TESOL Connections - October 2020

From the President: Justice, Education, and Advocacy

by Deborah J. Short

In 2019, the U.S. Women’s national soccer (football) team wore jerseys honoring women for one of the games in the SheBelieves Tournament. Center back Becky Sauerbrunn wore “RBG,” for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was an inspired choice. What a leader to believe in: someone who blazed trails for women and served the public good. Someone who stood for equality and nondiscrimination. At 5’1”, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not going to tower over strikers trying to head the ball into the goal, but her insightful comments and written opinions could cut through an argument the way the best midfielder could dribble around opponents’ legs.

In a February 2015 interview on MSNBC, Justice Ginsberg said: “I—try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they’re men or women” (Carmon, 2015). It reflects a belief system that honored the words that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke 52 years earlier at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” (Stanford University, n.d.).

Both of these quotes are at the heart of our TESOL education community, aren’t they? We teach because we believe in all our students and because we strive to give them tools—knowledge of language, content, and culture—for a better life. Although these two luminaries are no longer with us in person, we can honor their views and actions in our classrooms.

Another honoree during the game was Malala Yousafzai, “Malala” on Carli Lloyd’s jersey. She is the epitome of an education advocate. The value of schooling was so important to her that she risked her life in 2012 so girls could be educated in Pakistan. The youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (at age 17 in 2014), she has broadened her activism to promote the right to education worldwide. Her advocacy work continues, as does ours. A recent discussion on the myTESOL Program Administration community offers one example among many. TESOLers were sharing strategies for ways to secure academic credit toward graduation for English language courses at colleges and universities. These courses, as several argued, are not remedial; they are additive. English learners are learning a new language the way other students learn Spanish or Arabic and receive foreign language credit. Our colleagues are fighting for equal treatment for their learners, and our profession is strengthened by their efforts.

Let me close by asking who you would honor on the back of your jersey. Who do you believe in? Whose words and actions can you pay homage to in your lessons? And think about who believed in you. All of us have had at least one teacher who believed in us. Be that teacher for your students. Continue to speak up for civil rights, equal rights, and educational rights. Continue to care about your learners and their lives outside of the classroom as well as their aspirations within.

Rest in Peace and Rest in Power, RBG

References

Carmon, I. (2015, February 17). Exclusive Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg interview: Full transcript. MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/exclusive-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-interview-full-transcript

Stanford University. (n.d.). "I have a dream," address delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/i-have-dream-address-delivered-march-washington-jobs-and-freedom

Deborah J. Short, PhD, is TESOL International Association president (2020–2021). She directs Academic Language Research & Training, LLC and provides professional development on academic literacy, content-based ESL, and sheltered instruction worldwide. She has led numerous research projects related to English learner education, codeveloped the SIOP Model, and served as series editor for several 6 Principles books.

Previous Article

Next Article

Rate This Article

Print This Article

Forward This Article

TESOL Community

The TESOL Community has moved to

myTESOL: Your World—Connected

Collaborate with colleagues, share resources, discuss hot topics, and build your professional network.

Check out these recent popular conversations on myTESOL:

TC Monthly Giveaway

The TESOL Connections Giveaway
is on a temporary hiatus.

Please check back next month!

TESOL Blogs

Interested in writing a blog for TESOL?
Read the submission guidelines and send us your post!

Check out some of the most recent TESOL Blogs:

7 Tips for Better Classroom Discussions, by A. C. Kemp

We’ve all been there: You introduce what you think is a red-hot topic to discuss, but when you ask the first question, there’s so much silence you can hear the classroom clock ticking. Or, in a class of 30, two or three students dominate the conversation—and you’re so happy anyone is talking you don’t want to discourage them.

So how do you get everyone talking? What steps can you take to increase participation? Following are seven tips for better classroom discussions, whether you’re talking about a familiar topic like holidays or a difficult reading for a college prep class. Read more.

4 Pathways to a Culturally Responsive Virtual Classroom, by Judie Haynes

Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) is grounded in the idea that educators teach to students’ unique cultural strengths. A well-known author in the field of culturally responsive teaching, Zaretta Hammond, has provided professional development based on her book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain. She provides some excellent professional development entitled Distance Teaching and Remote Learning in the Age of COVID-19. These webinars are available virtually.

In view of the move to virtual learning in many classrooms across the United States, I would like to link the pathways to a culturally responsive classroom to online instruction of English learners (ELs). Following are four avenues to a culturally responsive classroom that teachers of ELs need to take into consideration when teaching virtually. Read more.

3 Innovative Ways to Use Breakout Rooms in ELT, by Stephanie Marcotte

In the age of remote and online teaching, it is more important than ever that we find ways to encourage group work in our lessons. While we can no longer rearrange desks in a circle or send groups of students into different classroom spaces, we need to find ways to create these similar collaborative and horizontal learning experiences for our English learners (ELs).

As more and more educators rely on video conferencing to host their online, synchronous courses, now is the time to think creatively and strategically about how we will encourage student discussion and small group work. One beneficial function to many video conferencing programs is the option to create a breakout room. This enables educators to divide their course into smaller groups, for example completing “get to know you” activities in small groups or discussing a chapter in a novel with guided discussion questions. More and more, the breakout room is becoming staple of the online, synchronous classroom. However, there less traditional ways that we can take advantage of this useful online teaching tool, and this blog aims to draw attention to three innovative ways that you can embed breakout rooms in your online teaching. Read more.

TESOL Bookstore

Featured Resources from TESOL Press

Supporting Newcomer Students: Advocacy and Instruction for English Learners
Katharine Davies Samway, Lucinda Pease-Alvarez, and Laura Alvarez

In this much-needed book, the authors marshal research and several decades of their own experience to provide instructional practices and activities that will help teachers develop newcomers as readers and writers of English and engage them in content learning across the curriculum. Equally important, they show how teachers can advocate for these vulnerable students, many of whom have experienced multiple challenges in their home countries or in the United States, including poverty, violence, and political persecution. (Copublished with Norton)

Teacher Leadership for School-Wide English Learning (SWEL)
Michelle Benegas and Amy Stolpestad

The Teacher Leader Guide for School-Wide English Learning provides a roadmap for capitalizing on the often untapped language expertise of ESL teachers.