Lydia: Hello, everyone!
We are so excited to be here for our very
first Facebook Live event on Colorín Colorado,
and today we have the pleasure of welcoming
Dr. Diane Staehr Fenner.
She's going to be talking about advocacy for
English language learners.
Many of you who visit Colorín Colorado regularly
will know Diane as our blogger – she’s
blogged a lot about Common Core, college-
and career-ready standards and other topics
as well, so we're really excited to have her
here with us today.
This is the first event of a new series of
Facebook Live events that we'll be doing this
year.
The rest of the events will be in the new
school year, in the fall, so stay tuned for
all of the times and topics and everything
that we'll be including in the fall once we
get going in the new school year.
And we want to take a moment to say a special
thank you to the partners that we work with
so closely, the National Education Association
has made this series of Facebook live events
possible and we're really glad that they were
looking for an opportunity to get some more
interaction with our audience, so thank you
to the NEA.
We also want to take every opportunity we
can to thank the American Federation of Teachers,
the AFT, that we've worked very closely in
developing content on our site for as long
as we've had Colorín Colorado, along with
our AFT ELL cadre, a wonderful group of advisers
to the project, so thank you to both the NEA
and the AFT that have made this event possible.
So Diane, I'm ready to jump in talking about
advocacy and one thing that I wanted to make
sure that our audience knew is that you have
a great book about this called Advocating
for English Learners and at the beginning
of this book, you tell a story about a little
boy named Jose and his teacher and this kind
of planted of the seeds for your advocacy
work, so I wondered if you'd be able to share
that story with us.
Diane: I sure will.
So when I was, one of my first teaching assignments
in the United States after having taught abroad
was working with a rural community in the
southeastern part of the U.S., a community
where we had a lot of Latino students, a lot
of migrant workers, former and migrant workers,
who, current migrant workers and former ones
who decided to stay in the area and this boy
was in fourth grade and he was about getting
ready to take a state content test the next
day.
I was on the playground with his teacher.
We were watching the kids and she kind of
said to me, a little half-jokingly, half not,
“Hey, is there any way that you can keep
Jose home from school tomorrow?” and I was
like, “Why?”
She said, “Oh, it's the, it's the state
test,” and that really made me think, you
know, there are so many inequities and I'd
been seeing this kind of, you know, all of
that year of teaching in that location and
it really hit home for me how this little
boy had tried so hard all year long and the
teacher had tried her best too to help him
demonstrate, you know, what he knew and what
he could do, but still the test was not a
valid measurement of what, what this boy knew
and could do and it obviously did not define
him, his score did not define him or the teacher,
and so Jose did not stay home from school.
He went to school, he took the test, but it's
just opened my eyes even more to, you know,
the inequities in the areas that we need to
advocate for our English language learners.
Lydia: So fast forward from that moment all
the way to the point at which you decided
you need to write a book.
How did the book come about and how did your
growth and your journey happen along the trajectory
in terms of thinking about this idea of advocacy?
Diane: Sure, so yeah, many things definitely
occurred between when I started working in
this community with Jose and his other classmates
and also when I had the idea for the book.
It was kind of a, you know, a journey that
took multiple pathways.
At the time, when I was thinking about, you
know, advocacy, I didn’t really have a name
for it, so it’s just something I did as
a teacher because I saw, you know, I really
wanted to give the students and their families
a better chance to develop their own voice
in their education, but I didn’t have a
word for it.
It was just what you did because you were
a good person and you really wanted to help
the students, so, and I wasn't trained in
this, I had no idea when I became an ESL teacher
that advocating was going to be such a big
part of my job, you know, not only knowing
strategies and research and standards but
also really, you know, fighting for the kids
when they needed someone to be on their side.
So the path to become an advocate, to write
the book, I then, after working that community
I was in Fairfax County Schools, Virginia
which is the tenth largest district in the
U.S. again, working as an ESL or English as
a second language teacher and there were other,
you know, there were other ways in which I
was advocating there, also on the side I was
helping out TESOL International Association
revise their professional teaching standards
for teachers for colleges of education so
at the university level and also while I was
revising those standards, I was also working
with the National Board for Professional Teaching
Standards who are revising their professional
teaching standards and both of those sets
of standards had a new focus on advocacy,
and I started seeing themes kind of between
my own work, you know, in the classroom in
rural community, in Fairfax, Virginia, and
also with the two sets of professional standards
where advocacy was kind of bubbling up to
the surface and it was, I was beginning to
really see myself and what I did in those
standards.
And it kind of all came to a head when I was
presenting at a TESOL conference in Denver,
Colorado, and I was mentioning how in the
new standards advocacy was a focus and a professor
raised her hand and she said, “I have a
question.
I teach a course, you know, I teach this course
and I’m at the university level.
Advocacy is a focus; what book can you recommend
to me that was, you know, that will really
drive home this idea of advocacy?” and I
thought and I said, “There is no book,”
so I walked to meet my colleagues for lunch
in a snowstorm in Denver, I was very pregnant
with my third kid and I turned to my colleagues
and I said, “I'm going to write a book about
advocacy,” so eventually it happened; it
took a while, but it came to be.
Lydia: Well, I was at that conference and
I was stuck in that snowstorm and it took
me awhile to get home that weekend; I remember
that event so that’s great.
And I think, I'm sure for all of you who are
watching, this is ringing true because we
know that people who work with ESL students,
English language learners, have been advocating
for them for a very very very long time and
it's just taking those actions and those,
sort of that little extra mile, that little
push and as you said, putting a name on it,
and putting it into a format that people can
start seeing themselves in what they're doing
and if I'm not mistaken, the professional
standards that you mentioned are sort of getting
updated as we speak and there’s even an
increased focus on advocacy.
Is that right?
Diane: Right, it's definitely still a focus
but it's becoming a bit more nuanced in the
next version of the TESOL standards which
will be out this fall.
People have provided a lot of comments on
them already but yeah advocacy and leadership
and professionalism are definitely, you know,
coming even more to the forefront where teachers
recognize and, you know, professors who are
working with pre-service and also in-service
teachers to be endorsed in ESL are recognizing
the importance of advocacy and also collaboration.
