Goal Mismatch
Practitioners distinguish a connection between the nature of the goals of their programs and the content of their professional development opportunities, which sometimes prevents them from participating in the kinds of training they want outside these limits. As an example, quite a few programs seek student outcomes in terms of "lifelong skills," with students becoming constructive workers, citizens, and parents. Agency teachers have a tendency to have access to training on topics such as multiple intelligences, motivation theory, and health and literacy: information that improves their chances of instilling continuous learning skills in their students. But some definite institutions - either because of an executive director's predilection or a state's mandate - define their purpose in a more short-term, utilitarian way and place a premium on students passing the tests of General Educational Development (GED) and completing the program. By necessity these programs keep an eye out for information that directly enhances GED performance and ensures that their local program operates in compliance with state requirements. During these programs, teachers who want to learn more about how to promote lifelong learning among their students say that they are generally frustrated in their wishes.
Face-to-Face Interaction
ABE instructors over and over again voice a preference for face-to-face interactions about their work, and yet this is the one medium that is most closed to them. They think they get the most from sharing experiences directly with others, discussing their successes and failures in an intimate setting, and making sense of new information in concrete terms. In the course of these face-to-face interactions, they understand better the practical applications of what they learn. Obviously, such preference, to a certain extent, sets educators up for frustration, given all of the reasons above why opportunities in which they can talk with one another and experts so rarely occur. Besides, just a small minority of ABE instructors regularly access print media and the Internet for information: Focus on Basics is a popular source.
Strategies
The predominance of part-time positions, incomplete local professional development, the individual inclinations of de facto information gate-keepers, the occasional mismatch between agency goals and practitioners' professional interests, and the disjunction between educators' preferred ways of learning and the avenues most available to them combine to stifle the flow of important research- and experience-based knowledge to ABE educators. A two-pronged strategy needed to address these issues is a must. As initial steps, those generating important information for educators must begin to adopt ways of sharing what they know, taking into account the constraints that educators face. This will require more direct contact between researchers, research disseminators, and educators, with the former actually going out into the field instead of having the field comes to them. And the ABE field - led by those in prominent positions - must address the lack of structural and occupational supports for educators to grow professionally.
At present, the ABE occupation conditions are such that those in the field will never be able to participate systematically in the very activities they see as necessary to doing their jobs well. Teachers state the desire for professional development is present; readily accessible opportunities to fulfill that desire are most notably not.
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