Passport to Learning – Part II

[minti_dropcap style=”normal”]A[/minti_dropcap]s part of the “follow up” portion of an FFT fellowship, grant recipients complete a Passport that documents their learning and where they plan to go from here. Teachers answer brief questions in three categories:

  1. Personal and Professional Growth
  2. Impact on Your Classroom, School & Community, and,
  3. Imagining the Future

During the month of August, we’ll share some of our Fellows’ Passports to get us all in the “Back to School” mode. Today, we’re proud to share the reflections of Amber Neal, teacher at Almeda Elementary School in Houston, TX. In her grant proposal, she shared the inspiration behind her fellowship:

As a Black little girl, I grew up learning about Africa in school, but exclusively through the lens of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The curriculum and textbooks only reinforced stereotypes of Africans as remote village dwellers with spears and shields and co-existing with wild animals. Years later as an educator, I noted the elementary curriculum was greatly restricted by academic expectations and statewide annual assessments, completely lacking creative, culturally responsive texts or materials. In fact, our state’s education system actually came under fire for producing textbooks and curriculum that romanticized slavery, misinforming students that slaves were actually immigrants that made the decision to travel to the New World.

 

As a Black educator, I felt deeply offended that across the state, teachers were essentially educating students on historical half-truths. This trip will serve as a reminder that I am obligated to not only teach the standards of the course, but to recognize what’s not included and ask why. It is vital in our roles as educators to check our own perceptions and beliefs to become more cognizant of how important our part is in perpetuating stereotypes in the malleable minds of our students.

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Fellowship Description

Experience Tanzania’s history, language, culture and educational climate to deepen understanding of African refugee students and develop learning experiences that enhance global awareness, celebrate cultural differences and enrich classroom discourse.

Personal & Professional Growth

With Masai women sharing cultural & historical significance of bead work.

This fellowship expanded my worldview and enhanced my knowledge and understanding of East African cultures, languages and history. I’ve already utilized the acquired knowledge, skills and resources from Tanzania to develop instructional materials that will enrich authentic student learning experiences. Lastly, it has provided me a springboard to critically analyze what we teach, the methods in which we teach and the efficacy of the curriculum taught.

Observing Tanzanian teachers instruct and lead with upwards of 100 students per class was awe-inspiring! Tanzanian teachers are not always afforded the modern technological advances that are so prevalent in American schools; instead they use innovation, passion, inspiration and creativity to bring their lessons to life. I plan to incorporate various Tanzanian folktales, oral histories, and cultural artifacts in my ESL Reading classes to celebrate cultural diversity and improve global competence.

My greatest personal accomplishment was my ability to be completely immersed in the culture. Through this fellowship, I reaffirmed my identity as a Black educator by drawing connections between African-American and traditional African cultures, which will prove invaluable in my instruction of predominately Black students. I am also proud of the Swahili language skills that I acquired and plan not only to utilize them in the classroom setting, but will continue my study of the language.

Impact on Your Students, School & Community

While the current social studies curriculum mandates that 3rd-5th grade students learn both state and U.S. history, much of the curriculum lacks examination through a global lens. My fellowship experience will expose students to the beauty of the African diaspora by honoring history, celebrating cultures and recognizing the continent’s global impact. Students will develop their critical thinking skills by participating in activities that require critique and collaboration on real world issues.

I also believe that by sharing my experiences, curiosity among my colleagues will grow, inspiring them to seek out non-traditional professional development opportunities and challenge them to critically examine the curriculum and their own biases when working with students of color and students of historically under-served backgrounds. I want to be a role model for teaching a global citizenship curriculum, balancing critical literacy instruction and providing culturally responsive instruction.

 

Imagining the Future

Students will celebrate their new learning by reading the book Africa is Not a Country, which orients students to Africa as a continent through the exploration of the traditions and cultures of kids from 25 countries, including Tanzania. This interactive lesson will help students recognize country names, locations and regions while the mini-narratives in the book illuminates the immense cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity of the diaspora and dispels the myth of it being a country.

