Hello Colleagues,
For several years I have been trying to find a simple, clear graphic for what a career pathway experience may be like for adult learners, not an image of a particular career pathway, and not one that lays out the steps of a career pathway that begins with enrollment in a community college. The image would make it easy for an adult learner, especially one at a basic skills or beginning English level, to understand the career pathway concept, that choosing a career pathway might take time to explore, understand, and choose, and that it might take longer still to make the chosen career pathway journey. In a recent article from the U.K., "Adult learners need a climbing frame not a ladder," Alan Skinner suggests the image of a climbing frame, which I take to mean what children experience in a playground with lots of lateral and up and down moves. That image might work well if there were a climbing frame for adults, and that was not just about fun.
The climbing frame image reminded me, however, of a recent experience I had at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston where I experienced a sculpture room by Choreographer William Forsythe. Picture a large room filled with hundreds of heavy-duty rings suspended from heavy duty straps. You slip your foot into a ring at one end of the room, with the goal of walking from ring to ring to get to the other end of the room given a limited amount of time. It seemed easy enough from the image in the museum's publicity. What is not clear from the image, however, is that each ring and strap swings wildly, and that moving from one ring to the next requires balance, persistence, muscle strength and good strategy. For me, and many others who thought this looked easy, from experiencing it directly and physically we found this was not so. I wonder if there is a way to capture the feeling of that -- the determination, surprise, challenge, and perhaps joy -- in an image or perhaps a video.
If you have an image or video of a career pathway to suggest, or some ideas for one, an image or video that captures the experience of the journey from an adult learner point of view, please share it with us here. If as a practitioner you have struggled to help adult learners to understand not only what a career pathway is, but what the actual experience -- the pain and joy of learning and of making measurable progress is -- please share your insights here.
I should mention that the best treatment of the adult learner experience of career pathways I have seen so far is the Career Pathways issue of The Change Agent, Issue 45, September 2017, in which adult learners write about their career pathways experiences. I recommend it highly.
David J. Rosen