Emergent Bilinguals, Translanguaging, and American Education

"Our students have the gift of bilingualism and their gifts are enriched when they can use all of their languages critically, intentionally, flexibly, and creatively." - Sara Vogel. 

In Aria, Richard Rodriguez recounts his experience as a multilingual learner during his early elementary school years. Considering the volatile nature of his experience as an English learner, Rodriguez argues that despite the discomfort of learning a new language and the ways it can erode existing bonds to one's own culture and native language, there is value and necessity in assimilation. Rodriguez writes, "there are two ways a person is individualized...while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality" (Rodriguez 39). For Rodriguez, language differs based on whether it is private or public, which in turn affects one's level of individuality in the public sense. According to Rodriguez, private language refers to the use of one's home language solely within the familial context. Contrastly, public language is the language that enables individuals to communicate and engage with the broader society. It is the language of schools, workplaces, and social interactions. For Rodriguez, one's success depends on one's fluency in the dominant language; perhaps this is why Rodriguez has found comfort in assimilation, as he no longer exists on the fringes of public society, unlike when he was an outsider to the English language. Perhaps it was his experience as an English language learner and the discomfort it brought in the educational setting that ultimately led him to argue against using one's home language as a tool, instead favoring the eradication method. According to Collier, this instantly places emergent bilinguals at risk of further struggling with literacy. 

In Teaching Multilingual Children, by Virginia Collier, Collier argues that "the 'most successful long-term academic achievement occurs where the students' primary language is the initial language of literacy,'" (Collier 233). This perspective is vastly different than the one exhibited by Rodriguez in his article. Unlike Rodriguez, Collier advocates for bilingualism among students by suggesting that educators focus on the long-term goal of a student being able to master more than one language, rather than forcing them to focus solely on learning the English language.

Collier outlines this with seven guidelines:

1. Be aware that children use first language acquisition strategies for learning or acquiring a second language (127).
2. Do not think of yourself as a remedial teacher expected to correct so-called "deficiencies" of your students.
3. Don't teach a second language in any way that challenges or seeks to eliminate the first language.
4. Teach the standard form of English and students' home language together, along with an appreciation of dialect differences, to create an environment of language recognition in the classroom.
5. Do not forbid young students from code-switching in the classroom. Understand the functions that code switching serves.
6. Provide a literacy development curriculum that is specifically designed for English-language learners. 
7. Provide a balanced and integrated approach to the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

The videos from the CUNY New York Institute on Emergent Bilinguals, featuring Sara Vogel and the various educators she interviews, advocate for an educational experience similar to the one Collier advocates for when it comes to English language learners. In videos one through three, Vogel and various binilingual educators emphasize the importance of translanguaging. 

My biggest takeaway from each of these videos is that, regardless of whether one is monolingual or bilingual, as educators, the best thing we can do is be advocates for our emergent bilingual students as they work to learn English. By utilizing students' home languages as a tool in their learning and incorporating multicultural literature and discussions of students' diverse identities and home languages, we can foster a supportive sense of community. This approach enables us to become co-learners with our students, rather than acting as all-knowing authority figures. In considering the popularized approaches to multilingual education and the existing pedagogy, my school has opted for the transitional model over the maintenance or two-way enrichment methods. Using the transitional model, our MLL program, as we refer to it, consists only of two monolingual teachers working across grades K-9 who focus solely on getting students acquainted with the English language enough to participate in an integrated classroom setting of 30+ students where English is the only acknowledged language instructionally. The efficacy of this approach in terms of student mastery of academic literacy is minimal and fails to adequately prepare students for academic success. As I reflect on ways to support my emergent bilingual students more effectively next year, I've begun to explore strategies that move beyond the limitations of the transitional model and incorporate more inclusive and equitable practices. One idea is to implement a more flexible approach that incorporates translanguaging strategies and recognizes students' home languages as a valuable asset in the learning process. Rather than focusing solely on "transitioning" students into English, I want to create an environment where their full linguistic skills are valued and used as a resource for deeper learning.