There is a large push in Tanzanian education reform for students to be a part of a global economy through their learning of the English language. However, in many public schools, the access to literature has been a challenge. I want to inspire my students to donate some of their favorite books to some of the primary schools, and include book reviews to inspire Tanzania students to read, in English. Through this experience, students will develop a sense of empathy for other students’ experiences.

This fellowship provided me the opportunity to explore the African diaspora, which was life changing, on a professional and personal level. The warmth of the people and my overall experiences felt like a pilgrimage back home. Through my journey, I have become more invested in my career as an educator and reaffirmed my passions as a lifelong learner. I will now bring my global experiences to the classroom and expose students to the world outside of the four walls of their communities.

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Amber (pictured picking up her FFT grant check) utilizes her social work background to improve students’ social, emotional and behavioral outcomes. She infuses culturally responsive materials to foster social justice, global awareness and civic engagement. A 2018 HEB Excellence in Education statewide finalist and 2017 Fulbright scholar, she also uses her global experiences to bring experiential, hands-on learning to her urban classroom.

The title photo of Amber was taken at Olduvai Gorge, considered the birthplace of humanity.

Teachers Providing Refuge | World Refugee Day 2018

More than 100 families entered the Meriden Public School District in Connecticut last year from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Consequently, Mariah Abatan and Marjorie Eager quickly became more than teachers at Hanover Elementary — they became a lifeline for displaced, confused and scared English Language Learners (fifty percent of whom also presented with speech and language impairments and learning disabilities). Scrambling for strategies to best help these children, they discovered a U.S. News and World Report ranking of “The Best Countries to Be an Immigrant” with Sweden at the top of the list. That’s where they find themselves today, World Refugee Day 2018, on their FFT fellowship.

“We are committed and passionate to empower and inspire our students to dream and achieve their dreams by becoming resilient, lifelong learners despite the challenges they are facing,” wrote the teachers in their grant proposal. “This is a difficult task due to our limited understanding and knowledge of educating immigrant students, lack of resources and minimal training from the district.”

 

They crafted a fellowship to bridge that gap and are debriefing with educators at two Swedish schools where refugee students first register, as well as participating in a conference at Stockholm University titled “Exploring Language Education: Global and Local Perspectives.”

“We are inspired by the resilience, kindness and courage of the immigrant and refugee families we have met – both here in Sweden and our classroom in the US,” said Mariah. “It is encouraging to witness united voices of a community committed to helping and empowering each other in the midst of traumatic, life-altering events. We urge you to take advantage of the opportunity to make a positive impact in your community by supporting immigrant and refuge families.”

Watch this video of 2017 FFT Fellows’ journey documenting the refugee crisis in Western Europe and the student impact that followed.

“We want our students to feel and know that they are important and helpful to others, as well
as they can add value to their lives by learning from others,” added Marjorie. “In order to have a better community, we have to build tolerance, trust, empathy, and mutual understanding. It is essential/critical to us, that students value their background history and understand the richest of their contributions and contributions of their peers in Sweden.”

Educating refugee and immigrant students is a growing trend in Fund for Teachers fellowships. This summer, five teachers are pursuing this topic in various and unique ways, including:

  • Alissa Davis (Hopkins School – New Haven, CT) who is retrace the steps of Longfellow’s heroine, Evangeline, from Nova Scotia to New Orleans to Philadelphia and producing maps and a lesson plan that revives a forgotten tale of refugees and provides students with an intimate exposure to this deeply relevant issue;
  • Amber Neal (Almeda Elementary – Houston, TX) who is experiencing Tanzania’s history, language, culture and educational climate to deepen understanding of African refugee students and develop learning experiences that enhance global awareness, celebrate cultural differences and enrich classroom discourse;
  • Anne Tomalin (Chapel Hill High School – Chapel Hill, NC) who is joining the University of North Carolina’s World View China Study Visit Program for educators, to observe China’s educational practices and spark ideas for more effectively supporting the school’s Asian refugee students;
  • A team from Julia de Burgos Elementary in Phildelphia that will explore the homelands of students, 86% of whom identify as first or second generation immigrants from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, to implement a rigorous, culturally relevant program for the student
    body;
  • Anya Wislocki (International High School for Health Sciences – Elhurst, NY) who will research work of environmental activists in Bolivia and Peru while strengthening Spanish language skills to prepare newly arrived immigrant students for college study in the sciences; and,
  • Maribeth Dann and Phil Landolt (Hermann Middle School – Hermann, MO) who are blogging as they explore Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, to create learning focusing on modern immigration to America and inform seventh graders’ projects on why people leave their homelands.

