Taking advantage of the break between semesters, I’ve spent the last week looking over test data from a middle school in Washington, D.C. to see how inequities in the way students and schools are evaluated serve to hide wonderful things that are happening in many of our urban classrooms and effectively force entire school districts to keep scrambling when they should in fact be building on the success they do have but that no one wants to acknowledge. It is always frustrating in education when the systems we have in place—designed though they are (supposedly) to ensure that everyone is adequately recognized and taught—in fact squeeze the air out of attempts to establish individualized targets and design individualized methods in order to teach the living people who are actually in front of us.

It is an issue that came up frequently in conversations with students in a class on working with children with special needs that I was teaching in the fall. After one class where students had been given roles to simulate an IEP meeting, the student who had been assigned the role of the parent of a student with an emotional disorder explained that she had been frustrated during the activity because the person who played the school psychologist rattled down endless information about her child that she couldn’t understand. Again we talked about how our educational systems build structures that can ensure equity or can simply sideline the individual. One student suggested that it was yet another instance of a system being only as good as the people who implement it. How right she was!

I keep coming back to this thought as I pour over more of this test data and think again about what it is that we are doing as teachers and teacher educators. As long as we keep reminding ourselves that it is all about the individuals we work with and about giving them attention, access, opportunities, power, and all of our own humanity, then we are doing it right. 

Dr. Peter Martin, Asst. Professor, Education Dept.  

Want to catch up or get ahead with your coursework? Winter Session is a great way to do just that! It begins January 11 and runs through January 22, 2010.

The Department of Education will be offering two Winter Session courses in January: Early Field Experience: Theory and Practice (EDUC 21910) and Social and Cultural Foundations of Education (EDUC 34000).

One or both of these courses are required for undergraduate students enrolled in the teaching options in the Schools of H&S, HSHP, and Music. In addition, both courses satisfy prerequisite requirements for students seeking admission to the Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) Program in Adolescence Education and the Master of Science (M.S.) in Childhood Education program in H&S.

Social and Cultural Foundations of Education will meet Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. If you decide to take Early Field Experience: Theory and Practice in the Winter Session you will spend each day in your public school field placement followed by seminar on campus at the end of the school day. (If you decide to register for this course, please contact the instructor at tmichel@ithaca.edu as soon as possible so your field placement can be arranged ahead of time.)

Online registration for Winter Session courses ends on Friday, December 18th. If you want to register for a course after this date you must contact the office of Graduate and Professional Studies directly.

Think about it!

Terry Michel, Education Department

This week (November 3, 2009) the local newspaper reports on the challenges of higher education institutions in attracting and retaining students in science and math. For several years, the number of students majoring in science related programs has been declining and the number of graduates in these areas is smaller every year.  In the area of education, the situation is similar. Very few students major in teacher education in math or science. The state offers fantastic incentives for students interested in becoming math teachers (New York State Math & Science Teaching Incentive Program) and the job opportunities in this area are great. Every year school districts across the country struggle to fill positions for math teachers. This is a unique opportunity for young professionals interested in making a difference in the educational system by getting more students interested in math and science in elementary and high school. Explore the options and think about this career.

Cristina Gomez-Asst. Professor, Department of Education

           In the past twenty-five years, demographic shifts have produced in changes in the student profile of our nation’s schools. While the presence of multilingual and biliterate children dates back to the earliest epochs of American educational history (Crawford, 2004; Kloss, 1977), school districts across the country have witnessed an increase in the number of heritage, bilingual, and second language learners. 

            Regrettably, our nation has failed to view our children’s diverse linguistic and cultural traditions as an American resource. On the contrary, a variety of deficit ideologies (Valdés, 1997) have fostered debilitating myths regarding the value of our citizenry’s bilingualism and biliteracy. In turn, false notions of linguistic deficiency have prompted the majority of school districts to adopt policies aimed at replacing the primary language of linguistically diverse learners with American English. At the same time, global institutions cite the necessity for multilingual and biliterate nations. Both domestic events and international trends demand the reconsideration of educational practices aimed at substituting one form of monolingualism with another. The realization of our nation’s biliterate potential remains an untapped source of strength, security, and pride within a population of children growing at five times the average rate of their peers (Menken & Antuñez, 2001).

