Affiliate News - 01/14/2022 (Plain Text Version)
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EDUCATING GLOBAL CITIZENS IN LOUISIANA Amy Pan, President of LaTESOL; Linda Fairchild, Communication Liaison of LaTESOL, Louisiana, USA
Introduction Louisiana Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages was founded in 1980 and is on the 41st President. The motto for the organization is entitled, “Educating Global Citizens in Louisiana!” This is important to have one small little motto that provides a framework for the values and epistemology of the organization. It creates a vision for all board members and fellow members to believe in and support with zeal. Board Membership, Leadership, and Vision Board Membership is crucial to providing a cohesive affiliate. As a volunteer board, we are aware that we do not want to “burn-out” board members. The way we have consistently provided a stealthy board includes: Choosing people who want to serve as board members has been a challenging endeavor, but not something that we will give up on. As an organization, we have had forty (40) presidents. Only three Past Presidents are still on the board. There have been years where multiple people have left the board for various reasons. It is in the best interest to find people who believe in their self-efficacy and the future of building global citizens in Louisiana. This is by building personal relationships with board members. When you invite someone onto the board, you want to have a close working relationship already established so that they feel they are coming to meetings to have a good time. Also, we have recruited thirteen board members who speak eight languages and we represent the English Learners in our state. The languages that our board speaks include Arabic, French, German, Italian, Malay, Mandarin, Spanish, Vietnamese. A sample email to the board begins with:ب ھﻼ Merci Herzlich willkommen Benvenuta Selamat datang 欢迎 Bienvenidas Chào mừng. Challenges and successes The EL population in Louisiana has almost doubled from 2005 to 2017 (NCES, 2017). Two percent of Louisiana teachers have a main teaching assignment of English as a Second Language in a K-12 setting; however, 64 percent of all teachers have at least one English Learner in their classes (NCES, 2018). Seeing this gap in teacher knowledge, LaTESOL aims to educate our EL professionals and other K-12 counterparts for all students to succeed and thrive. When asked about what some of the biggest challenges were presented during the pandemic, rather than bringing up problems and challenging situations, we immediately began discussing the importance of “building a resilient community in the school. First, because of COVID and even before COVID, any kind of teacher turnover is a sense of loss. It’s like mourning. The reason is that these students and all students including the teachers, the faculty, and the staff have got to have a cohesive feel. It is a family in a school.” Student absenteeism is an issue relevant in all communities and has been exasperated due to COVID. Unfortunately, the rate of student absenteeism has doubled across the nation due to COVID (Lieberman, 2020). Home visits are the hardest to do, but they are the most important for those students that are not showing up. Indeed, home visits have shown to be effective in improving both academic achievement and student behavior (Flessa, 2008; National PTA 2010; Wherry, 2009). Reflections on the 2020 Virtual Conference The 2020 Virtual Conference was a success with minimal issues. It took a lot of planning, but we felt that due to the circumstances, we were happy to at least not have canceled the conference. We made $3,000, which was a great turnout, and because we only charged $20, a lot of this was due to Our theme was presented as follows: Welcome to our community and we look forward to learning from you and helping you develop your vision and strategy for advancing your pedagogy as a professional in the field of English as a Second Language and as global citizens. This work is guided by the vision that one of the most important educational challenges of our time is to prepare all people to be the architects of their own lives and contributing members of the communities of which we are a part. Those communities are local, regional, national, and global. The question we face, therefore, is how we develop global citizens and global leadership among English as a Second Language Educators? We know that Louisiana educators are meeting the needs of our English Learners in K-12, Higher Education, and Adult Education. At LaTESOL we value the fusion between global citizenship and the English as a Second Language global sphere. One aspiration for this conference is to help you learn, from each other and from reflection, as well as from your engagement with new ideas and new practices, on how to strengthen your future in ways that most effectively advance this vision. Artist Norman Rockwell’s 1961 painting Golden Rule shows a group of people of different religions, races, and ethnicities who serve as the backdrop for the inscription “Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You.” The Golden Rule, also known as the Ethic of Reciprocity, has been valued by human societies for thousands of years and is found worldwide through cultures, religions, secular philosophies, and indigenous traditions. Norman Rockwell was a compassionate and liberal man, and this simple phrase reflected his philosophy. Having traveled all his life and been welcomed wherever he went, Rockwell felt like a citizen of the world, and his politics reflected that value system. From photographs he’d taken on his 1955 round-the-world Pan Am trip, Rockwell referenced native costumes and accessories and how they were worn. In 2014 the United Nations rededicated a large mosaic of Norman Rockwell’s iconic 1961 illustration, Golden Rule, which hangs in their New York City Headquarters. The work was originally presented to the UN in 1985 as a gift on behalf of the United States by then-First Lady Nancy Reagan (Adapted from the Norman Rockwell Museum). 2021 Conference Planning Our 2021 Conference theme is “Listening for Understanding,” which was a term that Dr. Deardorff, our 2020 Plenary speaker, mentioned is important in intercultural communication. It goes well because Dr. Boix Mansilla at Harvard is one of our plenary speakers for the 2021 theme, and they are both colleagues. We are planning for this conference to be a hybrid conference. Dr. DePriest, the 1st Vice President, is Conference Chair and is working hard on all of the logistics, theme, and speakers. References Deardorff, D.K. (2020). Manual for Developing Intercultural Competences: Story Circles (UNESCO/Routledge) Open Access (in 5 languages) at https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000370336 Flessa, J. (2008). Parental involvement: What counts, who counts it, and does it help? Education Canada, 48(2), 18-21. Lieberman, M (2020).
National PTA (nd). National standards for parent/family involvement. http://www.pta.org/parentinvolvement/standards/index.asp. Wherry, J. H. (2009). Your best parent involvement year ever. Principal, 89(1), 68. Biodata Amy Pan, Ph.D. can be found at www.amyleighpan.com and is an ESL Instructional Specialist with the East Baton Rouge Parish School System and adjunct faculty at Louisiana State University and Tulane University. She is the 2020-2021 President of the Louisiana Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (LaTESOL). Her dissertation entitled Global-Mindedness in National Geographic Certified Educators won the LSU Distinguished Dissertation Award. Pan was nominated for the 2021 TESOL Teacher of the Year and is a life-long member of the United Nations. Pan is passionate about implementing strategies that uplift Multilingual Scholars. Linda M. Fairchild, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She is on the board of LaTESOL and an editor for Research Issues in Contemporary Education. Her research interests include classroom assessment, cultural competencies, and K-12 EL education. |
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