This case is a description of the workplace literacy activities of the Twin
Cities Opportunities Industrialization Center (TCOIC) (actual name), an
alternative vocational institution, incorporated in 1966 for the specific
purpose of providing job training for the disadvantaged. TCOIC is an affiliate
of OIC America (referred to as OIC), a community-based organization. It is
located on the periphery of the city of Minneapolis, adjoining public housing
projects, a location that in itself bears testimony to its principles.
According to its president, TCOIC was initiated by the local religions
representing the African-American community, with oversight by the National
Council of Churches. The churches came together "with citizens from all walks
of life." In keeping with the mission of the parent body, TCOIC set forth, in
the words of its president, to "train and retrain poor people for jobs that
existed and were futuristic in terms of their longevity. Jobs that were going
to last." The approach was to be three-pronged: to train students
"academically, psychologically, and technically." This was especially
important, because the clientele was to be nontraditional and, for the most
part, at-risk. As the president of TCOIC explains, the clientele was to be the
economically disadvantaged, whether on educational, ethnic, social, or racial
grounds. Corporate partners were sought out from the start and have been an
important mainstay of the institution. TCOIC has an annual operating budget of
$1.2 million. Of this, corporate sponsors provide $200,000 through donations.
Corporations also provide in-kind contributions in such forms as computers and
computer peripherals. Throughout its existence, TCOIC has graduated some
20,000 students.
Though it came into existence when the cries regarding the problem of
workplace literacy were not as plaintive, TCOIC, because of its basic design,
has over the years accumulated much experience in workplace basics programming
for a clientele among whom, by the weight of the literature, can be found the
quintessentially workplace-illiterate (e.g., welfare recipients, those in
trouble with the law, the unemployed, and immigrants). We were attracted to
this institution because it seemed to be doing naturally what vocational
institutions in the mainstream now had to learn to do--that is, provide basic
skills together with technical skills to diverse, marginalized populations.
This report provides an in-depth look at how this institution addresses the
complex problem of preparing marginal populations for today's workplace. We
examine, among other things, its mission, clientele, and processes from
perspectives that include management, administrative and instructional staff,
and students.
The original concept of OIC was grounded in African-American self-help, though initiatives were to be open to all. Excerpts from Sullivan's Build Brother Build (1969), the document that set forth the OIC concept, reveals some of the original thinking:
It was going to be necessary to develop a whole new system of prevocational training--a new composite of teaching and social learning techniques arranged into a curriculum. We were going to have to curriculumize (sic) mental initiative by creating a program like nothing that had ever been done before. We would have to prove the years of educational and environmental inadequacies and deficiencies could be overcome in the briefest span of time. The challenge really was to prove that we could make a man or woman feel born anew--almost overnight. (p. 99)
Continuing, Sullivan explains the underlying thinking--the idea of OIC as a training institution:
The mechanical formula for success is simple enough. Get a man, put him in the feeder, build his ambition, help his attitude, feed him into an OIC skill center, give him a skill, build his self-respect, find him a job, and give him post-training if he wants it--then watch him rise. (p. 99)
As to the nature of the feeder, Sullivan explained:
Essentially, the feeder provides a trainee with learning tools that include reading, writing, and arithmetic--but we never called it reading, writing, and arithmetic. People don't want others to know that they want to learn to read, write, and do arithmetic, so the courses are in communication skills and computational arts. Those words describe what we really want to do. (p. 101)
It is evident here that this organization was somewhat ahead of its time, targeting a deprived group, and recognizing the link between literacy, vocationalism, and jobs. This fundamental thrust continues to drive TCOIC, whose mission is set forth in its course catalog for 1993-1995 as follows:
TCOIC's mission is to train and retrain people in preparation for employment and employment advancement with special emphasis on those persons who are not or will not be served by other training institutions ...
TCOIC operates on the whole person concept of service. It is not enough to teach vocational, related education and academic skills. The personal attitude, family, and societal barriers to an individual's success must be addressed to further heighten the learning experience and the capacity for an individual to get and keep a job. (Course catalog, 1993-1995, p. 5)
TCOIC is run by a thirty-member volunteer board, about three-fourths of whom are corporate representatives. Many of the major corporations in the state (including the 3M Company, Cargill, and Dayton Hudson) are represented on the board. The remainder includes community members and a student representative. The president reports to this board. The staff includes a vice-president who has responsibility for day to day operations and three supervisors who are responsible respectively for (1) outreach and admissions; (2) supportive services, namely counseling and job placement; and (3) vocational programs, including supervision of all instructional staff.
As explained by the vice-president of operations, TCOIC has five "primary
sources" of funding: (1) JTPA funds, accessed through placement contracts with
Minneapolis--TCOIC must place at least 81 people in unsubsidized jobs, in which
they must remain employed for a minimum of 183 days (or six months) to meet the
performance specifications of the contract (an additional $22,000 per year is
available if they overperform the contract); (2) federal grants-in-aid in the
form of Pell funds and similar funds available to citizens through the
Minnesota Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB) (if students qualify for
either of these types of assistance, it is used to pay their tuition); (3)
monies from the OIC State Council, described as "an organization funded by the
state legislature to provide technical expertise and money to OICs located in
the state;" (4) lease income, through rental of building space in the TCOIC
complex to nonprofit agencies, most notably the Minneapolis Public School
system (which conducts ABE and GED classes on the compound and which provides
basic skills teachers); and (5) contributions from the private sector
(comprising about one-quarter of operating costs).
