Forging the Family of Humankind Through International Adult Education

Abstract

As authors of this special issue on international adult education, we have been asked to address the following questions: How we developed an interest in and originally became involved with international adult education; in what countries we have worked and with whom; lessons learned; and suggestions for others. As far back as I can remember I have experienced comfort, energy, and hope in thinking about and feeling part of the greater family of humankind. From a young age, I heard distant voices calling to me from cultures and countries that I had not yet encountered. My attunement perhaps was due, at least in part, to growing up knowing that I had cousins across the sea whom I knew through pictures but had the opportunity to meet only decades later. Upon reflection, my global interests dearly appear to have begun in youth. My responses to the above questions, however, are framed by key concepts that in retrospect have grown with me and defined my experiences, lessons learned, and suggestions for others. These concepts are automaticity, identity, paradox, integration, and resonance. They appear in bold when defined and discussed throughout the article. One more example from my youth should set the stage--remembrances from family gatherings, which in the Greek-American culture of those years, were often. Christmas, Easter, name days, and birthdays, were all causes for extended family gatherings. I remember the fluidity with which my relatives were able to toggle back and forth between English and Greek without even being aware that the language had changed. More than the words of the language, however, I witnessed tones, gestures, movements, and ambiance with the language contributing to the communication and way of being. Some feelings and expressions were untranslatable and conveyed best in Greek; others in English. I witness that even now, particularly with my work in Europe where colleagues switch back and forth between many languages simultaneously. Some are just speaking the language, but a few others are of the ilk that I observed as a youth, having transcended the language, per se. I refer to this phenomenon as one of automaticity, an understanding of which has become a key concept in my practical as well as scholarly development as an international adult educator. For me, its meaning is no longer restricted to language but plays out in ways of thinking and being in and with others around the world. Automaticity is an incremental process. One evolves, moving from a mere engagement in external behaviors of adaptation to internalizing anything from cultural gestures to values, that is--from merely action (what you do) to a natural part of who we become and how we continue to navigate as internationalists. As discussed later, a cultivation of inner silence speaks volumes in this regard. My Unfolding I first became aware of the international aspects and activities of adult education while matriculating for my master's degree with Malcolm Knowles at Boston University. My part-time study and full-time employment, however, precluded any active involvement at that time. Years later, when I was ready to pursue a Ph.D., I carefully chose a program with a concentrated international population. At that time, few could rival Florida State University. I immediately became immersed and involved in learning about the greater terrain of the field around the globe. Curiously, the country of Greece was missing both from the literature and from discussions, thus launching me on a treasure hunt. I did find fugitive documents from UNESCO consultants who were there during the 1960s and early 1970s. I contacted one (Edward Townsend-Coles) who lived in Oxford, England, and continued communications with him for decades. Once I accepted a faculty position in 1980, I was able to further formalize a research agenda which continues to this day. While in England during 1984, as part of the first North American British exchange of professors, I branched into British library resources on Greece, conceptualizing adult education very broadly. …