Mastery, plasticity, a vision for the future, and a commitment toongoing experimentation will bring forth continuing education worthyof our field’s ideals.

New Vistas for Adult Education

Paul Jay Edelson, Patricia L. Malone

This volume on creativity and its implications for adult and continuing edu-cation covers considerable territory in an attempt to suggest ways in which ourfield can be stretched and reinvented. All of our authors took risks—with theirown organizations, with the populations they served, with the greater com-munity, with business and civic audiences. All developed and conductednuanced and complex dialogues within their programs and among the popu-lations served. Forms of communication varied and often included multiplemodalities—discussion groups, panels, forums, and classrooms with and with-out walls during both the design-development process and the implementa-tion stages.

A multidisciplinary approach to problem solving was most frequentlyused; there was no single individual or disciplinary area that could offer exclu-sive expertise. This was most evident in Mary Lindenstein Walshok’s conceptof webs of talent, through which her creative process took flight with unex-pected turns that could not possibly have occurred if the traditional deferenceto discipline-based knowledge was followed.

Nassau Community College took a different approach to an establishedprogram and in so doing redefined the role of continuing education within theinstitution, which came to be viewed differently as James Polo, Louise Rotch-ford, and Paula Setteducati diplomatically and carefully assumed control of aprogram with high visibility in their school, the labor union, and the corpora-tion. Bill Clutter of Pace University presented the story of a similar transforma-tion in continuing education at Pace, where outreach also became a principalway of redefining the entire university with important beneficial results.

Susan Anderson redesigned a conventional learning model for parentsof schoolchildren. Like Walshok, she had to address the replacement of the

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88 ENHANCING CREATIVITY IN ADULT AND CONTINUING EDUCATION

traditional expert in order to engender group learning. The process pro-gressed to self-directed learning and ultimately to the development of knowl-edge within a context of peer learning.

The Topsfield Foundation’s study circles have promoted social changethrough intracommunity dialogue. They present compelling evidence thathighly motivated adults can successfully address important issues and worktoward crafting a better future.

Clifford Baden of the Harvard Graduate School of Education used multi-ple evaluation tools from numerous perspectives, omitting almost no area fromcareful observation and evaluation. He expanded the Management of LifelongEducation program to embrace a much broader concept of a learning com-munity, always innovating with new program modules and formats. This istruly a case study of program dynamism at its fullest.

Folkert Haanstra’s vignette of the Dutch creativity centers describes a dif-ferent national approach to continuing art education. Most impressive is thededication to outcomes assessment, a growing trend in our own country. TheDutch experiment has engendered a broader view of enhancing creativity,although with mixed results. At the same time, a changing political and socialclimate is less encouraging for the continuation of the creativity centers.

The most important message we want to convey to our readers is the needfor constant experimentation and risk taking. Without these, even the mostexpert practitioners will be unable to fulfill the promises implicit in lifelonglearning. Yet we realize that this is far easier said than done. Even we ourselvesare held back—by the desire to keep within an acceptable zone of activity, bythe reassuring routine of administrative life, and at times by feelings of futilitycoupled with the belief that our best efforts may not succeed. Rather than rock-ing the boat or creating discomfort for others through requests for new proj-ects, we oscillate between the infinite possibilities implicit in continuingeducation and what we actually attempt to accomplish.

The absence of a normative standard for continuing education gives thisfunction great flexibility and strength. That is, within our individual contextsthere is no reason not to try something new. We are sensitive to many influ-ences because we inhabit “open systems” that are driven by outside demandas much as by internal and professional mandates. Simply put, continuing edu-cation can respond to opportunities others cannot see or choose not to see. Yetthe loose coupling between parts is also a perpetual source of weaknesses.Because the entire idea of continuing education cannot be precisely defined,there is no single component that is intrinsic to or must be located within con-tinuing education. The office can be told to conduct or not to conduct certainactivities. Or to transfer them to other areas. Or to have the mission defined ina narrow (or broad) manner. Very often we are referred to as a “cash cow” feed-ing the inefficiencies of the academic system, generating funds that are to beused to offset expenses elsewhere. The fact that few of us bridle at this viewsuggests how accepted it is as a part of our field. What is the real purpose ofcontinuing education? How else can we look at what we do? Are there poten-

89NEW VISTAS FOR ADULT EDUCATION

tially competing concepts or visions that we can employ to broaden our rangeof activity? And what about fostering a different understanding of our profes-sion among our colleagues?

Developing a strategic vision for continuing education leadership is verymuch a function of clarifying and then defining our own set of values. If wehave the ability to organize and influence the activities of our colleagues orstaffs, in which directions should it be? When it comes to continuing educa-tion, do we have a notion of plasticity and mastery enabling us intellectually toreshape our practice? Do we have that desire?

In his history of adult learning in America, Kett criticized professionalcontinuing educators as those who viewed “higher education from the boilerroom rather than the bridge” (1994, p. 187). By this he meant that, lackingvision and idealism, they could not be expected to lead and thus, by necessity,must receive direction from others on which way to power the vessel. Heviewed the change in continuing education philosophy in the twentieth cen-tury as going from intellectual and academic values to those of enrollmentmanagement. It is incumbent upon us to strive for a vision of adult educationthat truly reaches out to transform and improve society through the most gen-erous view of educational opportunity. That entails defining the meaning ofadult education as well as its mechanisms.

References

Kett, J. F. The Pursuit of Knowledge Under Difficulties: From Self-Improvement to Adult Educa-tion in America, 1750–1990. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994.

PAUL JAY EDELSON is dean and PATRICIA L. MALONE is director of corporate part-nerships at the School of Professional Development, State University of New York atStony Brook.