By Janet Poley (HOF 2002)
"Where you stand depends upon where
you sit." Nelson Mandela
"Knowledge is telling the Past.
Wisdom is impacting the Future." W. Timothy Garvey
" There is no sadder sight than
a young pessimist." Mark Twain
"Head, Heart, Hands and Health."
Mahatma Gandhi and the 4-H Motto
I have lived my life by sayings, stories, models,
equations, principles, and shorthand ways to act: ways to easily pull on past
wisdom and apply it to the future. In that spirit, I share this blog.
RALE
Arne Carlson did a great job of laying out the Recommendationon Adult Learning and Education (RALE) framework in his blog post. I see no
reason to repeat his post. I support what he said. Arne exhibits strong
international leadership qualities: dedicated to Lifelong Learning, an
excellent listener who integrates concepts and synthesizes them in clear
writing that we can read across national and cultural borders. Yes, Yes - Arne!
A Real-Life Leader and a Story We Can All Understand
(Told to the Associated Press)
"Rajendra Dawadi was inside his classroom when a
colleague rushed in with a warning: Floodwaters were racing through Nepal's Trishuli Valley, tearing apart homes, bridges, and
entire villages. He immediately decided to stop the school and get the
children out; His decision to evacuate saved at least 900 students from devastating
flash floods in Nepal, unleashed after a glacial
collapse in the Himalayas. The
disaster killed
over 950 people in Nepal and Tibet,
while more than 4,000 remain missing. As Nepal grapples with the
catastrophic natural disaster, Dawadi's story emerges as a striking example
of why leaders need foresight and courage. Maybe someday Automated Intelligence (AI) will
substitute for human leadership but more probably it will augment it.
The Future: 2056 International Hall of Fame Induction of
AE Leaders
Stories like this will become more prevalent 30 years
hence, and the International Adult Education Hall of Fame will induct leaders
at the 2056 ceremony who were prepared and acted heroically to empower learners.
After spending many years in Adult Education practice, scholarship, and policy formulation
in the U.S, and many other countries including in rural villages of Tanzania,
Malawi, India, Nepal, the Caribbean, Central America, and more, some powerful
leadership lessons stand-out.
Foresight –
Seeing ahead is grounded in preparation, hard
work, and homework. It requires brain and muscle memory, fortitude and risk-taking,
and engagement with others. Past and
future leaders read even weak signals indicating what is to come. They
integrate knowledge attained with those signals of the future. They take
non-foolish risks, and put learner interests above self-interest. They
co-create in learning communities and construct ways to help others learn and
achieve. They network and use whatever
tools, technologies, and learning resources available. These leaders are themselves
lifelong learners, willing to share what they know and understand that learning
is a reciprocal process of teaching, learning, adapting, and acting.
Past Leaders I Knew: Their Leadership Lessons Are
Powerful and Can Apply to 2056 Inductees. Will They?
I was fortunate to be influenced and mentored by so many
in the IHOF and I am including a few of the most powerful aspects of what I
personally learned from them about future educational leadership. I love “shiny new technologies,” but it will
be people with the will and capacity to lead that will shape the next 30 years
of education. There will always be
change and significant challenges. Here
are a few lessons from them I carry with me in both my head and my heart:
Wes Meierhenry: (IHOF 2003): My PhD Advisor who taught
4000 undergraduate and graduate students. He believed in the Multiplier Effect
of Education: he believed the more enthusiastic learners everywhere could
change the world. He received the First
Carnegie Foundation Grant to study motion picture use in adult education and
tapped into my passion for discovering how not just knowledge but other less
well understood dimensions that impact who gets to learn and how.
Howard McCluskey: (IHOF 2002): My first PhD “Visiting” Professor from the University of
Michigan. He was the Founding
President of AEA, predecessor of AAACE, and a premier educational psychologist
who articulated the theory of Adult Learning, Lifelong Learning, Adult
Psychology, and Gerontology. From him I learned M=L/P. Margin=Load/Power. When applied to learners and learning
communities it provides a profound formula for assessing what adult learners
are facing and how to decrease their load and increase their power. It is applicable everywhere.
Julius Nyerere(Mwalimu/Teacher)
(IHOF 2008): He was the first President of Tanzania and Founding President of the
International Council on Adult Education (ICAE), (IHOF Organizational Awardee).
He was the reason I spent six years designing and leading programs in Tanzania after
his request that the U.S. work with Tanzania to improve adult education at all
levels with emphasis on agriculture, rural development, self-reliance, women’s
empowerment, and healthy children.
Myron Johnsrud (IHOF 1996): He
led U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cooperative Extension team that
established the first adult education Extension program in Poland at the end of
the Cold War. He was a PhD adult education graduate from Wisconsin, read future
signals, appreciated innovation, and always shared leadership. Together, we
worked with all the U.S. Cooperative Extension System to adopt issue-based programming
and the use of new technologies, including satellite and internet.
Daniel Godfrey (IHOF 2006): He
never met a stranger he couldn't introduce to learning something new and useful. He advocated for public land-grant
universities and the 1890 land-grant Historically Black Colleges and
Universities. He inspired learners young and old serving communities from rural
North Carolina to Fort Hare in South Africa and influenced the WK Kellogg
Foundation’s approach to serving learners in minority communities. His last
chapter was introducing distance education to rural learners and communities.
Charles Wedemeyer (IHOF 1998): Inspirational leader and author of "Learning at the
Backdoor". The Charles E. Wedemeyer Award is given annually for
outstanding application of distance education in North America. (I was honored
to receive it in 2000).
Chere Campbell Gibson (IHOF 2011): Wedemeyer Award winner for outstanding distance
education research, she was the leader and co-founder of the Wisconsin
International Distance Teaching and Learning Conference in Madison, WI. A dual
citizen of Canada and the U.S., she never met a border she liked. Her motto was
"Quality Distance Education (QDE): Access and Success. Education was her
focus, and all techniques and technologies were flexed, mixed, matched, and
shaped to fit hungry learners wherever they might be.
Ashook Frank Mayadas (IHOF 2007): From India to IBM to the Sloan Foundation, he was a
true advocate for distance education and online learning. Frequently referred
to as the Father of Online Learning for his leadership at the Foundation. He
used corporate constructs to engage "best minds" into a consortium
focused on “Quality Educational Delivery at Scale”, internationally available
through the Online Learning Consortium (OLC).
Importance of Courage – In my humble advice, say “yes”
to challenging and important opportunities even if they are moderately risky
and outside previous experience. That's learning, and that develops courage.
"Take it as it comes." (That came from my Mother and Grandmother and
growing up being a rural Nebraska farmgirl.) But never give up - just get up
when you fail and try, try again. Step back and move away to think about what
went wrong, process your emotions, and reflect on the experience. Real leaders
in adult education believe learning is central to individual, national, and
cross-cultural life. Courageous and authentic leadership can't be faked and is
most apparent in moments of truth, like the teacher leading his students up the
hill. Leaders dare to try to climb when
things are difficult.
Growth and positive change means meeting challenging
future situations and environments in community with others to Learn, Inspire,
Serve and Act (LISA). This was the name of my recently departed daughter, who
taught me so much through her amazing international life of service and her
courage in a far too early death.
Continue the Conversation
Please share Your Take on what will define Leadership in
2056, drawn from your own reflections on powerful leaders. Who in the field
inspired you to follow? What prepared you to read the signs of the future and
to meet the moment? What energized you to act with foresight and courage in
difficult adult educational situations?
