From Military to Academy

The Writing and Learning Transitions of Student-Veterans

Mark Blaauw-Hara

• Publisher: Utah State University Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781646421343
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Grounded in case-study research, this book explores the writing and learning transitions of military veterans at the college level. Providing meaningful research into the ways adult learners bring their knowledge to the classroom, From Military to Academy offers new ways of thinking about pedagogy beyond the "traditional" college experience.
 
From Military to Academy is a detailed picture of how student-veterans may experience the shift to the college experience and academic writing. Grounding his research in the experiences of student-veterans at a community college, Blaauw-Hara integrates adult learning theory, threshold concepts, genre analysis, and student-veteran scholarship to help readers understand the challenges student-veterans experience and the strengths they bring as they enter the academic writing environment. Each chapter takes a different theoretical approach to frame student-veterans' experiences, and Blaauw-Hara ends each chapter with specific, actionable pedagogical suggestions.
 
Composition studies scholars especially have demonstrated an ongoing interest in and commitment to understanding the experiences of student-veterans from military service to postsecondary education. From Military to Academy helps college writing faculty and writing program administrators understand and support the growing numbers of student-veterans who are making the transition to higher education.
 

1

Community and Identity

DOI: 10.7330/9781646421343.c001

A key finding in the growing body of student-veteran research is that the subjects had a richer experience writing in the military than many college faculty assume (Hadlock 2012; Hadlock and Doe 2014; Hinton 2013, 2014; Mallory and Downs 2014). However, their ability to fluidly transfer their writing skills to the classroom is complicated by the fact that the writing they did in the military was highly situated: it was bound up in the larger practices and environment of the armed forces. Lave and Wenger (1991) have noted that situated knowledge tends to be difficult to transfer between contexts, and as I and others (e.g., Hadlock 2012; Hinton 2013) have found, many student-veterans do not conceive of themselves as writers because they do not see the connection between the highly situated writing they did in the military and that which they are being asked to do in college. They understand, for example, how to write an effective counseling report, but they may have trouble transferring the skills of clarity, directness, and evidence to academic writing.

In this chapter, I provide an overview of veterans’ experiences learning and writing in the military, from the ways the armed forces seek to form a community with common purposes to how they build the competence of their service members through training (often done in teams). I then contrast the learning environment of the military to that of college, highlighting both areas of convergence, where military experience may support student-veterans’ transition, and areas of disconnect that may contribute to feelings of frustration and possible disorientation (or “learning shock,” a term I explore in more detail later in this chapter). Finally, I provide suggestions for how we in the academy—and specifically those of us involved with writing studies—can help student-veterans connect the two learning environments and, hopefully, increase these students’ chances of success atcollege.

Learning in the Military: Theoretical Frames

Lave and Wenger’s (1991) concept of communities of practice (CoPs) provides one useful theoretical frame to help understand the military as a learning environment. According to their formulation, a CoP is a group of individuals who engage in common practices, and these practices define the group. (For examples, midwives practice midwifery.) These groups contain practitioners who are at different stages of mastery of the practices, which correspond to different identities. For example, new members often fall into the apprentice role, learning the practices of the community from more experienced members, who correspond to journeymen or master practitioners. Gradually, as the apprentices gain skill and knowledge, they move toward full participation, eventually becoming masters themselves and instructing newer members.

Lave and Wenger (1991) write that “learning viewed as a situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process that we call legitimate peripheral participation . . . Learners inevitably participate in communities of practitioners and . . . the mastery of knowledge and skill requires newcomers to move toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community” (29; my emphasis). “Legitimacy” denotes belonging in a CoP not as a transient or a dabbler but as a contributing member. “Peripheral” indicates that the member is not a “full participant” (36)—a master—but it does not equate to “lesser.” Lave and Wenger characterize peripherality as positive: “[It] suggests an opening, a way of gaining access to sources for understanding through growing involvement” (37). Peripheral participants do not perform the full range of practices in the community, and they are not accorded the same level of responsibility or respect as full participants. However, their participation is welcomed andencouraged.