Further Reading on Translanguaging from Sara Vogel and Ofelia García:

Rhode Island, Gender Non-Conformity, & The Trevor Project

The Rhode Island Department of Education's (RIDE) Guidance on Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students emphasizes the department's commitment to ensuring all Rhode Island youth experience a safe and supportive learning environment. Citing data from a Human Rights Campaign Foundation, in combination with guidance from several states, organizations, experts, administrators, advocacy groups, parents, and students, the guide serves as a framework for schools across the state to combat instances of discrimination within RI schools, aiming to "foster an educational environment that is safe and free from discrimination for all students, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, facilitate compliance with state and federal law concerning bullying, harassment, and discrimination, reduce the stigmatization of and improve the educational integration of transgender and gender nonconforming students, maintaining the privacy of all students, and fostering cultural competence and professional development for school staff, and support healthy communication between educators and parent(s)/guardian(s) to further the successful educational development and well-being of every student."

The Trevor Project is a leading crisis prevention and advocacy organization for transgender and gender-nonconforming youth. The organization's Guide to Being an Ally to Transgender and Nonbinary Young People acts as "an introductory educational resource that covers a wide range of topics and best practices on how to support transgender and nonbinary people." The guide explains the difference between sex and gender, breaking down the basics of gender and how it differs along the lines of identity, self-expression, and others' perceptions. 

Notable Quotes:

• "Every person experiences gender differently — and you cannot know someone's gender by simply looking at them." (The Trevor Project)
• "Respecting the language that young people use to identify themselves is not only polite — it can save lives." (The Trevor Project)
• "For many people, labels can be liberating, a way to express themselves and find others who relate to their experiences. Gender is complicated, and there shouldn't be a limit to the number of words people use to describe themselves." (The Trevor Project)
• "Gender is a personal experience. There is no right or wrong way to define your gender, and it's OK if you don't want to label yourself either." (The Trevor Project)

Feelings: Currently, I have a scholar in one of my two classes who has recently requested to go by a new name that is perceptively masculine in nature, replacing their current feminine name. The classroom community has been widely supportive of this student's request. Still, educators around the building continue to refer to the scholar by their dead name as there has been no formal conversation or communication between educators and the student, between parents and educators, or among educators within the building. Although this student has not expressed a desire to change their outward gender identity or alter others' perceptions of them, the name change, recent attempts to deepen their voice, and haircut suggest a potential identification with and recognition as a person of the opposite gender. Despite considering myself to be an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, there were still nuggets of information that were new to me, especially as it pertains to this instance and my desire to label/name what it is this student is attempting to identify as without any absolute clarity. I also think that my discomfort with approaching this student or reaching out to their parents is a significant issue; this change speaks volumes and points to the limitations we sometimes face as teachers in speaking truth to power. As a first-year teacher in an environment that does not outwardly discuss the issues that members of the LGBTQ+ community face, I feel uncomfortable engaging in a deeper exploration of what this student is feeling outside of honoring their request to be called by a new name and correcting others when they fail to recognize their request.

Teach Out Project: A Professional Development Using Shalaby's Troublemakers in Conversation with Other People's Children by Delpit

Two of the articles I plan to use as the framework for my teach-out project are "Troublemakers" by Clara Shalaby and the excerpts we read from "Other People's Children" by Lisa Delpit. 

In Shalaby's Troublemakers, Shalaby argues that the expectations that have been normalized within formal education are antithetical to the natural impulses of children, resulting in student alienation and the "systematic maintenance of the racialized American caste system." In detailing the experience of four school-aged children, Shalaby advocates for the need for schools to be places where students "can learn, together, how to skillfully insist on their right to be treated as free people" rather than complacent followers of the current social order, to learn how to be agents of freedom and change. 

In Other People's Children, Delpit argues that the voices of the marginalized and their lived experiences are often silenced when attempting to critique progressive pedagogies set forth by well-intentioned liberal whites, as they fail to understand the "culture of power" and the necessity of preparing students to face it while encouraging students to critique it. According to Delpit, the "culture of power," as it pertains to the educational landscape, is often perceived as the mechanism by which children are trained to adapt and conform to the norms of the broader hegemonic culture. In failing to adequately prepare students for the reality of the world around them while offering them a lens through which to critique said reality, marginalized students are done a disservice.

Each of these readings speaks toward issues I have noticed here at our school when it comes to unconscious bias, punitive expectations, limited student agency, and the disproportionate ratio of white educators to students of color despite our urban setting. In my brief but ongoing tenure here as a middle school teacher, I have observed students' hesitancy with choice time, minimal direction, and a lack of formalized instruction. I fear that our school's rigid structure has stunted the development of many students, inhibiting them from forming a sense of independence while simultaneously fueling an overwhelming desire for defiance. Scholars either take things too far or do nothing at all, exhibiting signs of functional freeze and lack of self-assurance. 