Heritage, Bilingual, and Second Language Children in American Schools

            The quality and type of educational services provided for heritage, bilingual, and second language learners varies considerably according to school district (Hamayan, 1990; NCES, 2003). As a whole, these biliterate potentials comprise an underserved and misrepresented academic population. Many bilingual children are either denied essential instructional support or are staffed into remedial or special education programs (Hamayan, 1990; Baca & Cervantes, 2004; Halcón, 2001). Both actions fail to honor the instructional needs and civil rights of these students. 

            In those academic contexts where specialized instructional support is administered, the majority of programs seek to transition the child from home to school languages. By viewing a child’s primary home language other than English as a cultural mismatch or academic handicap, schools have implemented inappropriate, untenable, and harmful educational prescriptions (Thomas & Collier, 2002; Hamayan, 1990; de la Luz-Reyes & Halcón, 2001). Many parents appropriately fear their child’s attendance in school may result in the deterioration of familial and cultural bonds among a host of other ills (Wong-Fillmore, 2000).

Bilingualism & Education

            Contrary to myths of linguistic deficiency, psycholinguistic research has associated bilingualism with a multitude of cognitive advantages. When compared to monolinguals, bilingual individuals exhibit superior competencies in divergent thinking, creativity, metalinguistic awareness, and communicative sensitivity among other benefits (Baker, 2001). The longitudinal research of Thomas & Collier (1997; 2002) includes a multitude of findings significant to linguistically diverse families. Their research on bilingual program models established that after four to seven years in a dual language program, bilingually schooled students outperform their monolingual counterparts in all areas of academic achievement. The number of years of formal education in the primary language was identified to be the strongest predictor of second language student achievement (Thomas & Collier, 2002). 

            When provided grade-level instruction in their first and second languages, both resident and immigrant children challenged by low socioeconomic conditions achieved at high levels in their target or second language (Thomas & Collier, 2002). Enrichment bilingual programs, including 90%–10% and 50%–50% models were associated with the lowest percentage of student dropouts or pushouts. To date, these models remain the only programs enabling children to score at the 50^th percentile or higher on achievement tests administered in their first and second languages (Thomas & Collier, 2002). When implemented through high quality, well designed enrichment programs, the goal of biliteracy produces a myriad of benefits for linguistically diverse communities and youth.

My Research Agenda

            Toward this end, my research agenda is committed to realize three separate, yet integrated goals. First, I seek to further advance the sociocultural framework constructed by Lev S. Vygotsky as applied to educational and other meaning-making contexts. A Vygotskian approach affords educators and researchers the opportunity to move beyond binary, dichotomous perspectives to examine and resolve multidimensional aspects of current issues that confound progress in schools and society.   

            My second goal is to contribute to the literature on emergent biliteracy. While a plethora of scholars have been associated with the pedagogical aspect of biliteracy, researchers have only begun to establish a foundation for empirical research specific to the dual listening, speaking, reading, and writing of young children in two languages (Bialystok, 2001). I am intensely interested in how young children make meaning while acquiring listening, speaking, reading, and writing proficiencies in two languages. Indeed, my current book presents the semiotic portraits of two such meaning-makers. The academic publisher, Peter Lang, will be showcasing these children’s case studies in a book called Portraits in Emergent Biliteracy in the spring of 2010. My intention is to conduct subsequent research in this vital area to enhance limited understandings regarding the biliteracy acquisition of children between pre-school and third grade. 

            The third goal of my research agenda is to address the requisite for relevant, challenging, and linguistically appropriate instruction for native, heritage, bilingual and second language learners. Demographics suggest that by the year 2020, one-out-of-every-four public school students in the United States will be a second language learner. These statistics herald the creative re-education of all K-12 educators. The interface between our students and an ill-prepared teaching force demands research, practice, and policy by which parents, legislators, teachers, and administrators might more appropriately educate and celebrate linguistically diverse children. I am especially interested in the establishment, implementation, and assessment of dual-immersion, enrichment and alternative bilingual models. 

