AALL Educator of the Year: Adele Youmans

Adele Youmans is a committed AALL member with more than 18 years of professional excellence in teaching Adult Education.  Her resume speaks to her Master’s Degree in TESOL, her summa cum laude graduating status, and her William C. Bentley Memorial Award. 
But we want to talk about her educational leadership, professional excellence, and contributions to lifelong learning.  Adele has infused all of these aspects with passion, dedication and contagious energy.
Enjoying respect and a supportive collegial environment, Adele is an educational leader who works with her teaching community in the trenches.  She creates new classes as she strives to meet students where they are academically. She writes curricula for these classes and, with open arms, shares all of this information with her colleagues.  As Adele leads the way for creative, participatory classes which are based on student outcomes, she opens her classes to colleagues, students and others for observation.  The University of Arizona regularly sends students to observe Adele because she represents the best and the brightest of Adult Education.  Adele embodies honesty, openness, and putting student achievement above personal gain as she presents to colleagues, models methodology and inspires students. Simply stated, she is a virtuoso. Her educational leadership can’t be denied.
Students love Adele and come to visit her long after they complete their studies and move on with their lives.  Because of that, she gets to see what all teachers want to see – the impact she made on students’ lives.  Adele’s zeal for self-learning has given her the foundation to inspire, teach and support adult learners.  These traits of character and spirit are mandatory in the Educator of the Year. 
Coupled with her dedication and passion, Adele’s creativity knows no boundaries.  Together with her colleague Susan Lundquist, Adele created the Splendid Web, an online curriculum bank for adult education ESOL teachers based on the Arizona Department of Education’s ESOL standards. The Splendid Web has been presented to Arizona teachers in several conferences, to Literacy Volunteers, and to teachers in other states.  Adele was a member of the Arizona Adult Education Standards team 2003/04 which revised the Standards for the State of Arizona . Adele is now taking on ESOL online class enhancement for adult learners.
To hone her ESOL skills and to maintain participatory perspective, Adele takes annual leave to teach in other countries. In 1997 she taught high school students in Mexico .  2004 took her to China where she taught English to graduate students and 2006 saw her teaching English to high school students in Guatemala . With each new teaching experience, Adele gains more enthusiasm and insight into adult learners and their paths.  From presentations to colleagues, educational committee memberships, designing curricula and web-based programs based on standards to teaching in foreign countries, Adele keeps honing her skills which keep her at the superb level of professionalism she enjoys today.
Adele told us once that as she gets older she can slid or she can choose to begin the rest of her life.  This nomination is a testament to Adele’s ‘beginning of life’ every day.