“We know that we would have been able to teach our immigration unit without this opportunity, but we know we will do a much better job after this experience,” said Maribeth. “Through many of the poignant experiences we had in Vietnam and Cambodia we can empathize with why a family would feel the need to uproot their entire life in search of a life that does not include war and oppression. It is a decision that we in the States are very lucky that we do not need to make.”

When Fargo is Far from Home

In 2000, the English Language Learner (ELL) population at Fargo High School barely hit 3%; 15 years later, refugees and immigrants make up 10% of the student population. Leah Juelke, ELL specialist, makes it her mission to welcome and educate these teenagers and, so do their peers native to North Dakota, thanks to the school’s Partnership for New Americans.

The initiative mirrors the Sheltered English Instruction model, a strategy Leah researched on a Fund for Teachers fellowship. To better reach her students, largely emigrating from in and around Tanzania, Leah attended a Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol Workshop there to learn from Tanzanian, Kenyan and American secondary teachers about ways to simultaneously teach language, content and academic skills.

Leah (center) taking part in the Sheltered Instruction workshop in Arusha, Tanzania.

“When I set out to complete my fellowship in Tanzania and South Africa, I knew that I would learn something more about my students, but what I didn’t know was that my experience would completely change the way that I teach,” said Leah. “My eyes were opened to the rugged ways of life that many of my students come from. I couldn’t help but to make connections between the refugees in South Africa and those in North Dakota. South Africa’s current xenophobia movement mirrored what is happening in North Dakota.”

To battle her community’s unease with incoming refugees and students’ unease with “coming in,” Leah crafted a new narrative writing unit called Journey to America, which she modeled after journal and blog entries from her fellowship. The unit, intended to give students a voice while improving language competencies, evolved into the Partnership for New Americans, matching native Fargo students with English Language Learners to help each better understand the other through games, interviews and peer-to-peer mentoring. (Watch their year-end summary here).

“It’s really opened my eyes to all the different cultures that are here in the Fargo area,” said one native Fargo student speaking of the Partnership. “And it’s helped me see that there are a lot of different ways of living life.”

As part of the Green Card Voices initiative, last year Leah and her English Language Learners published their personal narratives in a book called Green Card Youth Voices: Immigration Stories from a Fargo High School (for purchase here). This compilation now serves as a vehicle to generate awareness about the immigrant experience and includes links to the students’ video narrative, a study guide, and glossary to help teachers use the book as an educational resource when teaching about immigration.

Watch a trailer for the book and meet the authors.

“The Journey to America project helped me share my story and understand my classmates more,” said Aline, a junior from Congo. “Before, I didn’t talk about my life in Africa because it was so sad, but now my family and I talk about it and we have come to peace.”

This year, Leah was named North Dakota’s 2018 Teacher of the Year and received her honor from the governor and in front of her students and school community at a surprise ceremony in the Fargo High School gymnasium. Afterwards, her mission continued to be her clarion call.

“I’d like to encourage people to be open-minded, and to know that diversity is a wonderful thing,” she said. “By being educated more about other cultures, it just opens a lot of doors. And getting to know our neighbors is very important.”

Living La Vida del Profesor

by, Emily Parkinson | Edison Elementary – Morton Grove, IL

For as long as I’ve wanted to be a teacher, I’ve also wanted to teach abroad, immersed in a culture different from my own. During a particularly stressful experience this past year, it occurred to me that spending my summers abroad could be a perfect way to satisfy that international craving. I want to tell you a little bit about my fellowship living, learning and teaching in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and the biggest takeaways that I will bring to my practice here in the US.