Lydia: And how do you see, we just wrote this
article about leadership for Colorín Colorado
on the blog in terms of what role an educator
of ELLs plays and the title we chose is “You
Are Already a Leader,” because I think a
lot of times especially with something like
leadership people think if they're not in
the position, if they're not in the role,
they're not the leader, but in fact they’re
they are leaders, they are advocates.
How do you see the connection between the
two, between the leadership and the advocacy?
Diane: Right, right, so in kind of, you know,
working more in the advocacy space, I began
to realize, you can’t really fully advocate
without drawing from your leadership skills
and I feel like, you know, we're kind of our
own worst critics in a way because we don’t
always, I, personally I’ll speak for myself,
that, you know, I tend to focus on what I
didn’t do well instead of really flipping
the narrative and focusing on what, you know,
what effects am I having, what kind of a positive
impact am I having on students and on, you
know, with my colleagues, so and part of that
plays into recognizing that we are all leaders
in our own ways and really, you know, seeing
the steps we‘re making and kind of hitting
the pause button and reflecting on, you know,
what have I done well, how am I really empowering
myself and other teachers and our, especially
our ELLs and their families and so leadership
and, you know, recognizing what you bring
to the table is a big part of that and also
seeing, you know, where are there areas what
I might need to develop some more leadership
skills or might need to collaborate further
with my colleagues to draw out their leadership
skills so we can all do this together in the
name of really benefiting our ELLs.
Lydia: Another thing you talk about is your
elevator speech so that you sort of practice
the way you talk about what you do, so that
you can communicate it about it about effectively,
especially to administrators and to colleagues
and to people may not have a sense of what
you do and it seems like particularly for
people who are working in the ELL field, that
is a skill that really needs to be developed
so that people have a better understanding
of what they do.
What was it that brought you to this idea
of the elevator speech as a way to capture
that?
Diane: Right, well it's kind of looking at
basically the patchwork quilt, if you will,
that's a term that John Segota from TESOL
coined of teachers’ certification requirements
for ESL teachers across the United States,
it's very different depending on what state
you're in, with some states not even having
ESL requirements if you're an ESL teacher,
or credentialing requirements, which kind
of blows my mind a little bit, but really
there's such a wide variance across and also
within school districts and states in terms
of what it is that the ESL teacher does, so
I feel that it’s important for ESL teachers
to really take a minute and define, write
it down, jot it down, if you had 30 seconds
to describe what it is that you do to practice
that with your colleagues with administrators,
to really let your expertise shine through
because many times, as you said, administrators
might not have a, you know, 100 % clear idea
of what it is that the ESL teacher does and
what expertise that teacher brings, through
no fault of the administrator‘s own of course,
it’s just, you know, it can be very varied
as state policies change, district policies
change and there are many different program
models and ways that ESL teachers can interact
with students and also with their colleagues.
Lydia: And we had talked about sort of practicing
those conversations, having those conversations,
first with colleagues to say, you know, how
do you see my role?
What do you understand in terms of my work
and so you can get that sense and then maybe
even with a, with an ESL leader, an ESL director,
someone who has a little bit of that sense,
but let’s say you've done that now you have
a better sense and you want to approach an
administrator because you really feel like
“Gosh, the principal in my building just
doesn’t have a good idea of what I do.”
Maybe you're new to the building, maybe the
principal is new to the building or maybe
this just has not been on people’s radar
and maybe your ELL population is increasing
and everybody’s paying more attention, or
maybe it's not – you just have a handful
of kids, but you feel like they're just not
getting what you need, so once you sort of
have an idea in your own mind of what you
want to communicate, how do you then take
the next step of communicating that to your
administrators?
Diane: Yeah, that's a really good question.
There, you know, definitely several ways you
could go about it; one way would be to invite
the administrator into your classroom and
let them see or your, you know, follow you
along with your cart or wherever you may be,
if you’re an itinerant, hop in the car with
you and take a drive, and see exactly what
it is that you're doing and I think through
that context, that would be the ideal way
to communicate, you know, what it is that
you’re doing and, you know, also another
way could be just, you know, setting up the
meeting or, you know, taking your administrator,
bring them a cup of coffee and talk about,
you know, what it is that that you do and
have given them a chance to ask any questions,
because they might be a little embarrassed
in a way not to know 100 % what it is that
you're doing because your role may be changing,
especially as demographics change, as students
move in and out as the type of students, you
know, may vary from, a lot of districts might
be getting newcomers, refugees, students with
interrupted formal education or SIFE students,
so it, you know, what you’re doing could
be changing at a very, you know, kind of frequent
basis.
Lydia: So then let's expand it.
Let's say you want your rest of your colleagues
to have a better sense or maybe just your
grade level team, maybe not necessarily the
whole building or maybe the whole building;
what is the next step that you could take
to say, “Okay, I've started talking to my
administrator; I want them to have better
idea, but now I want my colleagues to have
a better idea because I think maybe this will
help a little bit with collaboration.”
What are some ways that people can share their
role in terms of the rest of the team?
Diane: Yeah, the rest of the team.
Definitely, it could be conversation, first
of all, you know, getting a sense maybe a
little even little survey or a little, you
know, kind of informal meeting of them, sharing
what they do and also what is it they think
that the ESL teacher is doing as well just
to get someone else's perspective because
we also may not realize all the things we're
doing, especially through someone else's eyes,
so I think that would be an important first
step as well and for the ESL teacher to share
all of the expertise she sees or he sees the
content teachers bringing.
Lydia: One idea that that reminds me – you
had mentioned the itinerant teacher; we interviewed
a teacher from Washington DC and he said at
the beginning of every year, he sends a letter
to his colleagues introducing himself because
he knows he’s not going to be in the building
all the time so he explains what he does,
he explains some of the ways that they can
work together and he kind of outlines some
very concrete strategies and I think that's
actually a great idea for all educators of
ELLs, not just the itinerant ones, that can
say here’s some way so you start planting
the seeds in terms of where they can go from
now.
