English Department
City College of New York
March 17, 2015
Deborah D'Amico, PhD
Consultant, Consortium for Worker Education
Dear Dr. D’Amico,
Due to illness and with much
regret, I was absent for your presentation on worker education in my graduate
course (ENGLC0853 Teaching Adult Writers in Diverse Contexts) on March 10. Your
professional focus on worker education programs, in particular, educational
practices provided and facilitated by unions is of great interest to me in
large part because of my family’s longstanding relationship with, and support
of, various unions including the UFT, the AFL-CIO, Ironworkers local 361, The
Brotherhood of Locomotive and Trainmen (BLET) Local Division 269 and NYCPBA. I have been brought up to regard union
organizations as a benefit to workers and a springboard to greater
opportunities through union organizing, action and education. The current
political and economic climate has given rise to increased anti-union sentiment
that defunds opportunities for workers and weakens their power through right to
work movements and legislation barring collective bargaining rights for
workers. I hope that sharing this small part of my personal history is
sufficient to convey how sorry I was to miss hearing you speak in class.
Despite my absence at the actual event, I was
well-prepared to be there. I’d read with
interest the materials you provided for class. I was particularly drawn to your
treatment of The Joseph S. Murphy Institute of City University of New York.
With regard to structure, I learned some valuable lessons regarding the appropriate
way to present and organize information for consumption by a wide variety of
audiences. So often, valuable
information seems almost obscured by the structure and language of the essay
composed to deliver the message. I find this tendency especially frustrating
with regard to essays about adult, worker and basic education because the
writing is often inaccessible to the very people who the essays describe. I know that academic writing has its own
appropriate conventions and essays have a target audience; however, I have
often felt that a larger group of people would benefit if the information were
more comprehensible to lay readers. Far be it from me to suggest that the
essays I’ve read in my course of study have been poorly written, they have
not. I just appreciate reading something
that is so palatably democratic in tone.
I hope my focus on your writing style hasn’t
suggested that I favor form over content.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I was unacquainted with The Joseph S. Murphy Institute prior to reading
your article. I found the reporting of
the mission statement, union demographics and program examples to be
comprehensive and enlightening. As I
read, I responded very positively to the narratives, fields of study –which
seemed to target areas most likely to bolster opportunities for the population the program was designed to
deserve— and the simple practicality of
the pathway programs. The goal of educating for promotion within the union
structure is advantageous, in my mind, to both the union and individual members
who benefit from the program. I am sure that lack of funding makes these
programs very difficult to sustain, but am utterly convinced of their efficacy.
In closing, I’d like to thank you for dedicating
yourself to what I, along with the rest of my large Irish Catholic working
class family, consider among the most worthwhile pursuits. Although I guess that at present, my family
could no longer be classified as working class exactly, but we certainly were
not long ago. My grandfathers, Henry and
Ray, both understood the power of the unions and worked toward promoting fair
wages, fair treatment and education for workers. Both were educated later in life through a
combination of union programs and their own best efforts. And, both instilled
in their children the idea that education and concern about the condition of
your fellow workers was the best way to protect against exploitation. I still
consider these ideas to be indisputable, and it seems you do as well. So again, thank you.
All my best,
Caitlin Geoghan
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