Life skills = work skills = life skills
Jul 13th, 2007 by robynjay
Yesterday I was up in my old stamping ground visiting the OLAP Team (#022) at ACE North Coast. The team is exploring technology enhanced models for reaching very disparate and often isolated learners with the common thread: Certificates in IT and Business. Their learners include artists in remote indigenous communities seeking skills in business and marketing, part-time trainers upgrading to the new Cert IV TAA, individuals developing specific skills in MYOB etc and so on. It’s quite a challenge….
[image: nswlearnscope - scanned ACENC brochure]
As I left the meeting I picked up the Term 3 course brochure and it provided some interesting food for thought on the trip home.
There was something really uplifting about seeing - in 2007 - SOMEWHERE where the Diploma in Children’s Services or Cert III in Aged Care are still able to sit comfortably alongside Massage, Botanical Drawing or Photovoltaic Power Systems. Why do we think that skills to improve our sense of well-being, or skills that sit outside the boundary of our paid career do not have value; do not ADD value to us as members of our communities (work and social)?
Somewhere we lost the plot. The life drawing class I attended as a teenager with my mother at Armidale TAFE, and the ceramics course I attended at Lismore TAFE as a young mum were axed. Anything not directly vocational was scathingly pooh-poohed as ‘macramé courses’ and our lives became less rich.
At ICVET we’ve been thinking a lot about the notion of life-based learning, and contemporary strength-based workplaces, teams and networks. We’re tossing around the concepts of flexibility, fluidity, potential, movable boundaries, pooled strengths. If we care about innovation, creativity and effective work teams we need to take a step back and enable the well-being of staff via a holistic life-wide duty of care.
ACE (Community Colleges) continue to offer this opportunity; it’s a shame it must be fee for service and beyond the reach of many individuals. Wouldn’t it be nice if personal development/ well-being was subsidised and encouraged by workplaces!
I do remember the days when organisations did fund personal development. They were heady days, with lots of funding for the full spectrum of learning and development that would support us as individuals in the organisation. I recall an emphasis on assertiveness training (particularly for women), anger management, working in teams, planning skills and team leadership skills. Just to name a few.
These days there is a shift to promoting personal responsibility for learning, with organisations needing to provide enabling environments. With funding so tight, job skills are the priority and we are left to do the rest ourselves. In some ways I don’t think this is a bad thing and in another way, this has always been the case, even in the “good old days”. However I think we could losen up a bit and be more open to seeing that some areas of personal development do need to be supported, when they link directly to job performance. I recall an instance last year when I approved a staff member attending a 3 day art course in work time (course fee paid for by the staff member) as there was a direct link between her creativity and artistic ability and the web site that she was managing for our unit.
Thanks Maret.
Yes in the ‘good old days’ there was even the 2% PD budget requirement?? But a lot of this was still work and compliance related wasn’t it? Possibly not what the staff member would have selected for themselves.
It’s about culture shift - accepting that work lives/ personal lives have increasingly blurred boundaries, and that well being in one sphere (one identity) impacts on the other/s. It’s also about acknowledging that the capabilities we draw on to do our jobs well extend far beyond specific vocational skills.
The consequences and benefits of expending $$ on developing staff potential extend far beyond the reach of actual work related tasks: retention, productivity, cohesion, contentment, reduced off-time, innovation and so on far outweigh the financial deficit incurred.
Interested to hear what others think too…..
One of the worst casualties of pruning funding/courses, and making them work-focussed, were the general adult literacy/numeracy classes run in many small centres as well as in larger Community Colleges. They often catered for people who would otherwise not access any/many community groups.
Because they were not accredited (work-based) courses, teachers were able to tailor learning experiences so that literacy/numeracy was life-skills based for individuals and for the local community.
In small centres there might only be four or five people in a class, but time and again I met inspired teachers facilitating amazing changes in individual lives. Literacy, numeracy and (often) ICT skills were being learnt within a local context. The class was often an individual student’s high-point of the week, and the social interaction was as important as the education.
I met teachers who used drama, popular music and visiting speakers; organized visits to coffee shops, emergency services, local galleries, hospitals, tourist attractions and schools in the local area; and encouraged their groups to read and write about their experiences. They also taught critical literacy and numeracy (is “$25 off” better than the day when everything in the store is reduced by 15% ?). Students who had been isolated, and often labelled as failures at school, discovered “learning” could be very different and rewarding.
Many of those teachers are now unable to get work in their small towns, and are doing other things. What a loss to our community as a whole!! Other teachers in rural centres are struggling with accredited curricula in classes with maybe:
- one high-achieving computer literate NESB student in mid 20’s, has been in Australia for two months and is literate in a language with a non-latin writing;
- one elderly student who wants to write her life story;
- two or three 30-40 yr olds who have different learning disabilities; and often
- one or two late teens who have been “sent by Centrelink”.
In this situation, teaching and recording competency-based courses when the teacher may be paid for 2-3 hours per week is a nightmare!!
Am I passionate about this? You betcha!!
Thank you Kathie.
My understanding is that there are currently no non-accredited literacy offerings left in NSW. Is that correct?
How tragic it is when grandparents and the like (ie. those not wanting work related skills) cannot access basic LLN support. or when they must enrol in accredited courses to do so.