We have some great comments here and someone
named Nancy says, “I love your book, have
plans to present it this fall, so excited
for this event – wonderful and we love Colorín
Colorado.”
Michelle Campbell Benegas says, “We love
Diane at Hamline University in Minnesota,”
so Diane your fans are writing in, which is
very exciting.
Diane: That’s nice.
Lydia: One other topic in terms of working
with your colleagues with your collaborators
is this idea of empathy; this is something
you also talk about your in your book in building
empathy for ELLs and again it's something
it sounds like a great goal, but what does
that look like in practice?
How do you make that little more concrete?
Diane: Right, I think, you know, first of
all, just the recognizing the need for empathy
is, you know, kind of the big first step,
especially right now in our political climate
where that level of empathy, you know, may
be diminished among some, or some people see
this as an opportunity to let their true feelings,
whatever they may be, shine so definitely
developing empathy is, you know, a very big
goal and there are many ways you can approach
it, even just moving the needle a little bit
and I feel like through storytelling that’s
really a way to have others, you know, sense,
have a sense of why, why people have come
to the U.S., why immigrants bring such a rich
experience and language and culture and also
try to get a sense of what some of the struggles
may be like.
You know, I try to empathize but again, you
know, having lived abroad it was a very different
perspective of, you know, someone who's working,
who’s literate who, you know, just has a
lot of privileges that many people may not
have so just developing those empathy skills
are super important.
I talk about some ways, you know, in the book,
some ways to develop a little bit of empathy
of what it might feel like to be an ELL is
to, you know, teach a class in another language
or just some content and do it in a way that
many of our ELLs face is just, you know, a
lot of lecture and without a lot of support
or scaffolding or visuals, for example, just
to see, you know, what's it like even for
five or ten minutes, and that, in doing some
professional development last year to a district
in New York, I did that with a group in German
and, you know, and at the end of the whole
year of us, you know, working with them on
professional development coming back all the
time, one teacher wrote that was just the
most, you know, impactful moment of, you know,
that of the whole year of professional development,
was feeling what it might be like to be an
ELL ,it just really opened that, you know,
high school teachers’ eyes.
Lydia: You speak German yourself –
Diane: I try, yeah.
I’m pretty rusty at this point.
But yeah, I do.
I lived in Germany.
II have a Master’s Degree in German.
Lydia: So you could really deliver something
in another language and you have a math problem
if I'm not mistaken –
Diane: I do.
Lydia: – a geometry problem in German.
So you can even get a sense of what it looks
like to be presented with a math problem where
you see some figures and some shapes that
maybe look familiar but you have no idea what
the vocabulary is and you have no idea what
the question is actually asking.
Diane: Right.
Lydia: Again this comes back to that idea
that something like math is a “universal
language”; well, maybe you think that in
terms of numeracy and working with numbers,
but we know that our, especially in our math
assessments, they are very language rich,
they’re very language heavy and there are
a lot of words that are used that have multiple
meanings and as well as phrases and different
ways to say the same thing so I think that's
a great example.
I know another teacher at Mason Crest, Kimberley
Matthews, who also speaks German and she did
a similar event and so it's a great idea to
find someone if you yourself are not fluent
in another language, perhaps you can find
colleague who is who could deliver just a
very brief mini- lesson to colleagues just
to get a sense of what that feels like, right,
and where, you know, how do you feel?
I actually wrote an article about this on
our, on Colorín Colorado, I took a museum
tour in Spanish, in Ecuador.
Diane: I remember this.
Lydia: And my husband is from Ecuador and
so we were on a tour and it was a fascinating
museum and I was so excited and I'm fluent
in Spanish, you know, I thought, “This is
going to be great, I love museums, it's going
to be wonderful” and I just missed something
and I was, I lost it completely I lost the
train of where it was going and as the tour
went on, I just checked out and I went, and
I started taking photographs.
And there were all these things that would
have helped, there were bilingual signs, I
could have asked my husband if we had had
time, I could have, there were there were
scaffolds that were there but I didn’t have
the time because in we were part of, a it
was a bigger tour day so we were it was just
one short event so we had to get through and
it was just interesting to watch my own feelings
of starting out really enthusiastic about
this museum tour; by the end I was completely
on my own and honestly I thought, “What
if I had been taking a test about this?”
I couldn’t have answered.
I remember in particular there was a word
“bobbin,” now that is not a word that
I know in Spanish, I know “thread,” I
know how to say “cloth.”
Diane: A lot of people don’t know that in
English, what a bobbin is.
Lydia: I know weaving.
Yeah, so I thought, but that was kind of central
to the process they were describing so,
Diane: Right.
Lydia: In any of it it's I think it's instructive
to having experiences where you can feel that
level of frustration and yeah that kind of
alienation that a student might feel.
Diane: Right and even if you don’t have
a live person to give a little lecture, there
are videos that you can find that are out
there and I believe some organizations have
them as well that you can have of someone
delivering a lecture for example in Mandarin,
so if you don't, you know, the next best thing
if you don't have a live person to do it is
to find a video clip and kind of debrief about
it that way, what did the experience feel
like, what could that teacher have done to
make it a little more accessible to you?
Lydia: Absolutely.
And we have a comment from Noel, who, I'm
sorry from Norm, who wants to make sure that
the audience knows we’re talking not only
about just ESL teachers but about bilingual
teachers who also provide instruction in the
home language so that builds on this question
of delivering language through, so thank you,
Norm.
Diane: Right, especially is or dual language
programs become more prevalent across the
U.S.
My own kids are in dual-language programs
as well so I get to see this firsthand.
Lydia: So coming back to this question of
advocacy, I know that one of the ways that
you start in your book is talking about the
importance of really getting to know your
students as a first step in advocacy and that
might not be where people automatically go
when they think about, “What am I doing
to advocate for my students?”
But why, especially with ELLs, but why is
that piece so important?
Diane: Yeah, it’s definitely, you know,
when you’re advocating you really need to
know where the students are coming from because
it is such on a case-by-case basis, depending
on students’ backgrounds or education level,
socio-economic levels, they may need more
or less advocacy at certain points, and that
it's always going to be changing.
