August 2000

New Program Director Stresses Importance of Context

"Context is what makes information stick."
—Eve McDermott

Dr. Eve McDermott directs NWREL’s recently formed unit, the Education, Career, and Community Program (ECC). This program consolidates NWREL’s longstanding Education and Work Program with its Community and Education Volunteer Services Center.

McDermott brings with her an interesting mix of experience with community college and nonprofit administration. For 27 years, McDermott was a volunteer instructor with the American Red Cross. She also served as the director of Health and Safety for its Portland, Oregon, Trail Chapter for eight years. In this role she managed 3,000 volunteers and developed curricula for a number of education projects. In addition, McDermott served as an administrator at Mt. Hood Community College for nine years. McDermott holds a Ph.D. from Oregon State University, with a focus on participatory strategic planning processes. Her other areas of expertise include qualitative research, community college administration, organization and program development, resource development, and community public relations. She recently talked with writer Maya Muir about the new program and the challenges ahead.

Northwest Report: Why was the new program created from the previously existing Community and Education Volunteer Services Center and Education and Work Program?

Eve McDermott: These two units shared a focus on connecting education to the real world—creating bridges between the classroom and the community and to the world of work. In the new program, we have an incredible talent pool of 18 staff, and the reorganization gives us the flexibility to use that talent pool in a variety of exciting ways.

NW: What is the mission of the new program?

McDermott: Our mission is for ECC to help educators, business, and community leaders prepare all youth and adults for a quality work life, active citizenship, and a lifetime of learning.

The program has many different work strands: In Curriculum and Program Development projects, we create materials to help teachers, program leaders, and students make connections between standards (learning goals) and everyday applications in schools and alternative settings. Training and Technical Assistance services assist clients with projects that prepare youth and adults for a rapidly changing world of work. Two projects focus on preservice and inservice professional development of teachers. Dissemination and Networking activities include large regional and national conferences as well as focused institutes and workshops emphasizing creating community partnerships to enhance learning and school success. Evaluation and Applied Research tasks are typically third-party evaluations of programs conducted for other organizations and agencies. Volunteer Management Leadership provides professional development, training, and technical assistance for Corporation for National Service-funded projects such as AmeriCorps Network North west, Linking Education and America Reads through National Service (LEARNS), and the Minnesota Clearinghouse.

NW: What is the significance of the name of the new entity, the Education, Career and Community Program?

McDermott: The name highlights the linkages we will be building between community and educational organizations. It acknowledges that learning and community building occur not just in school settings. Our projects emphasize experiential education that allows students and teachers authentic assessment of learning in real world settings. ECC’s goal and vision are to make learning more relevant and powerful for everyone. We work in three intertwined circles. At the heart are classroom and alternative settings where contextual teaching and learning happens. A second circle represents the link between the work world and the school world: job shadows (where students accompany adults to jobs), service learning (where students perform service work while studying math, science, history, and English), applied learning, internships, and work-based learning. The third circle is community collaboration, and here, through Corporation for National Service educational and environmental projects, we can provide a variety of models for community collaboration from all across the country.

NW: What are the big trends, issues, and needs in schools related to the focus of this new program?

McDermott: There are several. Two that are often now seen as in conflict are the need for teachers to prepare students to meet the new educational standards and the need to make learning less abstract and more contextual. Some teachers now are so worried about standards that they think they don’t have time to put information in context. We recently saw some case studies from the University of Washington where this was happening.

Our job is to say: "No, you can’t throw out the context. Context is what makes information stick. It’s not either/or." We have to reframe this dichotomy for teachers. It takes a creative mind to see how to reconcile the two needs, but it can be done. This is an area where we can help.

We also have to keep the whole community informed about these issues and collaborating with teachers, or the change we’ve been working for won’t be sustained. No school reform can happen without the involvement and collaboration of the stakeholders.

Of course, these collaborations are also necessary to create the community and business partnerships that help make contextualized learning possible. This can take the form of job shadows and service learning. The participation of volunteers in schools can also be very valuable. Having caring adults around with time available for students can be so important in their lives.

The Education, Career, and Community Program is in a position to make a difference in these partnerships. For example, the Education and Work program has developed materials for employers setting up job shadows that will make the experience more useful for all concerned and strengthen those connections. Also, ECC can help facilitate the process by which volunteers are brought into the school culture, so that the newcomers don’t just create more work for already-busy teachers.

More and more I think that learning outside the classroom is critical for the development of higher-order thinking skills, problem-solving strategies, retention of information, and overall achievement. Only through this broadened experience beyond the classroom will students monitor and direct their own learning and become self-regulated life-long learners.

We now have these isolated points of brilliance where contextualized learning is taking place, and we need to spread the news, because if the students are not engaged, forget it! We all lose.

NW: What attracted you to working at NWREL?

McDermott: The work of NWREL fits into my personal mission to improve education and consequently people’s lives. At the Lab, I am positioned to work with a variety of schools in a variety of ways to improve education. This rich environment is very attractive to me. The opportunity to work with the ECC program is in line with the philosophy of Dr. Dale Parnell, who mentored me when I was at OSU and who wrote the book The Neglected Majority. In this book, Parnell questions the emphasis society places on the baccalaureate degree, which 75 percent of the population will not obtain. Wouldn’t it benefit everyone more if there were a stronger focus on bringing people successfully into the work environment and on helping people contribute to their community? The many bright community college students I met who were disenchanted with the traditional educational system inspired me to become an activist for change.

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