In addition to these sources of funding, TCOIC actively seeks out in-kind
contributions from corporations. Exemplifying this is their relationship with
IBM, which has supplied two basic skills labs--a Principles of Alphabet
Literacy System (PALS) lab, for the teaching of basic literacy skills up to the
fourth grade, and an adult basic skills Relevant Education for Adult Learners
(REAL) lab, which continues literacy training from the fourth to the ninth
grade, leading to the GED. These labs are used to provide prevocational
training.
TCOIC was accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools as a "special options" vocational school in 1984. It offers three basic kinds of vocational programs: (1) one-semester courses (sixteen weeks) in areas such as building maintenance, general clerical, and hospitality training; (2) two-semester programs for occupations such as accounting clerk, bank career training, and microcomputer applications; and (3) three-semester programs in areas such as executive word processing secretary and microcomputer support personnel.
The president of TCOIC points out that the program has been responsive to change. He noted the following:
In recent years, as the labor market has changed through the evolution of technology and the advancement of robotics and other technical changes within the world of work, TCOIC changed its program offerings to accommodate those industrial changes. That kind of change continues today. We continue to change to meet the present and future labor market demands as we look at which occupations to train in. But one of the things that has been consistent is our belief that good psychological development, good attitudes, [and] good understanding of the world of work is essential to any kind of technical and academic training.
To operationalize its basic philosophy, TCOIC operates on a continuous admissions basis, a new group of a dozen or so students being admitted every two weeks. All programs are self-paced. As its course catalog points out:
The Twin Cities OIC recognizes that every adult does not learn at the same pace. Therefore, our curriculum is designed with the individual learner in mind. All courses at the Twin Cities OIC are competency based. While all programs have specific course requirements, students progress through their program at their own pace. (Course catalog, p. 5)
This open enrollment, multiple-entry policy incorporates the feature that a student can stop at any time and return at a later date without having to go over ground already covered. This flexibility synchronizes with the policy that students who find a job in the middle of their training may leave a program without loss of credit. The following exchange with the vice-president of OIC provides clarification:
Researcher: What percent of students graduate, roughly?
Vice-President: We place about 80% of the students who graduate from our programs. However, our graduation completion rate generally falls in the 65% range. The reason for that is that many of our students obtain employment before completing the program, you see. So, they do not complete.
Researcher: And that's OK with you?
Vice-President: That's OK with me because the bottom line of our operation is employment, you see. That's why we're here.
Researcher: And they can come back?
Vice-President: They can come back and if they stay on the job, say an individual's gone a year for two-thirds of the time required to complete a course ... if they stay on the job for the 183 days or six months, we award them a completion certificate.
(The reference to 183 days or six months reflects the time frame for successful performance of a JTPA placement contract.)
Another professional reflected upon the open policy as follows:
Sometimes that very openness causes us some problems that we would rather not have.... But it's a situation where that gives the student the flexibility where they can start, stop, start, stop, without having to worry about the fact that I'm stopping in the middle of something and when I come back I'm gonna have to go back five steps because of the fact that I stopped in the middle of this particular step.
This openness reflects an understanding of and sensitivity toward the clientele.
TCOIC's student body reflects the basic OIC mission, which is to train and
retrain those citizens who, for a multiplicity of reasons (including low SES,
ethnicity, race, and low levels of education) do not find traditional
vocational institutions in the state to be a good fit. Indeed, the clientele
epitomizes all of the classes of members of the workforce known to be lacking
in the basic employability skills that employers want (e.g., Carnevale et al.,
1988, p. 6). The 1991 annual report for TCOIC reveals that about three-fourths
of the clientele were African American and about 15% white, with the remainder
divided somewhat evenly between Asian American, Native American, Latino, and
Hispanic. Slightly more than one-half of the cohort tends to be unemployed. A
further 40% or so are on welfare. Regarding educational level, about one-third
are high-school dropouts. A majority (more than 80%) are between the ages of
twenty-two and forty-four.
Included among the clientele are many who have had brushes with the law.
Indeed, TCOIC has an ongoing program in one of the prisons in the state.
Prisoners are taught job-seeking and job-keeping skills and are encouraged to
contact TCOIC upon release. Many do, seeking training and job placement.
The following exchange captures the philosophy with respect to the clientele:
Researcher: Who are your students, and who do you try to attract ... ?
Administrator: We're basically looking at economically disadvantaged students.... The ideal student that we would be looking at is a student who has been on some form of assistance (such as AFDC, general assistance, social security) and is presently not in the workforce or has never been in the workforce, with the idea of giving them some basic skills ... to get them back in the workforce.... It's basically anybody that needs some training to get back into the workforce that cannot attack it from a traditional standpoint.
The following excerpt from the conversation with the president also captures the attitude toward the clientele:
Researcher: Can you talk about the clientele that you've attracted over the years and just briefly the makeup of that clientele and why it is that OIC seems to be particularly attractive to the clientele.