So I talked about in the book the concept
of scaffolded advocacy, where you really need
to know each student's background in order
to provide that amount of scaffolded advocacy
so, you know, in instruction, we want to scaffold
our instruction for English language learners
or dual language learners and provide them
just the amount of support they need as they’re
developing their language skills with the
goal of removing that support, so it's temporary,
the same thing for our scaffolds, for our,
sorry, our advocacy, that we want to provide
temporary advocacy support with the goal of
ELLs and their families being able to advocate
for themselves as they develop more skills
and more language skills or more advocacy
skills in general and so to be able to provide
the right amount of advocacy and the right
type of advocacy, we have to know who our
students are and where they're coming from.
And, you know, a great way to do that is through
home visits, so getting to know the families
personally; we might not have all the time
to do that and it shouldn't be just the ESL
or dual language teacher or bilingual teacher
or a very caring content teacher or social
worker doing that all by themselves; it needs
to be the community and we need to really,
you know, work with others and collaborate
so we can be, you know, fanning out and really
being able to interact and support all of
our families and students.
Lydia: Excellent.
Well, I'm just going to take this brief moment
to say thank you to everyone who is watching,
we're not ending, it sounds like we're about
to end, I just want to thank those of you
who are tuning in and say we're happy to take
your questions and comments.
I'm Lydia Breiseth, the manager of Colorín
Colorado and this is our first Facebook Live
event with Diane Staehr Fenner, talking about
advocacy for English language learners, so
for those of you just tuning in, you’ll
know what you are seeing.
Now you just had mentioned collaboration,
so this a really interesting and important
topic and you had mentioned that yesterday,
you were just doing some professional development
in Syracuse and you got a question from someone
who said, “I know how important it is to
collaborate with other educators on behalf
of my students but my administrator has not
given us any extra time to do so, so what
can I do to support and advocate for my ELLs
without that planning time and is there a
way that maybe we can start working towards
a schedule that incorporates that a little
bit more?”
Diane: Right, right so that was a really good
question that came up, so I was in Syracuse,
New York yesterday working with educators
from across the region through an educational
organization there in that area and, you know,
there are definitely different stories, again
comes back to stories, with some teachers
saying that, you know, they’re given common
planning time, they have planning time before
school, common planning time during school,
and afterschool even to get together and collaborate
but, you know, they're also, the flip side
of that is as there are very many schools
and I would, you know, I would dare to say
probably more on the side that do not have
that common planning time.
Sometimes we see it more built in with special
ed and less built in with ESL, so, you know,
it's upon us to advocate for ourselves and
to try to get that planning time but, you
know, it's good question, what can you do
when you don’t have that common planning
time and your administrator might not think
that’s as important yet so, you know, there
are definitely ways and, you know, one person
in the professional development session said,
“Well if you don’t get your administrator
on board just forget it.
It's just kind of dead on arrival,” and
I thought, “Well no, that's not true.”
And so, you know, I asked others there, “Well,
what can you do, you know, what can you do
to kind of flip this narrative and really
have your administrator more on board or if
they're not there yet, you know, what can
you do on your own to, you know, take charge
of the situation?” and so I always, you
know, bring it back to the teachers, you know,
they're the ones with the answers, they're
the ones with the best practices to share.
And they say, you know, if you don't have
kind of that space built in you can be, you
know, as start you can be texting each other
at night; others have used technology so they’re
sharing lessons on different platforms and
well ahead of time so even if they're not
meeting face-to-face, they’re chiming in,
they're using for example Google, you know,
Google Docs, Google Drive to do that to share
their lesson plans where, you know, the ESL
teacher can provide some scaffolding can,
you know, comment and provide that way; maybe
if it's dually identified ELLs with special
needs, the special ed teacher can be providing
comments and suggestions that way.
So there definitely, you know, hacks, there
workaround for the situation where it's ideal
to have that planning time but maybe then,
you know, after you’ve kind of done this
on your own on the sidelines, you could then,
you know, meet with your administrator and
show them all the work you're doing behind
the scenes and maybe that administrator could
be swayed to give you some, you know, collaborative
planning time built in through the day or
the week anyway.
Lydia: So that’s great and I think that's
where sort of understanding people's roles
–
Diane: Yes.
Lydia: – is important so that your colleagues
see the benefit of working together with you
and we had talked about how, you know, sometimes
teachers of English language learners or bilingual
teachers are sort of treated as a volunteer
really in the room to help with some administrative
tasks and their full range of knowledge and
background and expertise is nowhere near being
used to the level that they can offer and
so I think that is where having some background
on what that role is and then starting with
those simple strategies can build.
And I think it's an example of starting small,
right?
Just because the entire school is not a professional
learning community, doesn’t mean you can't
collaborate and just because the administrator
hasn't set the time, if you sort of start
looking for some small ways maybe that begins
to change the culture slowly; as you said
once you have some successes, then you can
look for those opportunities.
Diane: Absolutely and I totally believe in
starting small.
We wrote that about wrote about starting small
in our recent blog post together on leadership
just, you know, taking those successes and
kind of gaining some momentum from them and
building to something bigger is really important,
I think.
Lydia: And then when you get practice talking
about them and you can sort of show some examples
and then you’re advocating, you’re leading.
Diane: Right.
Lydia: And you’re potentially opening the
door for collaboration.
I think that can really go a long way.
One concern about collaboration, and I know
this is true more so in certain parts of the
country than in others, but one concern is
that, “I don’t want to collaborate myself
out of job.”
I still have a role to play so what would
you say to somebody who is concerned about
starting that relationship, giving some of
their colleagues some extra skills and then
feeling like, “But now it seems like my
skills might be obsolete”?
Diane: Right yeah, there definitely is concern
as some, you know, districts as some states
specifically move to more collaborative models,
you know, what the what then, you know, if
you're not pulling the kids out for, if you're
not pulling out ELLs for separate instruction
and you are in a more collaborative environment,
you know, how can you make sure that you maintain
your skills and you keep, you know, you keep
your position; I think there’s always going
to be room and always definitely a big space
for ESL teachers’ expertise and it's important
to really show what, you know, what you can
do and what you know, it especially, you know,
areas like a culture, academic language, the
community piece is so big, to really again
go back to demonstrating and having those
opportunities to really highlight what it
is that you’re bringing what skills you're
bringing and, you know, we don't want to toot
our own horns in a way too much but you do
want to, you know, point out subtly to teachers,
you know, when you’re collaborating, you
know, what the scaffolds are, what the strategies
are that you specifically as the ESL teacher
or the bilingual teacher might bring to the
playing field and really highlight those.