            At the macro level, I wish to contribute to the efficacy of these program designs through the identification of dynamics that guarantee their success. At the micro level, I am interested in examining and refining instructional approaches that integrate content area knowledge with language-literacy learning. I am currently analyzing three years of data using Echevarria, Vogt & Short’s (2004 ) Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP). The SIOP and other empirical means identify quantitative and qualitative trends and themes in regular classroom teachers’ mastery of specially designed academic instruction in English. 

Professional Objective

            In sum, my professional objective is to utilize teaching, service, and research to advocate for a more equitable, enriched, and superior education on behalf of all children and the educators that serve them. As a former Title VII fellow, I feel an obligation to the parents, families, and communities whose labor contributed to my own education. My hope is to expand the research base on behalf of culturally and linguistically diverse children with the aspiration that all children may one day be afforded similar opportunities.

Dr. Cathrene Connery, Dept. of Education - Nov. 5, 2009

Every seven years faculty members may apply to take a sabbatical that is either a semester or a year away from traditional responsibilities at the college to engage in research and other work related to their academic interests and development. During my sabbatical year of 2008-09, I conducted an interview study with a group of parents/caregivers of youth of color, mostly African American, about the experiences of their children and families with issues of race and racism in school. These parents/caregivers reflect a wide range of social classes and include both biological and adoptive parents of numerous races/ethnicities. The purpose of the study was to gather stories -- or what we call in this kind of research, “narratives” -- that illuminate experiences, issues, and perspectives important for teachers to understand and respect as they work to improve their teaching and interactions with students of color and their families.

I conducted thirteen interviews, each 1½  to 2 hours long, and an Ithaca College student who is helping me with the project transcribed them.  I’m currently in the early stages of analyzing the interviews, having installed them into a computer program that allows me to identify common issues, patterns, and themes.  This preliminary analysis has revealed a number of themes and observations that are very important for educators to understand and address in their work with students of color and their families.  Study participants reported that:

·         they and their children were sometimes the objects/victims of low level expectations/assumptions grounded in negative/racist stereotypes, especially as this related to the guidance and placement of their children

·         their children were, at times, racially harassed and/or disrespected by peers, educators, and/or staff

·         race/racism at times played a subtle role in interactions with educators (“racial micro-aggressions”) causing uncertainty, discomfort, and doubt on the part of both the parents/caregivers and their children

·         the perspectives and concerns of parents/caregivers of children of color were sometimes marginalized in meetings with educators and certain institutional practices

·         institutional procedures and practices sometimes took precedence over addressing the needs of the child

·         the curriculum sometimes failed to present and promote multiculturalism and a respect for diverse cultural identities, and this had negative consequences for children of color

·         disciplinary practices and punishments were sometimes unequal/unfair along racial/ethnic lines

·         experiences with racism in the community influenced how their children interpreted and experienced things that took place at school

·         skin tone sometimes seemed to influence school experience, with darker skinned children treated more negatively than lighter skinned children

·         their own race-related experiences with school influenced their concerns about and interpretations of their children’s school experiences

·         educators sometimes seemed unwilling to really listen to and/or partner with the parents/caregivers

·         many educators seemed unable or unwilling to acknowledge, discuss, and address issues of race and racism

·         the experiences described in the interviews were often distressing and emotionally draining to deal with and discuss

My next step is to “pull out” the stories that best illustrate these issues and themes and to prepare them for use in a workshop I will do with a group of Ithaca School District teachers in early December.  These teachers are “equity mentors” from each of the schools in the district, and in this role they attend workshops around issues of diversity then lead trainings, in each of their schools, based on what they’ve learned.  During spring semester, 2010, I’ll also be leading a series of workshops, with another group of Ithaca teachers who are interested in better addressing issues of race and racism in their teaching.  After that I’ll begin to write articles about my study for presentation at conferences and publication in journals in the field of education. 

Already, though, stories from this project have become an important part of my teaching, as these life experiences provide compelling illustration for some of the things we are reading about and discussing in my classes.  These stories powerfully convey the importance of being more sensitive and skilled in addressing issues of race and racism in schools.  I am deeply appreciative these parents/caregivers have been willing to give of their time and emotion to contribute their stories, and I am humbled and motivated by what they’ve told me.

Jeff Claus, Associate Professor, Education Department--October 21, 2009