Around November of last year when I considered applying for a Fund for Teachers grant, I started searching for summer opportunities abroad, specifically in Latin America because a large percentage of my students are Latino and Spanish-speaking. My main goal was to become fluent in Spanish so I could comfortably speak with a parent or translate an individualized education plan (IEP).  A Google search led me to a company called Common Ground International, a husband-wife team based in Colorado who lead Spanish immersion trips for teachers, medical professionals and high school students. The ‘Spanish for Educators’ program was perfect for me: living for four weeks in Nicaragua and Costa Rica – working with local education-related organizations and schools, taking intensive Spanish classes with a focus on education, and living with host families in both countries. I knew this program would push me out of my comfort zone and help me not only become more proficient in Spanish, but also become a more culturally-competent educator.


Nicaragua

My fellowship began in the city of Granada, Nicaragua, a colonial city situated on the coast of Lake Nicaragua. Granada charmed me in every way imaginable, with its pastel colored buildings, bustling Parque Central, and breathtaking horizon filled with volcanoes and church steeples. What I loved most about Granada, however, was the people, including my hospitable host family comprised of three generations.

As for the work I did in Nicaragua, our days were split in half between educational outreach in the mornings and Spanish language classes in the afternoons. During the first week, we worked with an organization called House of Hope, a refuge and safe place for women who have escaped or are still experiencing forced prostitution. House of Hope works with some of the strongest women I will ever encounter in my life, who value their children more than anything but aren’t always comfortable parenting their children due to poor role models. Personally, the idea of being a white American going into another culture and trying to be a savior is something I have a lot of issues with. Who am I to tell these women how to parent, when I don’t even have children of my own? While that is a complicated issue, our program made a point to ask women what kind of support they needed so we could plan workshops that would actually benefit them. We ended up delivering workshops to the mothers about how to involve their children with age-appropriate chores. The women (pictured in a workshop below) were engaged, patient with our sub-par language skills and genuinely grateful for the useful information and resources.

During our second week, we worked with a local school on the outskirts of Granada that serves marginalized neighborhoods or ‘shantytowns.’ For families in these neighborhoods, money is scarce and education is often seen as a way out for their children. The students at the school are excited to learn and see a bright future for themselves. Since students were on break when we were there, we again put on workshops for parents. This time, the theme was more general: how to support your child’s education at home. My partner (Fund for Teachers Fellow Amy Holt from
Franklin H. Mayberry Elementary School in East Hartford, CT
) and I focused on math development, and simple ways that parents can reinforce math concepts at home as part of their daily routines like cooking or walking to school. Again, the parents were eager to hear what we had to offer and willing to share their own input on how they talk to their children about math at home.

When not volunteering in the community, I took Spanish classes for four hours each day, focusing on education-specific usage of the language such as how to talk to parents about their child’s progress or how to address student behavior in the classroom. I even learned technical, IEP-related terminology and, by the end of the program, was able to translate an IEP! Goal accomplished!

Overall, Nicaragua left a huge impression on me. Observing people so dedicated to improving the lives of others through education was incredibly inspiring. Parents’ commitment to their children’s education, despite difficult circumstances, was unwavering. The two weeks I spent in Nicaragua went by way too fast, and before I knew it I was hopping on a bus for a nine hour journey to Costa Rica.


Costa Rica

Costa Rica was drastically different from Nicaragua. I think the most emotionally challenging day for me was the day of transition between the two countries. The beautiful landscape I saw out the window was just as enchanting as Nicaragua, but as we entered the cities of San Jose and Heredia, I was struck by the economic differences. From the abundance of American fast food chains to the (relative) lack of stray dogs, to the style of dress,  Costa Rica was in a very different situation economically. Overall, the drastic differences in the standard of living between two nations was shocking and tough to process.