President: The basic characteristic, the most common characteristic of our clientele is they're all economically disadvantaged. They're all poor. They have other disadvantages also: educational, social ... I think ... the people that come here come basically because they can't afford to go to traditional institutions, or they have given up. They don't have faith in the traditional institution. And that is faith in terms of the traditional institution understanding, having the kind of patience they need, tolerance I should say, that these people need in terms of having enough time to do the work, having an instructor that will go over a particular thing over and over again. Not to say that this is the tenth time I'm gonna tell ya ... say well, if you don't get it the tenth time you'll get it the twentieth time. But we're going to keep after it till you get it, OK? We're gonna hang with them. That is a characteristic, I think, that sets us apart. We give them time to learn, to understand, where other traditional institutions are more lock-stepped, as we call it ...
The other thing about our clientele is a kind of a love association in this organization. Our clients know that we care about them. They are absolutely sure of that. Because we do a lot of things to demonstrate that to them. And when that compassion is there for an individual, you generate a greater possibility of success ...
To keep in touch with the many communities represented among its clientele, TCOIC has ties with grassroots community organizations. Many of the staff members at the institution reflect the diversity of the clientele. Indeed, a translation service is included among the services.
When a student first enrolls at TCOIC, he or she must take the ABLE
level-three test. The test is administered either at TCOIC or through the
Minneapolis Public Schools. There are four parts to the test: (1) reading
comprehension (which is weighed separately), (2) vocabulary, (3) number
operation, and (4) problem solving (which are weighed together as a group).
Asked why reading comprehension is set apart, one administrator explained that
the TCOIC program is "reading intensive." Since the program is competency-
based, reading is a big part of it.
If a student's test results place him or her below the seventh grade level in
either of these two parts of the test, then remediation is prescribed to help
that student upgrade his or her skills. It is here that the prevocational
education offered in the PALS and REAL labs comes into play. Both labs are run
by the Minneapolis Public Schools, who independently have their own clients on
the spot, but also cater to OIC clients. Students who test at the fifth grade
or below are referred to the PALS lab. If they test at the seventh grade
level, they are given "split time"--that is, they are allowed to pursue a
vocational area (e.g., they could work on typing skills), even while pursuing a
remedial course in the anticipation of attaining the ninth grade level. It was
explained that this opportunity serves as a hook--an enticement that helps to
minimize the frustration that students feel having to pursue prevocational
studies. Those who test at the ninth grade level get into full-time vocational
programs.
The question then arose as to the mismatch between what a student intended to pursue at TCOIC and what the test scores might indicate.
Researcher: But there are some people who want to do something for which they are not suited ... ?
Counselor: Right, then they probably would have had to have taken the ABLE test ... and at that point we look at the ABLE scores, we can say to the [student], "Your ABLE scores indicate that you are at the fourth-grade or at a fifth-grade level. I have to recommend that you not go into the microcomputer application. It's a lot of reading comprehension. You're not going to get a lot of help from the instructor. He's going to give you this information and you're expected to sort it out. If you can, in fact, improve your reading comprehension skills by going back to the REAL lab and then maybe we retest and you've improved those skills and they're up to at least seventh or eighth grade (because all materials are supposed to be written at a seventh grade level which I think is a state law), if you can prove then that you're up to a seventh grade level, maybe we can take a look at you going into microcomputer class."
Note: About seven in ten students will test at the ninth grade level; two in ten will be at the seventh; and one in ten below the seventh.
Students who test below the seventh grade level are referred to the public
schools, who are on-site. The public schools, as indicated above, lease space
in the building and run their own program, sharing facilities. They staff the
PALS and REAL labs (see pp. 130-132). When students are referred to them, they
become public school students. The public schools receive income for their
services.
The question, then, is whether this arrangement for dealing with literacy
works. Do students in fact raise their grade level in reading comprehension
from the seventh to the ninth grade? Do any make the leap from the fifth to
the ninth? In a good discussion of this issue, Mikulecky et al. (1992) make it
clear that literacy gains do not come quickly. They report that the most
effective workplace literacy programs require fifty to seventy hours for one
grade level gain. They seem to suggest also that for maximum gain, the reading
materials must be work related. Informal conversations we held with Mikulecky
(at a literacy conference held in St. Paul) brought out these same
sentiments.
As a preamble, it should be stated that instruction in the REAL lab is not
done in a functional context. Canned computerized programs are used. But
there remains the lure of completing this prevocational program and enrolling
in a vocational program.
The following conversations about grade level improvement are instructive. Two views are detailed. First, an administrator is asked about remediation; then a counselor is asked about grade level gain.
Researcher: Now, does that happen? Do people actually improve a grade level here?
Administrator: They do. The problem that we have is because of the clientele we're working with. It's not an easy process to go from, especially a very low grade level to a seventh- or ninth-grade level.... It doesn't happen overnight to be very honest with you [emphasis added]. The folks that we have quite often get frustrated and then we lose a large number, unfortunately.... That does not create a great feeder program for us.
What we're looking at is, hopefully, we can help them a little bit this time..., and then they may quit and six months later they may come back.
This explanation seemed plausible, and is consistent with the literature as cited above. On this same theme, the counselor told a success story:
Researcher: That seems hard ... to raise a grade level in reading?
Counselor: No, it can be done. I've got people who came to me with a fourth grade education and who had completed their GED and did it in a year's time.
