Breaking out of the Package: Educating literacy and numeracy teachers with agency

Keiko Yasukawa

doi:10.5130/lns.v18i2.1899

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/lns.v18i2.1899

Keiko Yasukawa

University of Technology Sydney

Abstract

What knowledge, skills and dispositions are needed by adult numeracy and literacy teachers to help their learners imagine and build better lives for themselves and sustainable futures for their children and community? What resources can teachers draw on to be able to exercise agency as a group of professionals to give voice to the needs and aspirations of their learners? Using the contemporary Australian adult numeracy and literacy context as a point of reflection, I argue that some degree of propensity to take risks is needed by teachers if they are to exercise agency as professional educators, and that the universities have a renewed role to play in creating spaces for educating risk-taking educators.

Issue

Vol. 18 No. 2 (2010)

Section

Refractions

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Author Biography

Keiko Yasukawa, University of Technology Sydney

Keiko Yasukawa is a Lecturer in Adult Education at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. She teaches and researches in adult numeracy and literacy. As an active member of the Australian Council for Adult Literacy and the NSW Adult Literacy and Numeracy Council, she has been involved in advocacy for a national literacy and numeracy policy renewal. Her email is keiko.yasukawa@uts.edu.au.

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Keiko Yasukawa, University of Technology Sydney