Lydia: This morning on NPR, I was listening
to a story about a woman who had been on one
of the winning U.S. women's soccer teams and
she talked about how so often, we want to
check all the boxes before we put our name
for something, we want to make sure we have
absolutely every “i” dotted and every
“t” crossed before we take that next step
and I think that’s, and she was saying but
we get in our own way because by the time
every box has been checked, we have moved
on, or the opportunity might have moved on
and so I think it's just useful to think that,
you know, there may be enough there to really
have an impact even if, in your mind, the
checklist isn't completely filled out.
Diane: Absolutely, absolutely and I think
our own, you know, our own culture has to
do with that, you know, our personal culture
and also, you know, to be honest, I think
gender has something to do with that where,
you know, women maybe a little less inclined
sometimes, depending on the woman, men might
be too, but to really put their name out there
until they feel like they've really met all
the criteria so it's a personality thing as
well.
Lydia: And that was the context to say generally
it's women who want to get all those boxes
checked off and so we don’t necessarily
take the step forward, so it’s, I think
it's a useful reminder.
We have another comment about empathy.
Nancy says “Our graduate professor from
Puerto Rico did a hands-on lesson to develop
empathy for ELLs in French about sink or float
with real props such as a bowl of water, a
button, a piece of paper, pennies,” so interesting
to sort of take those concepts and give something
tangible.
And Jan says, “Yes!
Community! (exclamation point) Culture! (exclamation
point) Academic language! (exclamation point)”
Diane: Go, Jan!
Thanks!
Lydia: We’re speaking Jan's language.
Karen Nemeth, who is a great friend, and wonderful
collaborator and an expert on language in
early childhood, wants to know how do paraprofessionals
fit into this picture?
Diane: That is a great question, Karen, especially,
you know, in some states I've worked with
recently, in some conferences I've attended
where often times if you can't fill an ESL
teaching position from a certified teacher,
a paraprofessional will take over and be in
that position, so paraprofessionals definitely
fit into this conversation and also giving
them the advocacy skills that they need, and
also giving them a chance to develop sometimes,
you know, the confidence to be able to lead
and to work and to collaborate and to be sure,
you know, clear on what everyone's roles are,
and also what they could be; our roles aren’t
static right they can be, you know, dynamic
and changing and recognizing all the strengths
that paraprofessionals bring.
I recently did some observations of students,
of ELLs, in Pennsylvania in a district and
they had a phenomenal paraprofessional who
is a native Russian speaker who has a PhD
in physics, okay, she’s a paraprofessional
and so the ESL teachers definitely recognized
all of the skills that she brought and that
she, you know, they gave her a chance to shine
and they let her use the language skills because
a lot of the students are native Russian speakers
there and so it was just phenomenal to see
how this paraprofessional’s role had been
elevated and it's our it's our job it's our,
you know, as decent, good human beings to
really allow others to rise up and to help
it happen.
Lydia: And in terms of policy, I think there
are some districts that are looking at the
path that paraprofessionals have to their
teaching credential or to their certification,
right, and so that can is essentially another
area for advocacy and saying how easy is it
for that phenomenal paraprofessional, if she
wants to take the next step in teaching career
to get certified, and the rules vary from
what I understand in some cases it can actually
be very very difficult and very expensive
to take that next step, so that seems like
another area where educators can be looking
for advocacy.
Diane: Right and sorry to butt in, but it
just makes me think of this one phenomenal
teacher, Jesus, in Syracuse City School District,
you know, very high poverty system, he's bilingual
teacher and one of the best teachers you've
ever seen honestly and he was a paraprofessional
and so he moved up into that teaching role
and he’s just ready to take on the world;
and he’s a wonderful teacher and advocate,
so also a native Spanish speaker from Puerto
Rico just like, you know, many of his students,
so it's great to see, you know, to see that
happen.
Lydia: That’s great.
Well, thank you for tuning in.
This is Lydia Breiseth, the manager of Colorín
Colorado and we're here on Facebook Live talking
about advocating for English language learners
with Diane Staehr Fenner and, you know, thinking
about the role of the educator who is working
with ELLs, one project that we have been working
on again in collaboration with the National
Education Association is talking about what
does collaboration looks like on behalf of
ELLs and we had the opportunity, I had mentioned
Mason Crest Elementary School in Annandale,
Virginia where we had the opportunity to visit
and to film some of their teacher meetings
and some of what they’re doing, and in that
case they really are a professional learning
community that is set up absolutely throughout
the whole building, starting with the principals
and the school was created as a professional
learning community.
And the way that their meetings work, they
have planning meetings during the week and
the ESL, everyone is attending, so all the
specialists, all those classroom teachers
and so the ESL teacher is there to be listening
to the conversation, looking at the lesson,
is this taking ELL needs into account?
For example, in one of the meetings in which
we were observing, the question was going
to be, to start the lesson, “Where have
you seen this word before?” and she said,
“I would change that to, ‘Have you seen
this word before?’
So we don’t want to start the lesson with
kids already feeling like they’re behind.”
The other great thing that she did was take
lunch hour to do some extra previewing of
vocabulary words and concepts and so by the
time the kids got to the lesson, they already
had a little bit of a leg up on it and it
really, you could see they were very confident
in what they did, so looking for places where
you are taking the expertise of the teacher
and then you're moving forward and building
upon it.
So I want to move to another topic that I
know you get a lot of questions about, which
is special education and advocacy and it's
– we could do a whole series of Facebook
Live events just on this topic, but I am curious
to know what are the kinds of questions you're
hearing from educators.
What are their real concerns when it comes
to advocacy?