Researcher: In about a year or so? ... In about a year's time?
Counselor: In a year's time she went from fourth grade to completing her GED. It can be done. She was here every day, OK! She was absent only when her children were ill. So she was rarely absent. You have to come. OK. And you have to be diligent about what you are doing. You can't come and go sit in a cafeteria and smoke cigarettes for two hours. She really wanted to get this done. She came with a fourth grade level; her sister came with an eighth grade level. She finished her fourth grade level before her sister finished her eighth grade level ... and got her GED.
Researcher: ... Some people were saying that ... that can't be done. You can't raise a reading level. It takes nine months just to raise one grade level.
Counselor: That depends on how bad they want to do it.
Researcher: So that's a factor then ... motivation. If somebody really wants to do it, you're saying ...
Counselor: If somebody wants to do it, they can do it.
What the counselor had to say here seemed plausible too. One year of constant study could well lead to gain of the order described, if only because of the supportive climate that OIC presents, and the lure of enrollment in a vocational course that can lead to a job.
As indicated above, the PALS lab is primarily for prospective students who
test below the fifth grade in reading. Conversations with one of the PALS lab
instructors revealed that the lab primarily attracts new immigrants, mostly
Asian Americans, who can read and write, but who use the lab to work on their
spoken language until they can "communicate in American society." The approach
is to allow such students to "feel free to write the way they speak and in the
course of them expressing themselves uninhibitedly without worrying about
spelling. We can bridge that and talk about what they bring from their
country...." When they are able to become conscious of differences in the
linguistic patterns between their native language and English, they can become
editors of their English. According to the PALS lab instructor, they can "make
a conscious choice to adjust."
For students who are trying to get to the fifth grade level of
reading, according to the PALS lab instructor, the focus is to help students to
become competent enough to "write as well as they speak ... and also to get a
sense of confidence in communication skills. And certainly once they can read
and write anything they want to ... they can make those connections in the work
setting." Thus, reading material could be the newspaper, literature--anything
of interest to students. Students can write their own stories, then have them
converted to standard English. We saw many samples of such stories on display.
Many were personal, set in the context of family.
Continuing, the PALS lab instructor explained that the intent is to "help students not be afraid of the written word." The approach is general, not functional, literacy. The instructor reiterated, "The student comes away comfortable using writing for anything they can say; comfortable in learning new vocabulary; comfortable in not knowing everything, and knowing how to learn, how to approach something that they do not know." The instructor gave the following example from the class as illustration:
We were reading from Robert Fulton's book, Everything I Ever Really Needed To Know .... This piece was about Mother Theresa ... really not easy, certainly not fifth grade, maybe about sixth-grade level reading, but we're reading it, and we're tackling it, and the students, they're going at it slowly. If I were to read something about engineering, I would go very slowly ... and even then I may not have the prior knowledge ... or the background to understand it.
The message was that it was acceptable to go slowly when one was in an unfamiliar conceptual terrain. We then raised the issue of functional context directly:
Researcher (paraphrased): In the literature on workplace literacy there is the idea of functional context. I think it means in terms of the workplace that if you are a carpenter ... why not talk about hammers and boards and the rest of it that's contextually relevant ...
PALS Instructor: If I were teaching at a particular workplace, that's exactly how I would do it in the context of what the student, the worker needs to know [to perform] the job.
She pointed out though that the skills one needs to learn specific vocabulary such as figuring out how a word sounds are the same skills one needs to read a newspaper. The workplace provides a good opportunity to teach literacy, but the aim must be generalization, as the instructor continues:
I don't know that everybody would agree, but I think [we're] talking about more than just competence in the workplace; [we're] talking about citizenship, we're talking about community, we're talking about parenting, raising a family, talking about attitudes toward self ... self-esteem.
The instructor opined that literacy pedagogy should "validate the life
experiences and the strengths that one brings to this endeavor ... whether they
came from the top of education ... whether they are not up-to-par, whether
they fell through the cracks."
These humanistic sentiments are in keeping with the ideas set forth by
Sarmiento and Kay (1990) and by Gowen (1992). They tend to be the literacy
philosophy one sees at TCOIC.
The REAL lab deals with basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics between the fifth and seventh grade, leading to the GED. The instructor explains that the math starts with counting and addition. The lessons are canned, but the instructor is on hand for consultation. As with the PALS lab, it tends to attract ESL students for the most part.
The curriculum of TCOIC issues from the mission statement. As indicated earlier, it looks at "the whole person." As such, it has to be observed in action to be fully comprehended. Earlier, it was pointed out that the program is multileveled--a PALS lab for those deemed to be functionally illiterate, a REAL lab that teaches adult basic skills, and a vocational program that teaches technical job skills. The PALS and REAL labs focus on literacy explicitly, but workplace literacy skills are evident throughout, as will be explained below.
Since TCOIC is competency-based, an underlying thread in the curriculum is reading. As indicated above, this was a reason for initial diagnostic testing and for setting the ninth grade as the level for full fledged acceptance into vocational programs. The following excerpt from conversation with one of the TCOIC supervisors explains:
Most jobs nowadays they require ... they actually think that you're gonna learn it by yourself. And that's kind of the way we're set up ... is we give you information ... self-paced booklet kind of form that has emphasis done by the instructors and lecturers sometime. But it's primarily the students. They read the book; they follow the instructions in the book.
