Teach Out Project Proposal

 The Teach Out Project Proposal

This is the first step in brainstorming your final project in this class.  Please post this document to your blog and bring this document to class on March 26.  This is just the planning stage – no formalities!

CHOOSE A TEXT: Review your whole blog to remind yourself about what we have read so far in class. What texts have stayed with you so far? What articles inspire you?  What topic matters most to you in terms of your own work? Are there any of these texts that you would like to share with others in your life?  The text that has stayed with me the most is “Other People’s Children”. My teach out project is centered around the culture of power and how power shows up in education, what educators can do to “level the playing field”. A text that compliments the culture of power and how it shows up is Bad Bunny’s halftime show. The performance and celebration perfectly highlights what the culture of power looks like by removing power from those who typically have it. One of the pillars of the culture of power is that those who have power are least likely to realize they do, Bad Bunny’s halftime show perfectly highlights– especially to people who have been accustomed to being in positions of power or being aligned on the culture of power– what being out of power (or excluded by power) looks like. Related to this, the five tricks card game has also stuck with me– it was really powerful to see the culture of power modeled and experienced. This matters to me in my own work because the majority of the students that I teach are Brown and Black. As a Chicana, but especially as a Chicana who grew up around the education sector, I was born knowing a lot of the rules of power and came into teaching with the assumption that everyone else would know the rules. The truth is some students don’t and it’s unfair to me– or to any of my white colleagues– to operate on the assumption that everyone knows the rules.

WHO DO YOU WANT TO SHARE WITH? Are there people in your life with whom you would really like to talk about these texts? Colleagues? Students? Family members? Friends? Children? I can see the Dual Language community really benefitting from talking about power and the culture of power. The world of DLE has pillars that every program is following: bilingualism and biliteracy, high academic achievement, and sociocultural competence. When talking about sociocultural competence, a lot of educators focus on race, ethnicity, and culture. We fail to see the reality and impact that power has (because power also has a culture) on our students. One way to be able to reach the bilingual educators community is to present at MABE (the MultiState Association for Bilingual Educators).

WHAT FORMAT MIGHT WORK FOR YOU? Individual interview? Small group discussion? Art activity? Professional development workshop? Poster for your office? Pamphlet to share? Lesson plan? Etc? The output of my teach out project looks a little bit different– I’m going to be writing a proposal for MABE– the MultiState Association of Bilingual Educators– to be able to present at their next conference. After I create my proposal, I’m going to be talking about it with some of the members of MABE– to get their feedback and thoughts.  The proposal is what my current tangible output will be but then I will be– hopefully (especially because I will have already had the approval of some MABE members) be presenting it at the next conference.

Reflections from Rethinking Schools

 

Reflections on ICE, Liberation and Social Justice Unionism 

While reading reflections: I really appreciated the "read-ability" and variety in the articles that I was reading and that were presented to me. I thought that the connecting magazine topic worked really well to ground the different articles in current events and education. I initially read the first article that caught my attention, about ICE in schools and communities and then decided to focus my readings and reflections on ways to push back on current events: we have a problem, now what do we do about it? 

We have a problem: 

Kicking ICE Out of Schools and Communities: I really appreciated reading this for a few reasons: 1. the language used (for example, the article used the term "Latine" instead of Latinx, showing being rooted in community and not higher ed) 2. basing the article in qualitative data in the beginning (starting with a story not only captivates audience attention but also clearly names the problem, especially for someone who may not believe it to be a problem) 3. the articles position on ICE. 

One of the points that come at the end of the article is the (in my opinion truthful) assertion that immigration is and has been seen as a security issue and not a human rights issue. I couldn't have more to say about this. As my audience may or may not know by know, a lot of the research and writing I've done in my undergraduate has been about immigration. This sort of "fear" of immigrants and immigration comes straight from xenophobic and racist American ideals and beliefs. The problem of viewing immigration as a "security issue" was blown up after 9/11 and the War on Terror (the article also mentions this) and an ongoing push and pull over what governmental department was put in charge of immigration. Undocumented immigration is also technically not illegal (!!), it is a civil infraction, like for example getting a parking ticket or getting a ticket for not crossing the street on a crosswalk. Additionally, existing in the United States as an undocumented person is not illegal and is not a civil infraction, so what many anti-immigrant U.S. governments have done is push a "immigrants are illegal" (to socially demonize immigrants) while also using ICE agents, sometimes police officers (that by law HAVE to work with ICE if asked), "arrest" immigrants for something they may or may not have done. This was all until Trump. What other presidents have done was not ethical, what Trump is doing is not ethical OR LEGAL. Pushing an "immigrants are illegal" perspective rationalizes (for the general American public who have no idea about the intricacies of immigration) using any force necessary to "protect Americans". Americans are not in danger because of immigrants. We are collectively in danger because of the government. So, yes, we do have a problem. 

