Reflecting on the 64th Annual AAACE Conference: Evolutions and Revolutions

The 64th Annual American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) meeting in Oklahoma City showcased the theme Evolutions and Revolutions. The keynote speakers bookending this conference illuminated their sociocultural experiences through powerful stories. In my work with life stories, I have come to believe, as Carter (1993) suggested, "to understand thinking, it is necessary to find the story that structures an individual's model or theory of events" (p. 7). My personal experience at this conference--listening to colleagues and speakers and touring a local memorial with a family member--strengthened my intention to better understand story literacy and its application in adult education. This kind of literacy, which involves the skills of telling, listening, responding, and interpreting stories, has become imperative in our technological and globalized world. For example, stories, particularly of civility and humanity, help us cope in complex and dangerous situations (Moon, 2010). Here is what I heard and saw in Oklahoma and some implications. On Wednesday, Dr. Katarina Popovic opened the conference by walking the audience through a brief history of social movements, illuminating political upheavals in Eastern Europe and the Arab Spring. She is the newly appointed Secretary General of the International Council for Adult Education and professor at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and was previously vice president of the European Association for the Education of Adults. Midway through the talk, Dr. Popovic projected a picture of herself standing with several women and a young Afghan girl who spoke surprisingly good English. When asked how she came to speak English so well, the girl explained she attended English class before the Taliban shut down her school. When the teacher offered to continue language classes in one of the girl's home, they secretly met, hiding textbooks in their Korans and reciting English cross-legged on the floor. One day, the Taliban came to the home, but the girls had warning, so hid the texts beneath blankets laid across their laps and began reading aloud from their Korans. The Taliban left; had the girls and their teacher been caught, the punishment would have been unspeakable. Dr. Popovic shared this story of quiet revolution as a reminder of adult education's social justice roots carefully nurtured by Freire, Horton, hooks, and many others. Throughout the talk, she wondered aloud, "Are we asking the wrong questions in a world that needs values not skills?" This question evokes Briton's (1996) concern two decades ago: "Adult education is a sociohistorical and political practice, not a range of techniques and instructional methodologies devoid of human interest" (p. 116). Dr. Popovic's call for adult education's return to practices built on humanitarian foundations might be considered revolutionary, from the Latin word revolutio meaning a turn around. Revolutionary change, while not always sudden or quick, tends to occur over a shorter time period. In contrast, deep and lasting changes in culture may evolve slowly as complex interactions and understandings replace simple dictates. The next story demonstrates such slow, mature evolution in attitudes and behaviors over time. On Friday, Dr. Michael Fire closed the conference by sharing stories of growing up as a member of one of the most marginalized cultures in America. He is a Cheyenne and Arapaho Elder, is a registered nurse, and holds numerous degrees including a PhD in Health Care Administration. Growing up as a Native American in the 1940s and 1950s, Dr. Fire shared many stories of hardship, told with a delightful sense of humor, including when the U.S. government delivered crop seed and machinery to the family's plot of land but no information on how to farm. In addition, the delivery of livestock arrived at the homestead without instruction. The stories described cold Oklahoma winters with no indoor plumbing, treasured winter coats stolen from classroom hooks, and blatant incidents of discrimination in the military and higher education. …