The work I did in the community in Costa Rica was different, as well. Instead of working with parents, we spent most of our time working with students, which I was so deeply missing! Getting to interact with kids again, although challenging in my second language, brought me so much joy and energy. I was living in a small city in Heredia called Santo Domingo, a town where people say “hello” on the sidewalk and everyone seems to know each other. We spent our first week putting on an educational day camp for kids in Santo Domingo who were still on break from school. My colleagues and I set up separate learning stations and I decided to teach the kids some of my favorite math games from my own classroom. Their eyes lit up when they found out that they could actually practice math through games (pictured below). I asked if they ever played games in school and they laughed and shook their heads no. One student even got excited about a multiplication chart, something she had never seen before, exclaiming, “Ay, que chiva!!” (“Oh, how cool!”) We played dice and card games, practiced our multiplication facts, listened to the Moana soundtrack in Spanish, and laughed as the kids taught me some new vocabulary. Parting with these kids on the last day proved difficult. (One first grade boy even told us, “These were the best days of my life!”) Luckily, we would be seeing some of them the following week at their school.

Students in Santo Domingo were back in school the following week (my last week in Costa Rica) and we got the opportunity to work in a local public school. I got to assist the ‘Apoyo de Aprendizaje’ teacher (learning support) in her classroom where she worked with students with learning disabilities in small groups. This teacher was absolutely amazing. Everything was made into a game (unlike what students had told me the week before!) and students were so engaged and excited to learn. Overall,  this school’s approach to Special Education seemed very effective. I observed a lot of collaboration between the special education teachers and general education teachers, and the school created an inclusive atmosphere, even though students who needed individual attention were serviced in a separate room when necessary.


Biggest Takeaways: Why Will This Matter in My Classroom?

The most important thing for me in this whole experience was developing skills to better equip me to serve my students. Here are a few major takeaways that I believe will make me a better, more culturally-responsive educator:

  1. Knowing how it feels to be an outsider: As a white person in America, my privilege protects me from the emotionally-taxing weight of being an outsider. My students, however, coming largely from minority backgrounds, feel this way every. single. day. It was important for me to have the opportunity to be a cultural outsider, feeling totally insecure in my use of the language and clueless about certain cultural norms. Learning a second language is incredibly difficult, and so many of our students in the US have to do it while we expect them to do so many other things. We expect our immigrant students to adjust seamlessly to the norms of our culture AND keep up with the same expectations as their peers. While I don’t believe in lowering expectations, it is important to be mindful of the emotional toll associated with adjusting to a new language and culture. I now know some of that myself and I will definitely be more sensitive to my students’ needs this year.
  2. Learning that you can’t judge based on one snapshot: This truth something consistently challenged me, both Nicaragua and Costa Rica. I can’t count the number of times that something I had heard about education or culture in one of these countries was debunked. For example, I was told by numerous people (Nicaraguan and North American) that the standard of education is so low in Nicaragua, it’s unlikely to see high quality learning taking place. However, my Spanish teacher in Nicaragua was one of the most highly-skilled educators I‘ve met. Costa Rican adults and children told me how most of their learning is dry, repetitive and focused on rote memorization; yet, I worked alongside a Special Education teacher who made learning a game. I could go on and on about the misconceptions that I encountered, but all in all, I was reminded how important it is to take individual experiences as what they are: individual experiences, rather than a general notion about an entire culture.
  3. The importance of building community: What struck, especially at the local school in Costa Rica, was the family-like support of the community. For example, at recess students ran into the hallways and onto the field for free play without recess monitors! I didn’t see any student excluded, any fights or major issues. Why is it that in my Chicago school with hired recess monitors, we had to cancel recess because of too many unsafe issues? It really got me thinking about cultural differences and our approach to community building and social emotional learning. I sensed the familial love and respect in a classroom the second I walked in, and this is something I will work hard to build in my own classroom this year

Overall, I could not have imagined a more effective and energizing experience abroad, doing what I love most – teaching! My language skills improved drastically in only a few weeks. Most importantly, I met people with whom I will always remain connected, even though we may be many countries away. I am so grateful to Fund for Teachers for allowing me to have this opportunity and I cannot wait to start this school year off better than ever before!


Emily is a Special Education teacher in the Chicago area, educating students in a school with a high concentration of Spanish-speaking students. She is passionate about social-emotional learning and
mindfulness in the classroom. Emily is
pictured at the top of this post (on the left) with Amy Holt; you can read Amy’s perspective on this same fellowship here.