The "Other" Adult Learner
This is a post relating to the topic of Building Student Engagement. It is response to the following prompt:
"Find a film, a poem, a novel, a short story, a picture, an animation, a song, a video clip or any other artifact that u think it tells something about the Other Adult Learner and comment upon it. How this Other Adult Learner is imagined of 'described'? Reflect on how u, as an adult educator, could relate to this adult(s). Post your thoughts."
Here is my response:
I wanted to share a picture that I thought pretty poignantly depicts this idea of "othering" or the "other adult learner." Similar to what some others have already articulated, the vernacular of "other" I find to be a bit disturbing because it in some ways perpetuates ideas of hierarchy and what it means to look at a situation through a framework of "othering", but I because it has already been articulated in other posts by several people, I just want to say that I see, recognize and agree with this challenge, and, for the purposes of this assignment only, will use this forum's hegemonic nomenclature of "other adult learner."
This is a picture taken (from this source) which to me clearly demonstrates a few thing: it demonstrates a part of the history of the United States where racism was outright and in every part of daily life, include educational settings (we still very much have racism, both outright and nondirect in more hidden undercurrents in many aspects of life, but this is from a time when it was very much out in the open by law, attitude and culture). It also demonstrates how any one who was non-white was "othered" in education settings. Many people know and have heard about integration as it happened in primary schools in the United States with the "Little Rock Nine" who risked their lives and horrible treatment in order to have the same educational rights and opportunities as white Americans. However, it is not as well known that the exact same thing happened in higher education universities.
This picture was taken in 1948 when Mr. McLaurin, at the age of 61, applied for a PhD program at the University of Oklahoma and was accepted into this program, but told that he was not allowed to sit with the other students or use the same library, cafeteria or restrooms as the white students. His admission to the university and the battle he (and a few others who were admitted to the university with him) fought to obtain equal rights led to the 1950 supreme court decision that the university must treat them the same as any other student attending the university. This happened 7 years before the "Little Rock Nine" and paved the way for the 1954 supreme court decision (Roe v. Wade) that made school segregation illegal.
This is a situation in which I would never take part as an adult educator. If I am ever in a learning environment where students are mandated to be segregated into areas by any "common factor" (race, religion, gender etc), I would more than likely remove myself from that learning environment because it is not one I would want to perpetuate or be associated with. While there are always going to be learning environment dynamics and sometimes you will have to address cultural differences with the participants and/or face issues of cultural racism and tackle other challenging topics, these are challenges I am prepared to face and to have active conversations with the participants about. However, this photo is representing a culture and an educational environment where segregation is the norm and expectation and not one of the other white students in the room nor the professor are interested in making that change until they were dictated to by law. I have no real interest in being a part of that kind of learning environment.
We have come a long way in the United States in the last 70 years, but there is still a long way to go. I hope that I can work in learning environments like I described above where racism, stereotypes, perceptions and other types of "isms" are challenged and addressed and where the participants and the learning environment are geared towards trying to make the world a better, more open and accepting place.