Except for hospitality training, all programs at TCOIC include a basic keyboarding course. This emphasizes the value placed upon this skill. Those in the hospitality program do have the opportunity to gain keyboarding skills in the literacy labs.
All students at TCOIC must take two credits of Comprehensive Opportunity for Promoting Employment (COPE). This course is offered during the first two weeks of training. Students enter in cohorts of about twelve, and COPE allows them the opportunity to bond--to form a support group. The intent of COPE was explained to us as follows:
Researcher: What is COPE? What does COPE do? What do you try to do in the COPE program?
Instructor: Our goal is when a person leaves COPE, they'll be ready for any department in the workforce. What does it do? We try to help motivate, try to give a person self-esteem, try to enhance their listening skills in case they have something hidden like anger, we try to bring that to the surface so they can deal with it. We deal with fear, a lot of feelings, a lot of personal things. They cannot succeed if they have a lot of skeletons in their closet ... a lot of ghosts hanging around, and so we try to get them to surface those ghosts and deal with them so that they won't use that as a barrier for failing ...
Researcher: And you do not want them to fail at OIC?
Instructor: Or anywhere. Not just OIC because once they leave OIC, we want them to succeed in the workplace, because when they look good, we look good.
We probed further about the philosophy of COPE:
Researcher: Now why is it so important with people who come to OIC to be focusing on that whole issue of not feeling?... Is there something about the clientele here that you think makes it important that you have that kind of emphasis so early in the program?
Instructor: I think a lot of the people we get are not reinforced, maybe in their home.... Some of them have not been reinforced or validated in the community, and so when they do something of accomplishment, even when they give a speech, we give them what we call "strokes," and we applaud them.... A lot of them come from negative environments and we try to give them a positive setting and let them know that there's another side.
Researcher: So right off the bat, you're trying to say to these people that here is a welcoming place? What are you trying to say to them?
Instructor: Well, most of the schools you go to, you go in there and you don't know anyone. We want to give them a support group.... If one of the people is missing, someone in their support group is going to call them and say, "Hey, where are you? We miss you."
Researcher: So ... now there's a reason it comes so early in the program and not later?
Instructor: Um-hmm. Because we want them to get through school, and many people have not been to school for maybe ten, fifteen, twenty years. And so to get them acclimated to the school setting again, we have COPE. This is like their "dressing up" place. You get used to doing homework; you get used to speaking in front of an audience. You get used to interacting with people of diverse backgrounds.... So after they succeed these two weeks, it's not hard for them to do it later on.
As the conversation continued, it became clear that the COPE program bore many of the features that the literature tells us are constituents of workplace literacy, broadly conceived. The instructor explained that occasionally students drop out of COPE (meaning they have dropped out of TCOIC), even though they are only into the first two weeks of the program, such is the volatility of the clientele. She explained that this is preferred, rather than their waiting till later. They can, of course, return if they wish. The instructor spoke of an evaluation at the end of COPE, and we inquired as to its content and purpose. She explained:
It's an observation, but also you know whether they have a good attitude, whether they try, whether they use a lot of excuses, whether they're on time, whether they take a lot of days off, whether they're going to be a team player, whether they are going to come up to the dress code ...
As the conversation continued, we asked about this emphasis on attitude:
Researcher: So attitude, punctuality, and regularity ... being a team player and dressing ... and being able to blame yourself, if things aren't right?
Instructor: And being able to work with anyone, with any lifestyle, any cultural background, and religious background.
This instructor further explained that working with diversity was a major part of the TCOIC curriculum: "Diversity is the theme of our school, I mean, we are a very diverse school." From our observations based on months of traversing the corridors and classrooms of TCOIC, we concur that this is indeed a school of diverse cultures and peoples, more so than any other of the more traditional technical colleges in the state. This very nature of the school engenders outcomes that can be called workplace literacy.
At the end of their programs, all students must participate in COPE-Plus, following a curriculum that includes job-seeking and job-keeping skills. The course includes designing resumes, cover letters, follow-up letters, mock videotaped interviews, and so on. Employers are invited to come in to speak with students. Students go on field trips and get the opportunity to shadow workers. This capstone counterpart to the initial COPE-Plus is intended to round out the attitudinal part of the curriculum.
An important part of the curriculum--what one may call the "hidden" curriculum of the TCOIC--is "dressing for success." This somewhat unique aspect of TCOIC curriculum is evident as one walks the corridors and observes students as they pass by. Dressing for success is emphasized early in the COPE-Plus program. The vice-president of TCOIC explained the concept as follows:
Vice-President: We have a dress code for our students with which we try to encourage students to dress for success. Since most of the training that we have involves training for jobs in offices and so forth, we ask students to dress in a professional manner, meaning young ladies in more professional attire, no shorts, no halter tops. Males, we ask that they wear (not so much in the summertime) a shirt and tie along with a jacket for most of the year. We try to discourage students from wearing jeans and the more mod attire that you find people on the street wearing and so forth.
Researcher: Well, would you say that this is a part of your curriculum?
Vice-President: It is. It's stressed from day one that you dress for success, and we accept contributions from individuals and businesses, wherever, of clothing. We have what we call a clothing shop where students can go in and pick out whatever we have available to help them develop their own style.
