K12 Adult Schools and Community Colleges working together. It is big change.
A big, BIG change.
There are many things to do to prepare for the change:
* find out what people need in Adult Education
* decide who will be members of each consortia - in every region, who will work together in a group? which Adult Schools? which Community Colleges?
* decide who will teach what subjects to which people in which location
* decide about money
Last week, there were four Townhalls to get opinions from the people of California.
The government group wanted to know people's needs and concerns about this new system for Adult Education.
They wanted to know how the new system - Regional Consortia - could serve adult learners (Adult Ed students) better.
So our students took action to find out - and bring that information to them.
Hitomi and Marina worked with other ESL students to make a list of questions for morning ESL classes.
You can read about the Townhalls and see the list of questions here.
You can see the results here - with the numbers and here - with the percents.
Everyone in ESL class is here to learn English.
But people are here for many other reasons, too.
A very important reason for ESL students is to find community - to make friends and understand US culture.
This makes sense.
To succeed in life you need other people. You need friendship and support. If you have friends, it is easier to solve problems, find a place to live, and get a job. Community helps you succeed.
And of course, to do all that, you need to be able to talk to people, right? To communicate with them. To understand them - not just their words but their thinking. And have them understand you - your words, your thinking.
When you come to the US, you need English and information about US culture.
Why? So you can talk to people! And understand them! And make friends with them!
Language is communication. And communication is about community.
The Adult School helps with this. The staff and teachers help students to find community and learn English at the same time. English helps with community and community helps with English.
There are other interesting things in the survey results.
For example, many students said they need childcare. In the past, we had some ways to help students with childcare. Maybe we can do this again. We need money to do it. But if it is very important and if we have the money, maybe we can do this in the future.
That is an example of something students want and need but they don't have. Maybe it can part of Adult Ed in the future.
It is very important to understand what our students and community want and need so we can make the best Adult School possible.
It is very important to understand what students and communities want and need all across the state so we can do the same thing everywhere, in every region.
San Mateo Adult School students are very special.
They are very active. They learn about things. They think about things. They take action to make things happen.
Hitomi and Marina took action to make a survey and find out what our students need and want. Many teachers and students helped. And Marina "crunched the numbers." That means she entered them into Excel and put them in charts.
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| Hitomi, Marco, Marina |
They were the only ESL Students at the Townhall. This was a Townhall for the whole Bay Area.
I think everyone was very impressed they came.
I hope every school and every community can find a way for students to share their ideas and needs.
It is very important to understand student ideas and needs.
It is like making clothes for someone. You need to know their size so you can make clothes that fit and look good and keep the person warm or cool or protected or whatever they need.
We need to know the size and needs of the Student Body!
"Student Body" actually means student community. The student body is all the learners at a school.
So we can say, for example, that Marco is the ESL Morning Student Body President.
Thank you so much to Marco and Hitomi and Marina and all the wonderful, active students at San Mateo Adult School who are members of our wonderful, active student body.
We are all so lucky to have each other. We work hard to do good things. We share the work and we share the good. This is community. This is why we are here.
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