Help The Right Question Project Voter Education Strategy for Election Day and Beyond Reach New Voters

There are many ways to participate in an election; working for a candidate, raising money for a campaign, making phone calls, holding signs and many other activities that are usually focused on your favorite candidate, or, later this year, your second choice.

The Right Question Project Voter Engagement Strategy for Election Day and Beyond
Maria has been a U.S. citizen for almost a decade, but has never seen much value in voting. She’s stayed focused on the next task at hand – getting a job, keeping a job, finding a new one, taking care of her family, paying the rent, getting health care - doing what she could do to help herself through a series of menial labor postings. Now, sitting in a GED classroom in Tucson, AZ, hoping as a 28 year old to get her high school equivalency onto her record, she explained that “voting always seemed like something that other people did. I never really felt that it affected me. Besides, there’s so much I don’t know, I just didn’t think I would understand how to vote.”

The Right Question Project in New Orleans: A Journey of Hope Amidst Despair

In early August, I took a busman’s holiday to New Orleans in the footsteps of my son Nathan, who had arrived over a year ago after graduating from college and stayed to help in the rebuilding effort. Nathan is one of many young people who have migrated to New Orleans to join with locals in the efforts to rebuild that corner of the Gulf Coast struck by Hurricane Katrina. The action they are taking, altogether, is an attempt to counteract the inaction of those who could have done more to prevent the damage of the storm and its aftermath.

Question Formulation as an Orientation Tool

Ginger Baker from the Tutorial Center in Bennington, Vermont introduces question formulation as part of the process of orienting new adult learners to their educational program. Using the prompt “You want to get a GED/High School Diploma” as the catalyst for generating student questions, she takes her class through all of the steps of the Question Formulation Technique. Ginger describes the range of reactions from her students as going from “Yuk!” to “Great!” RQP methods do not resonate with all students right away. Some need the opportunity to practice them in a variety of situations before they begin to see their value. As Ginger says, “It gets easier for an instructor, the more you do it…Once the shy person realizes that they are not going to be made fun of, and there is no such thing as a ‘stupid’ question, they are more likely to participate.”

We have used RQP’s question formulation methods in our college transition class to generate and prioritize questions about the research process. We have also used the methods in an adult diploma health class for students to generate and prioritize questions about health.

“If you want to encourage your students to be self-directed learners and to take charge of their own learning, this is a process to encourage that.”

Marty Duncan, Sumner Adult Education, Sullivan, Maine

We are currently gathering stories, examples of RQP use in the adult education classroom. If you are using the methods and have an example to share, please let us know. You can e-mail it, luz@rightquestion.org/ Patknelson@yahoo.com, send it via regular mail or post it here in the Network.

For the past three years, RQP has provided training for participants in the PODER Leadership Institute in Lawrence, MA. Participants are selected to participate based on past leadership in the community and potential to take on new leadership roles.

On December 1, a group of sixteen adult educators participated in a follow-up session hosted by the St. Albans Learning Works, St. Albans, Vermont. Educators who participated in trainings with RQP staff in January and September 2006 as well as educators who were introduced to the methods by their colleagues were part of the session. The session focused on identifying challenges, problem solving and strategizing on sustaining use of the methods. A group of participants volunteered to assist RQP staff in the design and testing of materials for adult learners.

Home visiting staff in Even Start family literacy programs in New Hampshire have taught RQP methods to parents with whom they work so they can partner more effectively with their children’s teachers.