort of
reach students even in the
virtual environment and help
them navigate new tools, sort of
a new paradigm of learning
here and otherwise overcome
perhaps some barriers that
they've had in the past to
being able to interact with
technology.
But, you know, we've talked
over the years from a digital
literacy perspective 
and just like
with broader literacy,
right, digital literacy is
almost table stakes now,
right? You can't go
anywhere or do anything without
having a baseline of digital
literacy.
And so it has over the years
you know since 1968 evolved in
terms of what the
programming that's needed is.
And so we've tried to evolve
with it to provide that to
the community.
>> Dionne Kirby: Many of 
what my colleagues
have shared is the same for us.
Jennifer mentioned using QR
codes and