Author: Sara Vogel, PhD.

Teaching in the Time of COVID-19

Sara Vogel, PhD.

What a time to be teaching and learning.

I thought I’d revisit this blog space, which has been dormant for awhile, to add some thoughts I’ve had about teaching and learning, now that all college classes, and even K-12 schooling has moved online to help families adhere to social distancing policy.

Educators have a tendency to privilege what happens within the four walls of their classrooms as “learning,” and anything that happens outside of that as irrelevant. But as COVID-19 changes the nature of schooling, we would all do well to reflect on something the Connected Learning community has known for awhile, and what really, all of us know somewhere deep down — learning can happen “anytime, anywhere.” And learning happens when young people connect what they do at home, at school, and in other face-to-face, and online communities.

My dissertation adviser, Dr. Kate Menken, sent this article from Ed Week to me and my colleague Dr. Laura Ascenzi-Moreno. It’s about how distance learning might leave emergent bilingual K-12 students behind. Kate was justifiably concerned that articles like this one underestimate what families do with their children at home. I agree. While the article raises real challenges around ensuring access to technologies and bandwidth, and ensuring teachers feel prepared, the presumption is that only the activities sanctioned by educators are going to yield this thing called “learning.” We know from all of the research on funds of knowledge etc etc that deep, powerful, and meaningful learning happens at home, too.

Educators are no doubt overwhelmed during the transition, and the goal for at least the next few weeks should be simply getting comfortable. But once educators get to some semblance of a rhythm, there needs to be real creative thinking. This is NOT about replicating the school day, as this Twitter user put it.

There are real opportunities in our current moment for authentic learning, and many families will rise to the challenge. But only if

  1. Schools understand the tech hardware families have, and the linguistic resources of families and students (as always)
  2. Schools and teachers support and design authentic learning opportunities, and forge community with their students and their families.

Kids will need reasons to self-motivate and manage their time around school-based tasks — this is something that adults working from home are still not great at mastering! Parents can only do so much to motivate their kids to do school work, if kids don’t see the relevance or importance of anything they are doing, then why do it? There are plenty of other interest-driven things to do with devices. Now more than ever, educators should support students to become learners in communities, providing opportunities for kids to host livestreams about things they care about, record podcasts and videos, even create tik toks about what they are learning. We can lean into activities that smart teachers already did to connect their students to authentic audiences: my colleague at the Graduate Center, Wendy Barrales, who worked as an Ethnic Studies, ELA, and ENL teacher, used to ask her students to write book reviews on goodreads.com — amping up the traditional reading log with an audience and an intention. Let’s compile those kinds of creative  ideas, and do more storytelling about authentic learning that WILL happen during these uncertain times.

Now’s the time to completely break up the school day and classes, assigning teachers to small groups of kids to shadow and support them in following their interests and to make connections across content areas, to create opportunities for students to share what they are doing and learning to the broader community. To host open calls where families can ask questions, get answers, share their experiences.

I’ve already seen some creative stuff — teachers asking kids to research a topic and create a project about it in Scratch, to interrogate and re-mix models of COVID-19 spread.
This is not going to be easy, and not going to happen quickly, but I feel like now is the time to think big.

First Day Letter – Foundations of Bilingual Ed

Sara Vogel, PhD.

Note to readers: This is a letter that I read aloud to my class on the first day of the course and have since edited and worked on for future semesters. It was the first full semester after the election of Donald Trump.

Before reading this letter to the class aloud, I had already introduced myself, and everyone in the room had already introduced themselves (with their names, program affiliations, where they teach / do their practicum, and a “six word story” about them).

Dear Foundations of Bilingual Education class members:

Welcome to Foundations! I hope you find this class as rewarding and worthwhile as I do. Before diving into the content and material, I wanted to tell you a little bit about my values and where I am coming from as a way to begin establishing our classroom community.

  • I want to first recognize all of the incredible mostly Latina women who have encouraged me and helped me become a bilingual person — from my inspiring Spanish teachers in middle and high school, to mentors and friends of mine in Argentina and Mexico, to my fellow teachers at the schools where I taught, professors at Hunter like Carla España, who was my professor for this course, colleagues at CUNY-NYSIEB and my adviser Ofelia García.
  • I am conscious of the fact that I am a white educator in this space, teaching about bilingual education. I am someone who did not grow up speaking multiple languages at home. I spoke English in a way that was school-sanctioned and approved. I had the choice to learn a language other than English as enrichment.  Growing up, my bilingualism was celebrated and encouraged. That is not everyone’s story. I am working to recognize where and how my racial, class, gender, linguistic, and other forms of privilege shape my work and actions, and to take steps to interrogate and disrupt the systems that enable that privilege.
  • Part of our job in this class is to consider the factors that shape teaching and learning for all young people, especially emergent bilinguals. Education is interpersonal and political. The kind of body you walk into the classroom with shapes your experience. Many students that we serve, especially students of color and immigrant students, and perhaps some of you, did not have the choice to learn another language other than English due to the racism in our systems and institutions. Language has been a tool for many things — bridging divides, promoting cultural understanding, but also oppression, and it is important we view our work through that lens.
  • Our work has ALWAYS been political. That takes on new and different shades of meaning today, as the values that this course stands for: multiculturalism, multilingualism, affirmation of difference, critical thinking, are under attack. Many of the students in our public school system are members of groups whose rights are being eroded. No matter if you consider yourself active in democratic politics, or not, this is our political context as educators and counselors today, and in this course, we’re going to unpack our present moment in the context of history, theory, and practice of bilingual education.
  • My perspective on these issues — as a white female who became bilingual in the ways I’ve described —  is not enough. Which is why you’ll see with the readings and projects and activities, the idea is to bring in many voices: scholars, educators, young people. 
  • As bilingual people, and/or people interested in the teaching and learning of language, we all have unique and important experiences. I invite you to contribute your personal experience and voice in this course, and hope that we can all work together to build a critical but supportive space for the exploration of these ideas.
  • Next week, we are going to talk more about the kinds of discussion norms we want to put in place that will allow us to have the supportive and critical conversations at the heart of this course. For now, feel free to bring up any ideas or thoughts you might have about this. You can do so during our class session, right after I read this letter, or via email or in private after class.