This final sub-concept—participation—bears more examination, especially as it relates to student-veterans. Crucially, this participation must not merely entail a reenactment of the community’s practices; instead, it represents an actual contribution to the community. In Lave and Wenger’s book, the apprentice midwives they use as examples are actually helping babies to be born, not just going through simulations. While more experienced members of the CoP help the newer members learn and perform the practices, new entrants to a community do not just observe the more experienced members: legitimate peripherality “crucially involves participation as a way of learning—of both absorbing and being absorbed in—the ‘culture of practice.’ An extended period of legitimate peripherality provides learners with opportunities to make the culture of practice theirs” (1991, 95).

In the military, legitimate peripherality is clear: new recruits go through a highly codified basic training program in which they learn key principles of the military community and their specific branch of the service; as they continue their service and progress up the ranks, performing more complex tasks and supervising others, they learn more about the profession and become more crucial participants. Military writing serves as a microcosm of the larger military CoP and follows a similar pattern. New participants write little, often only log entries and similar short, highly structured artifacts. As enlisted men and women are promoted, their writing expands, now including evaluations of subordinates, incident reports, memos, and the like. Officers write still more. Most of the writing has a specific format, which, as Hadlock (2012) notes, serves to make it quickly and easily understood by other members of the military community. All formal military writing—regardless of whether it is a log entry produced by a seaman, a counseling report produced by a sergeant, or a memorandum produced by an officer—is an important contribution to the military enterprise. It is not anexercise.

In addition to communities of practice, another theoretical framework that informs the military’s educational and training practices is adult learning theory, or andragogy, which relies heavily on the work of Malcolm Knowles. Knowles, Holton, and Swanson (2011) write that “adults have a self-concept of being responsible for their own decisions, for their own lives. Once they have arrived at that self-concept, they develop a deep psychological need to be seen by others and treated by others as being capable of self-direction” (65). Student-veterans, especially those who have served in combat situations, have certainly become accustomed to being responsible for their decisions and are well aware of the repercussions of those decisions, yet much of traditional education is set up to serve much younger students who are less capable of self-direction. Although student-veterans are educational novices, they do not see themselves as similar to traditional-age students, and they frequently are frustrated to be grouped with them. The work of Knowles and others provides possibilities for addressing some of the strengths and challenges common to student-veterans.

In their argument for greater focus on adult learning theory, Knowles, Holton, and Swanson (2011) point outthat

all the great teachers of ancient times [such as Confucius, Lao Tse, Jesus, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Evelid, and Quintilian] . . . were teachers of adults, not of children. Because their experiences were with adults, they developed a very different concept of the learning/teaching process from the one that later dominated formal education. These notable teachers perceived learning to be a process of mental inquiry, not passive reception of transmitted content. Accordingly, they invented techniques for engaging learners in inquiry. (35)

Knowles and colleagues (2011) note that adults are more self-directed and assume more responsibility for their own lives than do children. They also have a stronger sense of personal identity. Knowles and his coauthors argue that an educational system that does not recognize these differences runs the risk not only of being ineffective, but of alienating adult learners. They lay out the following six principles ofandragogy:

