Simple things you can do to the improve working conditions in adult education!
All Practitioners
- Join the Working Conditions Committee to organize for living wages, health, and other benefits, stable workloads, and work spaces conducive to productive work and learning.
- Raise the issue of working conditions in professional groups and organizations, in ESE task forces and focus groups.
- Write about working conditions — your experience, your efforts to make change for Field Notes.
- Nominate a program for the Working Conditions Award. Work toward being a nominee.
- Talk with your students about the working conditions of their teachers.
- Advocate with legislators around the need for working conditions that enable a quality adult education system.
- Discuss the findings of the MCAE Working Conditions Survey with colleagues.
- Send your thoughts and reactions to the Survey findings to the Working Conditions Committee.
- Help us create and maintain a Working Conditions Facebook Page.
Teachers
- Collect/document stories of the working conditions of teachers in the field.
- Collect/document stories of why teachers have left the field.
- Hold a teacher/counselor meet-up in your community to discuss working conditions.
Directors
- Collect/document stories about the efforts program directors have made to improve conditions and the challenges they’ve faced.
- Educate funders (private and public) about the need to support improved working conditions.
- Use the Working Conditions self-assessment tool as a staff to evaluate program strengths and weaknesses.
For more information, contact the Working Conditions Committee co-chairs Andy Nash at anash@worlded.org or Laurie Sheridan at lsheridan@worlded.org.