In considering Delpit and her claim that many educators fail to communicate expectations explicitly, opting instead for an indirect approach, this is, unfortunately, a common practice here. In many ways, we offer a nonexistent choice without realizing it, and then we punish students when they do not choose correctly, as they fail to recognize that there was actually no choice to begin with. In considering some of the conversations we've had here and the discomfort that has been expressed by some with being explicit, it seems that this discomfort stems from the awareness and guilt that forcing students and individuals to adhere to society's discriminatory cultural expectations is counterproductive to co-creating a reimagined society that uplifts cultural diversity and promotes equity. In attempting to dial back and not mimic these oppressive systems, I fear we may have overcorrected. This internal struggle contributes to the disconnect that often occurs between administrators and teachers, students and teachers, parents and administrators, administrators and students, and parents and teachers, which only serves to exacerbate behavior and erode rapport. Having witnessed instances of this firsthand, I feel we could all benefit from a bit of summer reading ourselves and professional development centered around the ideas espoused by Shelby and Delpit. 

Hegemony, Labels, and Education

"The troublemakers—rejected and criminalized—are the children from whom we can learn the most about freedom."

In the Preface and Introduction to Trouble Makers: Lessons in Freedom from Young School Children by Carla Shalaby, Shalaby argues that the expectations that have been normalized within formal education are antithetical to the natural impulses of children, resulting in student alienation and the "systematic maintenance of the racialized American caste system." In detailing the experience of four school-aged children, Shalaby advocates for the need for schools to be places where students "can learn, together, how to skillfully insist on their right to be treated as free people" rather than complacent followers of the current social order, to learn how to be agents of freedom and change.

Notable Quotes:

• "Our schools are designed to prepare children to take their assumed place in the social order rather than to question and challenge that order. Because we train youth in the image of capitalism instead of a vision of freedom—for lives as individual workers rather than solidary human beings—young people are taught academic content that can be drilled and tested rather than understanding literacies and numeracies as forms of power, tools for organizing, fodder for the development of their own original ideas." 

• "…the demands of school seem increasingly antithetical to how children be in the world. With these youngest of people, the desire for self-directed learning is fierce…[t]hey tirelessly refuse, protest, and question. No and why are the favored words of the little ones. School does not welcome this protest, this natural way of childhood. As soon as they cross the threshold of a school building, increasingly under the gaze of surveillance cameras, police officers, and metal detectors in our city schools, they are expected to know a lot about social control and accept the fact of it."
• This reminds me of the Delpit reading and the culture of power, as schools are often perceived as training grounds for children to adapt and conform to the norms of the hegemonic culture.

• "Everyone is at the ready to catch children doing the wrong thing. Unquestioning deference to authority is the requirement and expectation of school, where adult directives replace children's own desires."

• "…there are only three institutions from which Americans are allowed no escape: prisons, mental hospitals, and schools."
• There's a very clear and telling throughline between each of these institutions, especially when thinking about the nature of the school-to-prison pipeline.

• "If schools fail to offer young people the chance to imagine freedom, to practice freedom, and to prepare for freedom, it is unlikely that these young people will prove able to create the free country human beings deserve."
• In my brief but ongoing tenure as a middle school teacher, I observed students' hesitancy with choice time, minimal direction, and a lack of formalized instruction. I fear that my school's rigid structure has stunted many students, inhibiting them from forming a sense of independence. Students either take things too far or do nothing at all, exhibiting signs of functional freeze and lack of self-assurance.

Proposal for The Teach-Out Project

Rethinking Schools: Nina Simone, Social Justice Education, and Early Elementary Students

"Who are, were, and will be the people for whom Nina Simone sings?"

In the article, What Nina Simone Teaches 1st and 2nd Graders About Making Change by Cristina Paul, in collaboration with Olivia Lozano and Nancy Villalta, a trio of teachers at the UCLA Lab School, part of UCLA's School of Education & Information Studies, Paul explains and outlines the methods they employed to help students understand the importance of collective freedom through the work of Nina Simone. Guided by the Common Core and Learning for Justice social justice standards, the trio developed an interdisciplinary curriculum centered on the concepts of power and change to implement with students from diverse socioeconomic and Spanish-speaking backgrounds. 

