| Spotlight on Workplace Programs |
Revised OAL Curriculum Guide Provides Workplace
and Employability Basic Skills Competencies
A very significant revision in the Curriculum Guide For Adult Literacy Instruction has recently been made. Not only has an English as a Second Language curriculum been added, but workplace and employability basic skills competencies are now integrated into the revised Curriculum Guide For Adult Literacy Instruction. This revision recognized what has been apparent to workplace education practitioners for years. Basic skills for jobs and employability are central to the needs of our students and the overall economy. The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 underscores this critical fact. No longer can education be separated from work. Work is the engine that runs our country and provides Americans with a standard of living and quality of life that is the envy of the world.What does this mean for adult literacy programs? For workplace literacy programs, there is a structured sequence of workplace basic skills competencies integrated into reading, mathematics, and communication levels. Teachers and administrators are provided with a simple framework for delivering relevant and contextual basic skills instruction to employees in need of basic skills knowledge for improved job performance. For students enrolled in special programs such as JTPA (Job Training Partnership Act) and TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), employability basic skills competencies provide the opportunity to learn reading, mathematics, and communication skills relevant to employability, which prepares them for inevitable entry into the workforce. For any adult literacy student, a comprehensive adult literacy curriculum is now available for study that recognizes the role of work in life.
In order to provide needed support for adult literacy instructors, a comprehensive workplace lesson plan supplement to the Curriculum Guide For Adult Literacy Instruction will be available to adult literacy programs in the Winter of 1999. This supplement began as a project of the 1997 Teachers Academy in which teams of adult literacy instructors customized lesson plans for specific workplace and employability basic skills competencies. These lesson plans will enable adult literacy instructors to utilize their valuable time teaching students, instead of the time consuming effort to customize lesson plans.
W. Len Moore
Workplace Coordinator
Office of Adult Literacy Programs
EMTs Earn GEDs
Workplace Literacy Programs were the "New Kids on the Block" in the state of Georgia when Cobb County Government and Cobb County Adult Education programs entered their partnership in 1988. This makes the arrangement the oldest and one of the most productive in SDA #8.Back in those days, the Training Department for the Cobb County Fire Department was housed in the Adult Education Center. New recruits were oriented in one part of the building while EMT training was held in another. Also factored in was firefighter's re-certification training. At first, it was rather alarming to see fire department vehicles in front of our classroom building, but in time it became familiar and comfortable to see those men and women in blue mingling among us and becoming part of our family-
The fire department provided EMT training to all of the firefighters with the goal of becoming I 00 percent EMT-trained. The state required high school credentials for EMT certification and that presented a dilemma. Several veteran firefighters had been employed by the department before high school diplomas or GEDs were required. They would have to earn high school credentials in order to be certified EMTS. That was how the Workplace Program was initiated. As a matter of record, every one of the firefighters in that program earned his or her GED and EMT patch.
Workplace Literacy was a natural partnership for the Cobb County Fire Department and the Adult Education Program. There was already a comfort level and a healthy working relationship between the two agencies. They had a need for specific educational skills and the unqualified support of the Fire Department allowed services to be extended beyond the limitations of basic adult education classes.
What makes this story unusual is that it doesn't stop there. Other departments referred students to Cobb County Workplace classes, and over the past ten years there have been hundreds of employees from Parks and Recreation, the Water Department, Roads Department, the Correctional Institute and others who have needed to renew their educational skills. Last year, Cobb County celebrated the accomplishments of those employees who had earned GEDs by inviting them and their families to a lunch given in their honor. County Manager David Hankerson was the guest speaker and the county commission was represented.
Graduates of the Workplace program have become advocates for other employees and coworkers and have encouraged them to take advantage of the opportunity to develop a new set of skills, to improve their job performance, qualify for advancement or for their own personal satisfaction. It is and has been for ten years, a real win-win situation for the participants, the Cobb County Government and the Cobb County Adult Education Program.
Pat Kahnle
Director
Adult Literacy Program
Cobb County Schools
SDA #8 Marietta