Now what do we do about it?

In It For the Long Haul: Increasing the Possibility of Freedom and Liberation for All

I again, really appreciated the stance and knowledge that was shared in this article (which was a written transcript of an interview). I knew that the author was very knowledgeable when they mentioned Harsha Walia, an activist and writer who I am very familiar with from my time in undergrad and I recommend people read if they're interested in capitalism, immigration, and the environment. 

My biggest take away from this article was using imagination as liberation along with the take in imagination. The article wrote about imagination as a form of resistance that is a collective and constant practice. Increasing ways to encourage and ask for student imagination in the classroom actively asks students to come up with solutions, to think about their dream world, to get ready to act on it. 

I really appreciated the conversation on if students are too young to talk about abolition: the article suggests that students are the perfect age to talk about the world as it is and talk about abolition. Students creativity and imagination has not been capped yet by living through as many oppressions as many adults have (though this is not the case in every individual comparison), the article says that students are "willing to call you over to imagination land. Because they're already living there". Additionally, students are constantly asking why things are the way they are -- which is the first step to freedom. We must question our current reality, dream up a new one, find the ways in which these are not aligned and imagine solutions to fix it.

Trump's Education by Indoctrination Must be Fought with Social Justice Unionism: 

The article begins by naming and explaining that under Trump's America, we are falling, and fast into fascism. A fascist education can be characterized by erasing histories and banning perspectives until the only perspective that is taught or allowed, the white perspective prevails. If students aren't taught the ills of the world or how to see them themselves, they will fall submissive to the regime and not even think to act against it. 

Democrats aren't coming to save us either. They are at the beckoning call of billionaire and millionaire stakeholders who also support children as sheep and not children as active members of change. 

No one is coming to save us, so we have to save ourselves. The basis of social justice unionism is rooted in an innate unity of education and social justice: we can't teach truth without teaching truth. Social justice unionism is about uniting educators that believe strongly in social justice, in children as change makers and not factory workers (which we read about in our history of education mini-unit). Social justice unionism is partnering with other liberation movements (or not) to demand, strike, protest that the needs of the youth be met, that the needs of educators be met, that the needs of the world be met. 

Teaching Other People's Children

Argument Statement: In the chapter titled “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children” by author Lisa Delpit in her book Other People's Children Cultural Conflict in the Classroom,  she argues that there is a cultural divide in a classroom with regards to race which impacts not only power differences but also creates an environment where one culture is being erased–especially when a white teacher teaches Black students. 

First talking point “When I get black kids, I just try to undo the damage that they did” (22), quoted by a Black teacher in the chapter. When I read this, I froze. I know for a fact that I’m causing damage to someone almost all of the time, there is practically no way to avoid creating damage, but I was thinking about my students. As much as I don’t want to create damage, I’m confronted with the reality that I am and it’s invisible to me. As much as I try to include practices of culturally responsive teaching, the teacher quoted in the chapter is correct, I am creating harm. My whiteness is prevailing over my Latinidad (probably for a plethora of reasons) and that leaves me to confront the harm I am creating. 

Second talking point: “Children from middle-class homes tend to do better in school than those from non-middle class homes because the culture of the school is based on the culture of the upper and middle classes– of those with power” (25). A lot of the time when we talk about power, we talk about power based on race, sex, even religion. Johnson even argued that class was removed from problems in the educational sector because class can change (I disagreed with this point but regardless this is what Johnson argued). Delpit is arguing that class is deeply embedded in the culture of power that is present within the classroom. Middle and upper class existence has certain codes of power that are mirrored in the classroom– other students who were raised in other classes have different rules of power, and obviously those who know the rules will have the advantage of playing fair and winning over those who do not know the rules altogether. This also made me think a lot about my educational experience and the reasons for my success in the classroom. 

Third talking point: “The dilemma is not really in the debate over instructional methodology, but rather in communicating across cultures and in addressing the more fundamental issue of power, whose voice gets to be heard in determining what is best for [lower class] children and children of color" (46). Delpit is arguing not just that we have an issue of a power imbalance– which is true but does not innately imply a need for change or any actionable step that will result in change. However, in naming that we should question whose perspectives are being listened to and whose voices are ignored, there is an obvious solution presented: to invite and include the perspectives of the populations we serve. 

Connection: As I was reading this, I was thinking a lot about the classes that I had in undergrad, especially the classes that I took on race and it reminded me of a paper I once read (I sadly don’t remember what it’s called anymore) that explained that the remnants and culture of slavery are present in almost every institution and way of being. The article explained that even in the way that parents talk about their children– with white parents openly bragging about their child and the culture of Black parents bragging about their children (which typically lessens their accomplishment or the compliment as a then protective measure that protected children from being taken by enslavers). Almost every part of the United States dominant culture is impacted from this and the education system is not different.