In a unit on changemakers, students were asked to examine questions related to the concept of power, the meaning of change, and the role of changemakers within communities, enabling them to understand the impact that one person's actions can have on a movement and providing them with examples of ways in which they could take action in the face of injustice and inspire change. To meet this learning objective, students read texts about young changemakers, analyzed primary sources, and learned about the history of various intersectional activists such as Nina Simone. The use of Nina Simone's music as an empathy-building primary source opened the door for students to think critically about the world around them and the impact that one person can have on a community. Students' introduction to Simone's music, through an inquiry-based approach and a series of 'notice and wonder' activities, allowed them to internalize and connect with broader social justice themes relevant to the present day. 

This article, along with the work of the educators at the UCLA Lab School, exemplifies the argument Sleeter made in last week's reading, "The Academic and Social Value of Ethnic Studies." It also echoes and embodies the sentiments of our earlier reading of Teaching for Social Justice, which argues that "schools and classrooms should be laboratories for a more just society than the one we currently live in." Our viewing of Precious Knowledge serves as a powerful companion piece to this article, as the teaching methods employed are similar, with both highlighting the importance of culturally responsive teaching. The fact that children of such a young age can critically engage with such advanced themes demonstrates the capacity of youth to grapple with complex topics when given the right tools and support. Each of the pieces we've engaged with demonstrates how centering identity, history, and activism in curriculum empowers students to see themselves as agents of change and resist the systems that seek to marginalize them. This reading also reinforced the importance of an interdisciplinary approach in education, specifically the need to integrate art across disciplines, including but not limited to English Language Arts and Social Studies, to support better, deeper student engagement, comprehension, and creative expression.

As a longtime Nina Simone fan, this article reminded me of her iconic song "Young, Gifted and Black," a classic in the Black community that has inspired generations of Black youth with hope, perseverance, and strength.

"You are young, gifted and black"

We must begin to tell our young

There's a world waiting for you

Yours is the quest that's just begun

More AMAZING hits from Ms. Simone, "Backlash Blues/I Got Life/Revolution" performed live:

Similarly, when considering the power of voice through song and poetry, the poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron came to mind. Specifically, his poem, Whitey on the Moon:

There is also a clip included toward the end of the video above with Scott-Heron's performance of a song titled "Alien," detailing the experience of immigrants to the United States, which I had never heard before. 

Another classic by Mr. Scott-Heron that I come back to a lot is "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised":

The Value of Ethnic Studies in Education

"At first Carlos had no interest in more school, but his friend was so enthusiastic that Carlos finally decided to go see what Chicano studies was all about. That hooked him on education. For the first time in his life, the curriculum was centered on his reality. Carlos completed two years of community college, taking as many Chicano studies courses as possible, then went on to complete a BA degree in Spanish. In the process, he became an avid reader about Mexican vaquero (cowboy) culture, and accumulated a mini-library at home on this subject. He wanted to continue his education in order to teach, which to my knowledge, he is still doing today" (Sleeter 1).

In "The Academic and Social Value of Ethnic Studies" by Christina Sleeter, Sleeter emphasizes the socioemotional and academic value of ethnic studies curricula, arguing that ethnic studies can help reverse academic disengagement among students of color who feel alienated from the mainstream, Eurocentric curricula prevalent within education particularly within the social studies context.

Key Quotes & The Feelings They Envoke:

• "Whites continue to receive the most attention and appear in the widest variety of roles, dominating story lines and lists of accomplishments. African Americans, the next most represented racial group, appear in a more limited range of roles and usually receive only a sketchy account historically, being featured mainly in relationship to slavery. Asian Americans and Latinos appear mainly as figures on the landscape with virtually no history or contemporary ethnic experience. Native Americans appear mainly in the past, but also occasionally in contemporary stories in reading books. Immigration is represented as a distinct historical period that happened mainly in the Northeast, rather than as an ongoing phenomenon (Vecchio 2004; Sleeter 2)."
• "In other words, racial and ethnic minorities are added consistently in a 'contributions' fashion to the predominantly Euro-American narrative of textbooks" (Sleeter 2).