1. 1. “The need to know.” Adults are unlikely to take the teacher’s word that a concept is important; in contrast, if they understand why they need to learn something and buy into that need, “they will invest considerable energy in probing into the benefits they will gain from learning it and the negative consequences of not learning it” (64). The authors recommend that teachers incorporate “real or simulated experiences in which the learners discover for themselves the gaps between where they are now and where they want to be” (65).
2. 2. “The learners’ self-concept.” As I noted above, adults are used to self-direction. Knowles and his coauthors point out that a curriculum that removes that self-direction and puts all responsibility in the hands of the teacher engenders a psychological conflict in the adult learner, “and the typical method of dealing with psychological conflict is to try to flee from the situation causing it, which probably accounts in part for the high dropout rate in much voluntary adult education” (65). While student-veterans are used to taking orders, they are also accustomed to responsibility and respect. If they feel they do not have the respect of the teacher, they may disengage.
3. 3. “The role of learners’ experiences.” This is a key principle, especially when applied to student-veterans. Knowles, Holton, and Swanson point out that adults tend to have a wider range of experiences than children, and that these experiences are tied to identity: “To children, experience is something that happens to them; to adults, experience is who they are. The implication of this fact for adult education is that in any situation in which the participants’ experiences are ignored or devalued, adults will perceive this as rejecting not only their experience, but rejecting themselves as persons” (66–67). Adult educators should build upon adult students’ experiences and individualize instruction to take those experiences into account. Knowles, Holton, and Swanson also caution that “as we accumulate experience, we tend to develop mental habits, biases, and presuppositions that tend to cause us to close our minds to new ideas, fresh perceptions, and alternative ways of thinking” (66).
4. 4. “Readiness to learn.” Knowles, Holton, and Swanson connect this principle to adults’ real-life situations, stating that when adults feel a need to learn something new, that is the time to teach it to them. This principle seems tied to the first, “the need to know.” However, the scholars note that “it is not necessary to sit by passively and wait for readiness to develop naturally . . . There are ways to induce readiness through exposure to models of superior performance, career counseling, simulation exercises, and other techniques” (67)—in other words, to demonstrate a hitherto unfelt need to adult learners.
5. 5. “Orientation to learning.” Knowles and his coauthors call this point “critical” (67). Again, they connect adult learning to real-life situations, arguing that the subject-matter orientation of most schooling is inappropriate to adult students. They write that “in contrast to children’s and youths’ subject-centered orientation to learning (at least in school), adults are life-centered (or task-centered or problem-centered) in their orientation to learning” (67), and they suggest courses organized around the types of problems adults are likely to encounter and projects that replicate real-world applications of knowledge.
6. 6. “Motivation.” While Knowles, Holton, and Swanson acknowledge that adults are partially motivated extrinsically—seeking promotions and better jobs, for example—they argue that their primary motivators are intrinsic, such as self-esteem and quality of life.

One will note that several of these principles are similar and center on the acknowledgment and incorporation of adults’ prior experience and felt needs into the curriculum. This seems not only respectful, but a good use of resources: as Knowles, Holton, and Swanson write, “For many kinds of learning, the richest resources for learning reside in the adult learners themselves” (2011, 66).

Persyn and Polson (2012) point out that adult learning theory has influenced the military’s approach to training for many years: “The Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force have all integrated adult learning principles and theory to increase their organizations’ effectiveness and address their learners’ educational needs” (6). They provide examples that span literacy training during the Revolutionary War through modern training in critical thinking and problem solving. As they note, many of the military’s educational practices explicitly draw from adult learning theory, incorporating self-directed learning, experiential education, and real-lifesituations.

The military’s use of adult learning theory has also been noted by others. Urging military educators to adopt adult learning principles more fully, Carolyn Saunders (1991) argues that “we can implement an andragogical approach that is backed up by solid research that found that self-directed learning is the natural mode for adults, that adult students do possess the characteristics assumed in the andragogical model, and that learning does increase when this model is used” (42). Blaise Cornell-d’Echert (2012) writes:

If one of the new realities of 21st-century warfare is that everyone must think, preparation should offer military personnel of all ranks opportunity to practice thinking. This is all about problem solving. Too much military training (and doctrine-derived education) seeks to eliminate problems by providing learners with proven solutions to follow. It is efficient to train and test performance of military tasks as a measure of individual skill development. However, the reality of military performance is that military personnel receive and conduct missions. These missions are a series of problems that require solutions. Rarely are these missions a series of orchestrated tasks arranged in a logical sequence for careful monitoring by an outside observer. Fundamentally, military personnel are problem solvers. (21)

Like Saunders, Cornell-d’Echert argues that a strong connection to adult learning theory can help the military prepare its service members to carry out their tasks and reach their potential as learners and service members. Similarly, Zacharakis and Van Der Werff (2012) emphasize how the conscious incorporation of adult learning principles can help the military build critical-thinking capabilities in itsranks.