The counselor speaks of an entity known as "The Clothing Connection" that for a charge of five dollars monthly allows a student to pick out one outfit per month. They can volunteer one hour in lieu of that money. This focus on clothing is reinforced when corporate visitors comment on the professionalism of students--something that apparently happens frequently.
The president of TCOIC explains that, over time, technology (robotics and so on) has forced changes in their offerings. The current emphasis is on jobs that will be around for the next ten years. These are jobs in microcomputing, accounting, secretarial skills, hospitality, and building maintenance. To stay in touch with the labor market, each course has a technical advisory committee.
The vice-president explains as follows:
Each course has a technical advisory committee.... Technical advisory committees are set up for every training area. They are staffed by board members and people from industry. It's their job to evaluate each course to determine what's being taught is relevant and to make certain as closely as possible that each course, the equipment, and the wherewithal to operate effectively. When we find a course is no longer ... well, when the job market will no longer support the course, we have the flexibility, unlike many of the other vocational schools that are part of the system, the state educational system, we can drop a course on a moment's notice. We don't have a bureaucracy that any other institutions have in terms of being able to change a training area or what have you. When new courses come along, there's a lot of research and development that goes into that course before it's ever started. We make certain that the job market is there, that all the other elements in terms of financing that course can be self-sustaining. So we have a number of courses on the drawing board now that we're considering, and that research and development is in process right now.
The president concurs. He too posits the role of advisory committees in the context of links with industry and the changing nature of the world of work. He explains as follows:
One of the big things about OIC is that we have this very strong tie with industry, and consequently, we have what is known as technical advisory committees, comprised of personnel directors from the various companies and people from research and development departments from all these companies.... These professionals sit on our technical advisory committee and advise us as to what is being researched and what is likely to be a product next year or in the near future. And we train to that product. We train people to service that product, to work on that particular assembly line, market that particular product ...
All of the technical courses of study include basic skills. Examination of
sample programs help illustrate this. A two-semester building maintenance
course appears to be designed for flexibility--a hallmark of workplace
literacy. The catalog promises a wide variety of employment opportunities such
as caretaking, commercial and industrial building maintenance, landscaping, and
maintenance specialties. This flexibility is evident in the curriculum, which
includes an array of basic skills courses plus a number of basic technical
courses. Thirteen of thirty-six credits are for coursework in English, and one
credit is in mathematics. Beyond this, there is opportunity for basic computer
competence. The course of study is as follows:
Courses (and credits):
To build flexibility into the course, a workplace literacy feature, the course of study presents conceptual courses across an array of technical specialties such as the following:
It also offers courses that transcend technical areas, such as
Other courses observed follow that basic format.
When one observes TCOIC classes in session, one will notice a lot of small-group activity--with students on task and instructors present. However, the instructors are not commanding the attention of the entire class. Instructors operate from the sidelines--but they remain accessible. The supervisor of instructors explains that some classes are more instructor-led than others. He gave a personal example:
My intro to DOS class is more instructor-led than any of the other classes that I have. And then on the support side ... support curriculum, my set-up and installation class is more instructor-led. Otherwise, I basically give them the text, and if you have any questions, if you have any problems, then we get together and go over. But they're just following the text, the examples, and then I give them exercises and quizzes and tests to see how they've picked that up.
In a similar vein, one administrator, cited earlier, indicated that the program is competency-based. Using a lecture style would not work because students are at different places in their competency level.
Researcher: It's hands on?
Administrator: Much more hands-on. It's sitting up on the computer, doing the work, with the instructor being basically in the class.... So if a student runs into a problem where they don't understand something, then it's strictly a one-on-one situation as opposed to being a classroom situation.
Competency-based instruction means that often students in the same class are more or less advanced than others. In one mathematics class we monitored, students clearly were at different places in their competency level. They came to the instructor individually as needed. There was no group recitation. The communications teacher pointed out with respect to her classes that "everybody is in a different place; they work at their own level and their own pace. So you don't have everybody in just one English. You've got various ... levels of English ... in the same class." This is the norm at TCOIC--an instructional approach found at only one of the mainstream technical colleges in the state.
As indicated above, the president of TCOIC stresses that the institution is prepared to go the long haul with students--that it is prepared to give them time. There is theoretical support for this policy, set forth by John Carrol (1963). Certainly, time is a major factor when addressing the problem of workplace literacy. As Mikulecky et al. (1992) point out, time is crucial if one wants to show grade level gain in reading or any other literacy skill. From an instructional standpoint, it can make all the difference for students who have not had histories of academic success, or who must try to negotiate a second language. This philosophy of giving time is exemplified in the following story told by the communications instructor, which explains the special problem of teaching oral and written communication skills to Asian immigrants:
I helped a girl yesterday.... This is after four o'clock. I had other things I needed to do, but she wanted some help and she was writing a letter to a friend back in Laos. She said, well, I would like for you to help me ... to see if I have it worded right and spelled ... right, and so I did. She did quite well. So she's practicing her English in sending a letter home to her country in English.
This story is in keeping with the value assigned to giving students time as they negotiate literacy.