Diane: Right and so this is kind of, you know,
coming off the heels of doing a wonderful
day working with teachers yesterday on this
topic, teachers and administrators on, you
know, the idea, you know, of finding students
eligible, ELLs eligible for special education,
and then if they're found eligible, what kind
of instructional strategies do we use so,
you know, the questions we still get, this
is, you know, questions I would get in Fairfax
County Schools, you know, when does special
education kind of trump, for lack of a better
term, ESL services and, you know, there are
times when certain people think, “Oh it's
an ELL who's dually identified; they need
the special education more, not the ESL services.”
Well that’s, you know, that's not the case
and that they should be provided access to
both types of services, so that's, you know,
that's a big question we tend to get.
Also another question that I tend to hear
is, you know, “I, in our district and, you
know, for a while maybe we over-identified,
you know, ELLs for special education; now
the pendulum has swung the other way, but
I really, I have this kid that I think really
might be having something else going on, so
how can I convince, you know, our local screening
committee or, you know, our committee that
meets to discuss these needs?
How can I convince them to take a deeper look
at this student?”
So those are some questions, you know, that
we see that, you know, things, we look at
the data, you know, we really want to discuss
trends, what’s happening and, you know,
what can we do to correctly and appropriately
identify students and, then if, if warranted
then, you know, provide them supports that
they need, you know, throughout their instructional
day, so it's still, you know, really a big
need for advocacy still, you know, there's
still a lack of bilingual psychologists, and
you know, highly qualified interpreters and
translators especially in an area where, you
know, that can really have detrimental effects
on students either way if they're over-identified
or under-identified.
Lydia: So for that question of how can I convince
my team to take a deeper look at the student,
what would be some ideas or strategies you
would recommend?
Diane: Yeah, definitely as far as strategies
go look at both languages, so look at, you
know, proficiency and development in both
languages to the extent you can.
Compare that student’s trajectory and their
results in English language acquisition and
or, you know, performance and content areas
with students with similar backgrounds to
the degree possible.
So don't compare Johnny to Jose, compare Jose
to Maria or whomever, looking at kids from,
you know, with student backgrounds that are
quite similar and also definitely looking
at data and, you know, showing the numbers,
but also attaching a story to the data.
So we go back to our story theme again, where,
you know, what does this mean, looking at
the student's background and trying to put
the pieces together of what kind of, you know,
background do they have, what kind of education,
were they schooled in the home language?
If they were, was it a quality schooling or
not, so these are, you know, definitely some
factors to consider.
So I definitely want to give a shout-out to
Lynn Shafer Willner at WIDA, who's written
some articles for Colorín Colorado, who’s
looking more into this issue as well.
Lydia: Yes, and that’s WIDA, we’re here
at Colorín Colorado is based at WETA of Washington
DC, and we also interviewed Lynn.
We have a great interview with her.
We also have an interview with Debbie Zacarian
and she talks about this idea of the pendulum
and that there's an overcorrection and then
there’s an overcorrection in both directions
in terms of over- and under- identification
and what is missing there is what do the students
need and so just because you have been doing
it in one direction, doesn't mean that going
in the other direction is fixing that problem;
really the central question is what do students
need and are you working together in a team
so that you bring different areas of expertise.
And one my favorite stories comes from a book
published by Caslon press and I believe the
title is Special Education Considerations
for English Language Learners and it talks
about a student who is having some trouble
with some reading sounds and so the teacher
asks the bilingual colleague to come and say
“Would you just take a look and observe
and see what you notice?” and so they're
going around and doing their activity and
the teacher says, you know, “I need a word
that begins with ‘T’” so someone says
“tree” and someone says “table” and
the little boy raises his hand and says, “Maestra”
and so she kind of looks over at the bilingual
colleague and to say, “See what I mean?”
and so the bilingual colleague pulls her aside
after class and says, “‘Maestra’ means
‘teacher’ in Spanish,” so this was a
little boy that potentially was on track to
be identified as special education.
Now another language-related example that
we've heard about is at a school called Wolfe
Street Academy in Baltimore, Maryland and
they were having a lot of identification of
special ed kids who spoke Spanish.
Turns out these were not actually Spanish
speakers as their first language.
They spoke Mixtec, and given the feelings
about the language, it’s something that
the families themselves weren't proud of,
it was sort of a stigma, so they hadn't told
anybody they spoke Mixtec, so the school didn’t
actually know that this was a language group
that they had and again once they realized
that the assessment that they thought they
were helping the students by giving in Spanish
was also not identifying, then they regrouped
and they also started talking with the families
about, “You know, this is your language,
this is part of your children's identity and
culture, and let’s, you know, see if we
can find someone who might speak a little
Mixtec in front of a couple of people” and
they they made it part of the culture.
Now on the other hand you have, as you were
saying, the case where the child needs to
be in ESL services or needs to have, you know,
three to seven years of language instruction
before we test them and then you end up missing
it so I think that question of it's not that
one size is going to fit all here and the
question is does the child have the services
they need and as you said, students who qualify
– I think you can't say it enough, is students
who qualify for both ESL and special education
have to have both services
Diane: Right.
Lydia: One does not take priority, and also
putting ESL students in special education
is not necessarily helping at all.
Diane: No.
Lydia: It's not a comp- it's not an, it’s
an apples and oranges kind of thing and there
may be some overlap and some scaffolds and
we like to say what’s good for ELLs is good
for everybody but I think also that idea,
you know, “Well at least they’re getting
some attention,” or “At least they’re
getting something” is not an effective approach
to that.
Diane: That reminds me of the story of where,
my company, SupportEd, we just launched our
first online advocacy course for ELLs in the
spring and one of the, you know, we had participants
from all over the country, it was a great
community, we're going to do it again this
summer in this fall, run the course, as one
teacher that we had just commented once in
one of our discussions that, “Oh yeah, in
my district they place all ELLs in kindergarten
in special ed,” and we were like, “Whoa,
stop the presses!
Hold on.
Back up.
Did you really just say that?”
So that was, you know, a huge, because they,
at this district they figure, “Well at least
that will get them some services,” but,
you know, so we were able to, that teacher
then was able to advocate and, you know, help
to turn that situation around so, it's kind
of saying that.