Here’s to a fruitful, impactful semester,

Sara V.

Timeline of Bilingual Ed – Call to Action Assignment

Sara Vogel, PhD.

“Sure, there’s a certain interest in inspecting the past and it can be fun, sort of like a detective story. I can make an argument for knowledge for its own sake as something that can add to your life. But while that’s good, it is small in relation to the very large objective of trying to understand and do something about the issues that face us in the world today. Students should be encouraged to go into history in order to come out of it, and should be discouraged from going into history and getting lost in it, as some historians do.” — Zinn (1994)

In the spirit of diving in to history in order to take action, as a class, we will produce an interactive online timeline recounting at least 20 events in United States bilingual education history.

Then, you will create an artifact to appeal to members of a specific audience in which you use the history as a call to action.

Part 3 Call To Action

What to do:

  • Pick one of the following audiences: middle/high school students, parents, teachers, school administrators.
  • Pick a format:
    • A letter
    • A blog post
    • An assignment and assignment rationale
    • The script for a meeting you would have with them
    • A short lecture you would give to them
    • A script for a video you would show to them
    • A comic strip / web comic (example of format here, here)
    • Or another format that speaks to you.
      • Past students have created PowerPoints, newsletters, HS newspaper articles…
  • In your chosen format (should not go beyond 2 pages, double spaced), your job is to recommend that your audience take some action related to bilingual education, drawing on 3 historical moments to help you make your case
  • Your piece should include:
    • Statement of purpose — what action(s) would you want your audience to take regarding bilingual education, and why? We will do some brainstorming in class to get your juices flowing about this.
    • What overarching ideas and themes do you want your audience to know about the history of bilingual education? Why?
    • Which 3 historical events from the timeline will best help you communicate those overarching ideas and inspire them to take action? Describe each of those events in one sentence.
    • Why is it important for your audience to know about those events?
    • Inspired by learning this history, why is it important for them to take the action(s) you recommend? What is the simple next step for your audience to take?
    • As an addendum to your piece (could be inside of it, if it seems appropriate, or just tacked on at the end), describe an ethical issue you face as you determine what kind of action to promote, and how you reconciled that issue. Some ideas to consider:
      • Though all actions are inherently “political” in the sense that they take a stand, the action you suggest can more or less advocate that the audience take some overtly political action. There is a difference between advocating that students write letters to their senators about their opinions and having them design an information campaign for new parents at their school, or making a video about bilingual education for their peers, for instance.
      • How do you also avoid presenting only one side of an issue to advance your own view, and how are you promoting multiple perspectives so your audience can make up their own minds? Consider the blurry lines that teachers navigate when discussing controversial issues in the classroom, for instance: http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/08/06/415498760/the-role-of-politics-in-the-classroom

Other guidelines:

  • Think about the language(s) your audience would be most familiar with, and therefore, the language(s) you should use to communicate with them.
  • Think about actions that would be appropriate for the audience you’ve selected given their ages and positions and other identities.
  • Your piece should be about 2 pages double-spaced and cite any sources in APA format

For some inspiration, see this list of resources regarding teaching during the Trump presidency.

Example project premises:

  • Write a speech that you will deliver to the PTA in Spanish and English using historical data to advocate that they create a Facebook/Whatsapp chat group with prospective parents to inform them about the bilingual education programs at your school and to share information about opportunities for their children.
  • Write a letter to your administrator in which you use history to advocate that your school create a promotional video to attract more families to the dual language program.
  • Write a short, 5 minute interactive lecture in which you use history to ask high school students in dual language programs to share their experiences as “English Language Learners” in letters to their local school officials.

 

Part 3 Rubric

  Full Credit Grade and notes
Actions promoted(2 point) You call on your audience to take a meaningful action in the realm of bilingual education that is appropriate for their age, position, identities.
Overarching themes and supporting historical events / Argumentation(2 points) You use evidence from at least 3 historical events to justify that your audience take these specific actions and describe those events accurately in at least one sentence per event. You provide convincing reasoning for why your audience should know about this history.
Audience(1.5 points) The language you use is appropriate for the audience that you are engaging. You draw on the language practices and experiences of your audience.  
Addendum about related ethical issues (1.5 points) You consider at least one ethical issue of intentionally incorporating politics into your work as an educator, citing a source to support you.