We saw a mixture of functional context and general literacy at TCOIC. In a mathematics class we sat in on, the examples were from the business world--calculating sales and stock reports. But there were also many math exercises that presented general problems, not necessarily workplace-related, though practical. In the communications class, the instructor used workplace relevant examples but did not feel confined to them. She explains as follows:
We can't only deal with terms that will be found in the workplace. Spelling ... we might also deal with terms that sometimes people just take for granted ... even abbreviations. We see a lot of them.... We might take a list of abbreviations that people don't know about. For instance ... they see common stations on the television, this is CBS. Well, what does CBS stand for? Some people don't know that zip ... you know ... you put your zip code ... "Zone Improvement Plan." You might not read that in a book, but there's things out there you know, I'm trying to make them aware [that] ... words are around us all the time.... I try to make it relevant to everyday life, to the business world, to home life, school life. Language is rich.
This teacher was prepared to use newspapers, magazines, billboards, whatever,
to get the point of reading across--to foster literacy.
What's critical here, then, is not direct connection with work, but the
vocational hook. The fact that a reading lab is down the hall from a
computer applications lab or a building maintenance lab, and that one can go
from the one to the other, makes all the difference. A student may be pursuing
fifth grade math in the lab today, but the reward is enrollment in a computer
class that's clearly accessible, once remediation is complete. This vocational
hook may be acting as a sort of proxy for functional context.
As indicated, OIC is job-oriented. All of its efforts are focused on employer needs. Since much of its funding depends on placement, it spends more time on job placement issues than the traditional technical colleges in the state. As the vice-president of TCOIC notes, 80% of students are placed. We were interested in their interpretation of the skills employers want, how TCOIC comes to know about these on an ongoing basis, and how they respond to these needs in the curriculum. We spoke with the placement officer in an effort to gain insight here.
Researcher: What do employers say to you, what do they want, and how do you try to meet that?
Placement Officer: Basically what they look for is a person who is trainable, someone who is computer literate. Someone who has business-writing skills. Those are your basics, what they are looking for ....
Researcher: So you are saying that the employees do not only want this skill, whether it's typing or whatever, but they also want somebody who is trainable and computer literate and who has business-writing skills. Are they saying that?
Placement Officer: Yes, especially for this secretary part. If you are asked to write a letter or if you're asked to do some sort of correspondence, then they would have to, of course, have some sort of writing skills, and I get a lot of those jobs that come through here. Sometimes that's what stops a lot of people from getting jobs. You know, some of their writing skills and their communication skills also ... stops them from getting the job, from becoming marketable.
"Trainability," then, in the placement officer's estimate, was the value that employers emphasize. This called to attention the question of transfer--a hallmark of literacy. We probed along this line, as the following dialogue indicates:
Researcher: What does OIC have to do, I wonder, to make people know that, at least ... that employers want people that are trainable ....
Placement Officer: What that means is that in addition to you learning your basic skills here, that it may not necessarily be the same thing you learned on the job. So you'll have to be able to say if you can do ten-key, you can type. But Norwest wants somebody to be a proof operator, which is something totally different than what we have taught you here ... I mean, just different types of information that you have to put in, the speed, things like that. Well, it's not set up that way here ... but if you can type 91 strokes per minute ... and if you can type 35 words per minute (that's basically what they learn here) ... they'll take those two skills together and teach you to be a proof operator. So that's what I mean by being trainable on a position.
We were curious about how matches were made with employers. How did the placement officer decide which student would be suited to which employer who had made a request? When asked about this, the placement officer spoke of evaluating students based on informal conversations and observations over time. She spoke of looking at their records. When asked the question, "What do you look for?" the placement officer indicated the following:
Basically I look for attendance. I look for their skill level. I look for advancement, from the time they walked into the door until the time they kind of finish up. I look to see what their progress is ... to see how literate they are, you know.
I basically watch for that, and what I normally do is I talk with a student and I talk with him on a number of occasions before I decide which category I'm going to put him in. But I don't ever go by paper. I sometimes try to, you know, make sure I get to know the student well, find out what they're looking for, get to know a little bit about their home life, too ... and I usually try to listen for complainers, people who complain a lot. Those really aren't the people you want to refer for jobs. I mean, I will find you a job, but it may not be the job you want. And I'm real strict about that.
This placement officer spoke about the COPE-Plus program that comes at the end of programs. She was going to be the instructor, teaching job-seeking and job-keeping skills. The curriculum would entail the following:
Placement Officer: I'm going to be ... having a class that's every day, starting September ... an hour a day that will cover the résumé, the cover letter, the thank-you letter, the interviewing skills, job problems, I mean the whole nine yards. I mean professionalism. The things that you would encounter on a job.
We examined samples of job postings linked to recent requests made by employers to OIC, in order to grasp some of what the placement officer was observing. One job posting for a clerical/receptionist, a job that offered $6.00-$7.00 per hour, required the following:
Qualified candidates will have good communication skills, previous clerical and receptionist experience, accurate typing skills, and be attentive to detail. Prefer some knowledge of dBase.
Another request from the same employer, this time for a clerical/office assistant, required the following:
Qualified candidates will have previous clerical and receptionist experience and knowledge of WordPerfect 5.1, Lotus, and dBase programs on IBM compatibles.