Lydia: You know, some of these are sort of
case by case, student by student, teacher
by teacher, but it’s absolutely true that
some of these practices are very widespread
and they can go to a school or to district.
The example that you gave at the beginning
in terms of “Can you keep Jose home on test
day?”
I believe, and I hope I'm getting this right,
Linda Darling Hammond talks about this in
one of her books about some data that was
showing that either at a district or a state
level there were efforts to keep ELLs home
that were very planned and organized to keep
ELLs home on testing days, so it’s not just
a kind of a casual comment on the playground;
it was actually of organized to have that
impact, so these issues, it may feel like
one person, “What can I do?”
but sort of starting to take these little
steps really can make difference.
We've been talking a lot about stories and
the importance of storytelling and that is
particularly relevant right now in this climate
when you’re trying to feel like how can
people understand each other’s situations
and perspectives a little bit better and you
had shared a story with me about storytelling
and I wonder if you just mind sharing that
with our audience.
Diane: A story about a story.
Lydia: A story about a story.
Diane: Yeah, yeah, so I was in Oklahoma, Central
Oklahoma speaking at a conference this spring
– that's the story you're talking about
I hope –
Lydia: That’s the story.
That’s the right story.
Diane: Okay, and Laura Grisso who's the, I
hope I get her title correct, she's the director
of ESL in Tulsa Public Schools, was talking
about the power of storytelling and her husband
is actually, I believe he’s a teacher or,
you know, they are this great Tulsa power
couple that he's in education, wants to support
ELLs and she’s the ESL director and he told
the story about his wife being at a church
event and then fellow parishioners talking
about the impact of immigration and refugees
and so he noticed that there was a lot of
negative sentiment, but Laura Grisso told
the story about a family and a family's kind
of place and struggles and the her husband
was able to see like a little shift, a little
small difference in the kind of a “Huh,
I hadn't thought about it like that before,”
so giving, you know, giving a human face to
a situation and making it about one person
really can be very powerful and helping people
maybe not, you know, shift their views completely
but maybe see things in a different way.
Lydia: And what was so powerful about that,
I think, is that what she later saw in a classroom,
from what I remember, was that some students
were then sharing their stories and she was
seeing the impact of those stories and so
she sort of had this moment like, “Storytelling,
this is about storytelling,” so advocacy
can be telling a story.
Diane: Absolutely.
Lydia: And based on that, we were able to
follow up with her and we're going to have
an article about this topic coming up soon
so I’m really excited that she was willing
to share that with her.
Again, we should say it was her husband who
brought this to Diane’s attention.
She was not tooting her own horn here but
her husband stepped forward and thank goodness
he did, because now I think a lot of people
are going to benefit from that and think about
in a way where you don't want to be confrontational,
but you have a perspective on these students
and on these families that are really unique
and special.
And I think, one of the points if I remember
correctly was that she talked about how a
child whose parent is detained won't have
a chance to say goodbye to that parent and
for whatever reason that really blew this
man’s mind; he just, he thought that there
would be some kind of meeting where they would
come together or they would have something
and there was something just about the emotional
impact of that that I think really hit home
for him, and so you just you just don't know
–
Diane: Right.
Lydia: – what is going to resonate with
somebody, but I think in this time when, when
the educators in the building who are working
with English language learners are the ones
who sort of know them best that’s a really
interesting role.
The other story that we heard recently is
a teacher who responded to us on a survey
and we had said, you know, “What are you
doing to support your immigrant families,
we want to hear?” and she said what I really
want to know is what I'm allowed to do because
this is a big question: “What are my district
policies and I don't want to put my job in
jeopardy.
I want to help my families, I don't know what
I'm allowed to do.”
So I followed up with her by email and by
the time I followed up with her, she had been
scheduled for a meeting with the superintendent
of the school district because she was asking
and asking and asking and she wasn't getting
any answers from anybody and finally someone
said, like, “Let's just set up a meeting.”
I'm not sure who took the initiative to set
up the meeting but she got to that point;
she started the meeting by sharing some student
stories.
The superintendent hadn't quite understood
the full impact of what was happening and
how it was having an impact on the families
and he said, “I fully support what you say
you want to do.
I think we should clarify this for the district-wide
staff.
I don't want the press here, so I want to
kind of keep it on the DL, but I do support
what you’re doing,” and I thought it was
so interesting because here was a case where
she was thinking that maybe she wasn’t allowed
to do something, but it was just a question
of, the superintendent hadn’t quite focused,
zeroed in on it and hadn’t wanted to do
anything that was inflammatory but when presented
with the situation and her ideas, he decided
that this was actually something that could
be very helpful for families, that in fact
he really did want to be supportive, and I
thought this is such an amazing example so
here she, as an individual classroom teacher,
was going to have an impact on the entire
school district and potentially on the families
on what was going to happen, so I think these
again with the power of the story the power
of the personal example can really go a long
way building those bridges and helping people
find how do we work together on behalf of
students.
Diane: And hopefully some listeners are getting
some ideas if they haven't done it already.
Lydia: Absolutely.
I think so and, you know, one idea that I
am having as we’re talking is that all of
these great resources I'm talking about, we’ll
put in link on a page you can see them from
our website and if you want to see that video
with Debbie Zacarian or you want to see Laura's
article about storytelling, you'll be easy
to find so we’ll make sure that's included
in this post.
Diane: That's one of the many, many things
I love about Colorín Colorado is that how
you just you recognize and you celebrate what
great things are happening out there and so
people can read from that and get inspired
to do their own work or to build off something
that that they reading about here or share
their own story.
Lydia: Thinking in terms of what's coming
next year, people are looking ahead to the
coming school year, do you have any last tips
as people are sort of planning their, you
know, maybe they're feeling like, “Okay,
I have just been sort of going day by day
this year,” it's been an unusual year to
say the least, it's been of something coming
at people every day that’s new, taking a
little bit of time for some reflection over
the summer, but what advice would you have
as people think about, “Okay, what do I
want to do next year?
What's the role I want to play on behalf of
my students next year?”