Learning in the Military: Identity, Community, and Critical Thinking

Part of the mythos of military service is that it shapes one’s identity. For those service members who enlist in their late teens, military service comes at a key formative period of late adolescence, often when a young man or woman is struggling to establish an adult identity separate from his or her family. The military can provide a new family, and with it, a new identity. As Amy said, “I loved every second of it. My favorite part was the camaraderie. It became a new family.” When I asked Ryanne if she had any difficulties in the navy that she thought were related to her gender, she emphatically denied any, describing her male counterparts as “like brothers.” Alan said that “everything [was] different” as a result of his time in the military. Derek credited his military service with changing his life. To some extent this is no surprise, since changing one’s life is exactly what the military sets out to do. Doe and Doe (2013) note that “induction processes and follow-on military training function as forms of specialized literacy learning that leave a lasting imprint, often becoming central to the identity of the people who experience them” (para. 4).

A major part of this change has to do with forging a communal identity: as a veteran cited by Rumann and Hamrick (2010) says, “You become attached [to the soldiers in your unit]—they truly are your family” (446). Naphan and Elliott (2015) note that “the military operates through collective effort. For tasks to be accomplished and for individuals to survive within the military, putting the team ahead of oneself is necessary” (44). Other researchers, such as Morrow and Hart (2014), likewise emphasize the military’s priority on building a cohesive team. As Derek said, “In the military you go through your training programs, [and] whether it’s aircraft maintenance school or it’s Special Forces school or noncommissioned officer school, everything is done as a team. Everything is done together. Nothing accomplished is ever done alone or individually.” The emphasis on forging a cohesive team certainly makes sense. Most military service members will deploy as teams and carry out their work on the battlefield as teams; it is crucial for them to be able to work well with others. Accordingly, the military emphasizes teamwork and community not just on the battlefield, but throughouttraining.

Largely because of the often-chaotic nature of today’s armed conflicts, much of the training in the armed forces also encourages critical thinking and problem solving at every level (not just for officers). For example, when writing about the marine corps’s integration of critical-thinking preparation at all levels of training, Zacharakis and Van Der Werff (2012) state that “the goal is to develop a learning organization that is made of educated critical thinkers. All marines are expected to make a contribution to the team, not just with their ability to fire a rifle or follow orders but also through the ability to think, self-regulate their emotions, and take responsibility for their and the team’s actions” (95). Hadlock and Doe (2014) point out that “the military has put more focus on decision making and agency at the individual and team level than ever before, and responsibility resides less and less exclusively in the senior leader” (79). Similarly, the Army Learning Concept for 2015 emphasizes the need “to develop higher-order thinking skills for all soldiers, ensuring they are prepared for the dynamic, complex, and ambiguous operational environments likely to face them in future conflicts” (Zacharakis and Van Der Werff 2012, 11). In short, service in the military now includes an expectation that service members at all levels will be able to contribute to the welfare and success of the organization with their brains, not just with theirbrawn.

Perhaps surprisingly to those of us in the academy, military training can incorporate a substantial amount of reading and writing. For example, here is how Mike described learning and demonstrating what he knew in the coastguard:

Mike: In the coast guard there’s a lot of written tests and a lot of studying and hitting the books. For the coast guard, [for promotions] you get like five or six books for, like, mechanics. And then you have to take a mechanics test. And then you get two or three books about the military uniforms and regulations and history and so forth. And then you have to take a test for that. And then after that, you take what’s called a service-wide, where you compete with other people trying to get the same position you’re getting. One time when I was taking the test, I think there was 500 people that were taking the test for the serv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction and Methodology
• 1. Community and Identity
• 2. Strengths of the Veteran Mindset
• 3. Writing in the Military
• 4. Key Threshold Concepts for Student-Veterans
• 5. Supporting Student-Veterans
• Appendix A: Student-Veteran Survey
• Appendix B: Writing Faculty Survey
• References
• About the Author
• Index