A request from a second employer for a "Class B secretary" had the following "minimum requirements":
Ability and desire to use a microcomputer. Excellent written and oral communication skills. Well-organized and efficient. Accurate, with close attention to detail. Ability to work with minimum direction. Ability to work on more than one project at a time.
These few examples illustrated points the placement officer was trying to convey to us. These workers had to be computer literate. They had to know at least one application. They needed to be able to communicate orally and verbally, to pay attention to detail, to be autonomous. Clearly the literacy needs here were high. TCOIC understood the sector of the labor market in which they had specialized and appeared to have aligned their curricula with the skills that employers in that labor market segment wanted.
We sought to learn more about the TCOIC experience by listening to the voices of students. As indicated above, the student body is ethnically and racially diverse. We tried to speak with a cross section of students, mainly to hear their stories of what led them to OIC, what their goals were, and so on.
Mike is an African-American male. He reported that he came to TCOIC because
all the jobs I've had have been dead-end jobs, and I was ... going nowhere .... I wasn't getting nowhere. I was not climbing nowhere, you know, so I decided to come here ....
He explained that he was a high school graduate. The jobs he had since
graduating included sorting and delivering fabric, cleaning downtown offices,
and dishwashing. He enrolled at OIC, financed via a Pell Grant, passed the
ABLE test at the ninth grade level, and was accepted into the one-year
microcomputing program.
At the time of the interview, Mike indicated that his courseload included data
entry, WordPerfect, office procedures, math, English, and typing. He had been
in the program for five weeks. He had been through the COPE-Plus class and had
been assigned a counselor.
In the math class, Mike was studying decimals and percentages. He said that
although this was a refresher course for him, it was needed. He hoped he could
finish the course. From what he had been told, a recruiting employer would
visit TCOIC, and there was the likelihood that he would be hired. He said he
was hopeful about employment prospects and getting out of the cycle of dead-end
jobs.
Judging from his difficulty with standard English, Mike appeared to us to be
some distance from meeting the communications skill requirement of most
employers, especially in environments requiring computer expertise. But this
was early in the program. The TCOIC curriculum would present many
opportunities for him to practice and at least become aware of his deficiencies
in communication skills.
Harry was also an African-American male. He had a job driving for a courier company. He had received tickets for driving violations, and he had suffered an injury in an accident. Now that he wanted to reenter this former occupation, his telephone calls were not being returned. He decided to enroll in the building maintenance program at OIC because it was consistent with his prior training in carpentry. He had attended classes for six weeks. He tested well on the ABLE. Harry described a day in his life at the school. His first class was typing. His second hour was professional writing on the computer. His third hour was mathematics. After lunch, he again had mathematics, and the remaining time was devoted to building maintenance. Harry said he took typing to gain keyboard skills which he needs for working with computers. He explained his choice of building maintenance and his prospects as follows:
I like choosing a skill or job that I know will stay in existence forever or until my life span is over with, you know. So that's why I chose buildings ... people have to be housed.... So I chose Building and Maintenance as a means of going anywhere in the country, anytime, to get a job across the U.S.
This seemed to us to be remarkably astute labor market sense. He spoke of taking coursework in computers so that he could become multiskilled: "I might get tired of building and maintenance one day so by me being exposed to computers right now, I could be [a] computer programmer, processor, (whatever), maybe."
Lin was a Taiwanese national. She enrolled at TCOIC because she was having
difficulty finding a job. She surmised that this was because of her poor
facility with English. She had a close friend who had come to OIC and had
found a job. This was her hope. She came to OIC and was tested and performed
well. She was taking a course in accounting at OIC. She was simultaneously
taking an ESL course in one of the public schools in the evenings. Since she
had experience as a secretary in Taiwan, she had found a job as a bookkeeper
and was working at the time of the interview. She valued the experience, but
did not plan to keep the job very long. She was going to graduate in a month's
time but would be taking two extra computer classes. She planned to forego
trying to get a job in accounting for one year and, instead, to enroll at one
of the city's mainstream technical colleges.
She was of the view that OIC had provided her with valuable computer and
English skills, along with helped her break down the culturally imposed walls
that had inhibited her communication with others.
San was from Laos. He had heard about TCOIC through a friend. He tested in math and English and was pursuing a course in microcomputer applications at the time of the interview. He would graduate in two months but was planning to take another course. At the time of the interview, San had been working at a part-time job at a fast food restaurant. His job was to take orders on the telephone.
Gloria was from the Dominican Republic. She was brought to OIC by a relative. She tested in English and math, went through the COPE-Plus program, and then chose the general clerical option. English did not prove to be an impediment for her, since she had studied it for two years or so in her home country. At the time of her interview, she had been at TCOIC for less than a year. She planned, upon graduating, to get a data entry job at a bank. When asked what skills she would need in order to find such a job, she explained that she had "WordPerfect, data entry ... recordkeeping, graphics, English 1, Math 1, keyboarding ... and DOS." Gloria was seventeen.
When the activities of TCOIC are juxtaposed against hypotheses set forth in the conceptual framework of the study, which is to consider claims of a comparative advantage in the workplace literacy enterprise, the following appear to be the strengths of the institution:
Other factors which appear to situate this institution well within the context of the workplace literacy enterprise are its strong ties with the inner city community in which it resides and the human face that it shows to its clients.