Diane: I think it’s really important to
take a few minutes, or maybe longer than a
few minutes, and really reflect on, you know,
what you've done well what can you, you know,
what can you focus on next year, try not to
do too much try to, you know, have goal in
mind that you think you can accomplish and,
you know, kind of looking at what your sphere
of influence is and where how wide that can
be what kind of an impact you can have and
look to an area where you think you can, you
know, make it more of a difference or have
good chance to make a difference and really
try to map it out, you know, set up plan set
up what are your milestones, what are your
objectives, when do you want to accomplish
them, what kind of timeframe are you looking
at, and who do you need to collaborate with
and what will, how will you know when you're
successful?”
So I think just kind of closing down the year
with a plan and kind of revisiting it over
the summer and looking at it again, you know,
in the fall will be, you know, it would be
a good way to end the year in a reflective
way and, you know, really gear up for the
next school year.
Lydia: That’s great, and I would add who
are your allies.
Diane: Absolutely.
Lydia: Because if you can make some partnerships
and you can take a plan to your principal
with, as a team and I think that might help,
and who are your allies in the community,
if there’s a particular immigrant community
maybe you're looking at and you want to be
figuring out how can we strengthen our relationships,
who are the people who know that.
And speaking of reflection, we do have a great
new article about reflecting on the year and
really going beyond the typical end-of-the-year
questions because this was a hard year in
other words for a lot of people and it was
a year that just required people to sort of
be at the top of their game every single day
without quite knowing what to expect and what
would happen ,for all students, really, right
so just taking moment to say, “Wow, what
are your, what have we accomplished, you know,
what opportunities have come and what are
the things that we can have in place next
year?”
We're going to be wrapping us our chat pretty
soon but were there any other final things
or thoughts that you wanted to add as we wrap
up?
Diane: Well just, you know, want to give you
an opportunity thank you for all that, you
know, you have done and Colorín Colorado
has done to really spread the word about advocacy
and about collaboration in support of ELLs
and I also want to thank you for the new foreword
that you've written for our new book with
my colleague Sydney Snyder so, you know, I
really want to thank you for all of the support
and really, you know, celebrating teachers’
successes and bringing those to the forefront
and also, you know, all in the name of supporting
our wonderful ELLs and their families.
Lydia: Well, it's my pleasure and I do have
your book here because I want people to know
that it's been published, it's published by
Corwin Press; this is Unlocking English Learners’
Potential and what is particularly special
about this book for me is that a lot of it
came out of the work that you and Sydney did
on our blog, so as you were hearing from people
that this particular strategy was helpful
or this particular idea was doing really well,
that took on a life of its own, and then you
were able to present it in professional development
and eventually compile into book that has
great ideas on collaboration, scaffolding,
differentiation of instruction, and so it
was really a privilege to be able to write
the foreword knowing that it came from that
process and that place and so I am also grateful
for that opportunity.
Thank you for all the amazing work you've
done and for those of you who don't know the
story behind Diane’s blog, when the Common
Core State Standards were released we noticed
that there were these little efforts of on
behalf of English language learners here and
there and there was the, what was the document
called, it wasn't an addendum, it began with
an “A”, it was them it was there was one
for special education rights, and one for
English language about –
Diane: About a three-page document, yeah.
Lydia: Right, it was, and so we started seeing
there was a PowerPoint here and then there
was a statement here and then there was only
a little bit of a blog post here and eventually
that started picking up and so I thought we
really need to know what's happening on behalf
of ELLs because the ELL community was working
really furiously to try to figure out how
do we make this work for our students even
though the official standards hadn't quite
address their needs and so I thought, “What
we need is blog, a place where we can just
put up quick update,” and so I called Diane
and Diane said, “I've already keeping track
of all this and I don't have anything to do
with it; I've been making these bookmarks
and taking these notes and I didn't know why
I was doing it.
Now we have the answer,” so that's what
it became, and as more college and career-ready
standards like the Next Generation Science
Standards have come out, we've just expanded
that and it's really been a great, great collaboration
and it led to this book which is exciting
and to this chat.
So I think that will pretty much wrap it up
for here.
So we want to again thank our partner the
National Education Association for making
this event possible as well as our future
events that are going to be coming in the
fall; we're going to have some fabulous topics
and guests and I won’t give them away yet
because we’re still confirming, so I want
to make sure we have it all confirmed before
we publicize but you can be looking for a
number of these events in the fall in new
school year and also as always thank our partner
the AFT, the American Federation of Teachers,
and for those of you who love Colorín Colorado
it’s because we have these partnerships
with the AFT and the NEA, because we are in
contact with so many teachers, so many people
in the field who have been in the classrooms
for a long time and have really practical
actionable ideas that they can say, “Well,
that's not quite the way we would do it,”
or “That doesn't sound too realistic to
me,” and so that's that’s really the secret
to our success or all of the wonderful teachers
and the families as well who have contributed
their ideas over the years.
So we want to thank you for tuning in to this
event and we will look forward to seeing you
and as always you can reach us at info@colorincolorado.org.
You can also follow us on Twitter or on Facebook
if you’re interested to see what's coming
up; we have a monthly newsletter where we
send out our events, what's going on.
One other thing I wanted to mention is that
every morning we post headlines from around
the country about ELLs and ELL stories and
then on Friday we send a news blast that has
all the stories from the week so that's a
great way just if you’re interested in seeing
what’s happening in other places, in other
districts and other states, it's a great way
to keep up with it so we have a lot of different
ways to connect online and as I mentioned
our monthly newsletter to see what's our newest
content and what’s coming up so as well
as the blog posts, we sort of we go up and
down with how often we post there but it's
still there and all of that great content
is available.
So thank you so much fortuning in today we
will look forward to seeing you in our next
event, Facebook Live, and I think that's a
wrap, so thank you for being with us today
and as we mentioned at the beginning there
will be an archive of this even there on Facebook
as well as on our website so you can share
it with your friends who don't have a Facebook
log in necessarily but there will be a video
available for those of you who want to share
it in another place so thank you so much for
joining us today.
We'll look forward to seeing you in our next
event and thanks for joining us.