Feelings: Thinking back to my social studies classes in elementary and middle school, I often felt as though my history and the stories of my ancestors were missing outside of the constant focus on slavery, Jim Crow, and the persistence of racism. Constantly having the story of African Americans minimized to oppression in place of the more positive and celebratory aspects of Black culture and history felt demeaning when I was a 13-year-old sitting in third-period U.S. history with everyone in my predominantly white, suburban school immediately looking at me at the mention of slavery. Despite this, I was still intrigued by history because, in my mind, it provided me with an opportunity to investigate and critique American history and the dominant culture. Instead of feeling ashamed, I asked, "Why?" Why is it that the nation's founding fathers felt the need to own slaves? Why is it that the systems of chattel slavery and Jim Crow lasted so long? How does this history impact society today? What might European Americans be missing that led them to commit such atrocities and normalize them? 

• "[A]lthough White fifth graders believed that the Bill of Rights gives rights to everyone, about half of the Black children pointed out that not everyone has rights. While Black children were beginning to articulate a sense of racial oppression, White children described the U.S. as being built on progress, democracy, and opportunity for all" (Sleeter 3).

Feelings: More often than not, children of color feel the impact of their race at a very early age. Speaking from experience, I was probably aware of my race and the way I was disadvantaged because of it by age 6.

• "White adults generally do not recognize the extent to which traditional mainstream curricula marginalize perspectives of communities of color and teach students of color to distrust or not take school knowledge seriously. Epstein (2009) found that, while White teachers were willing to include knowledge about diverse groups, they did so intermittently and within a Eurocentric narrative" (Sleeter 4).
• "White parents, like their children, "thought only of Europeans and white Americans as nation builders, portrayed Blacks as victims and one-time freedom fighters, and Native Americans as first survivors and later as victims of government policies" (Sleeter 4).

Feelings: This reminds me of the Armstrong & Wildman article on colorblindness as well as Delpit in the way that most white people do not realize or see the issue in the exclusion of marginalized voices in mainstream curricula.

DEI, The Trump Adminstration & The Myth of Reverse Racism

In President Trump's Executive Order, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," issued on inauguration day, Trump is calling for the eradication of all DEI initiatives within the federal government and those that exist throughout nearly all of the United States on the grounds that, "[t]he Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral, discriminatory programs, going by the name "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government." In an accompanying Executive Order, "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity," issued the following day, Trump argued that the federal government, as well as other major institutions and corporations, has "adopted the use of dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race-and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) or "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility" (DEIA) that can violate the civil-rights laws of this Nation."

The use of words and terminology like "infiltration," "pernicious identity-based spoils system," "corrosive," "immoral," and "illegal" within each of these Executive Orders only serves to further perpetuate the narrative that DEI is some nefarious discriminatory practice that only functions to prioritize the unqualified while punishing those who are "overqualified" based on their identity, which is ironically similar to how white supremacy functions. White supremacy, being something he and members of his base claim, is non-existent in an America where someone like Barack Obama has served as President. Trump's use of colorblind rhetoric, coupled with the jargon that proponents of DEI and anti-racist practices often use, is a keen example of the cognitive dissonance that upholds the modern fallacy of reverse racism. It is this manipulation and weaponization of language that galvanizes his base.

For instance, in statements like, "Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great" and "[h]hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex" (Trump). Like, yeah... that's the whole point (-.-). Why would anyone disagree with that statement at face value? It represents what marginalized communities have long been advocating for. It ironically speaks to the importance of DEI initiatives. The irony in stating, "...in case after tragic case, the American people have witnessed first-hand the disastrous consequences of illegal, pernicious discrimination that has prioritized how people were born instead of what they are capable of doing," when the United States has been guilty of doing this since its inception considering it was founded by a bunch of slave-owning white supremacist and up until 61 years ago upheld Jim Crow segregation as the law of the land is insanely hypocritical.

Of course, women, people of color, non-heteronormative, and non-gender conforming people receiving opportunities they were previously cut off from would seem like a personal affront to the everyday stereotypical, heteronormative, gender-conforming, white man who benefits from the previous hegemonic order. Equality often looks and feels like oppression for those who have historically been in power. Johnson's article on privilege, power, and difference and Armstrong and Wildman's writings on the function of colorblind racism speaks to the cognitive dissonance and inauthenticity exhibited by Trump, his administration, and members of his base when it comes to discussing issues of inequity and privilege.

Article from The Conversation, "What is 'reverse racism' – and what's wrong with the term?"

Article from The Atlantic, "The Myth of Reverse Racism"