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Homeroom teacher: “That kid is from Africa. He has been suspended from school again. He always causes trouble for everyone when he has lunch in the cafeteria.”
TESOL teacher: “What country is he from?”
Homeroom teacher: “Don’t you understand? Africa. He’s just rebellious and rude.”
TESOL teacher: “What language does he speak?”
Homeroom teacher: “I don’t understand. Are you Congolese?”
TESOL teacher: “Hmm. It’s not the language. The student is from Sierra Leone. He speaks Yoruba as his first language and is almost fluent in English. As an older person, we think it’s rude to look you directly in the eye. Also, his school experience did not involve gathering together to eat in the cafeteria. He was in a large room, waiting in line for food, and then sitting and socializing with his peers. That’s a new cultural construct for him. How can I help him do that?”
I’m that TESOL teacher. This conversation is one of many I have as a teacher of middle school multilingual learners and new students, and I make sure to share my hacks to help you unwaveringly know who you are and what you believe. and are forced to choose a response on the fly. right and wrong. Will I support that prejudice with my silence, or will I find my voice to ameliorate the structures of ignorance that serve as barriers to every dark-skinned student who comes into my classroom?
Thorny hackles arise from the seemingly constant occurrence of covert racism (Coates, 2012), “good” racism (Coates, 2012), linguisticism, colorism… other, different , unfamiliar, implicit hatred, prejudice, ignorance, and a tilted system. An alphabet soup of ugly isms. We swam in it day after day. Over lunch one day, as my colleagues and I lamented the daily complaints about multilingual students and new students, we noticed a pattern.
Black students from Haiti, Sierra Leone, Congo, Ghana, the West Indies, and Jamaica consistently rank at the bottom of academic evaluations. Other teachers report that they are students who “don’t do anything in class,” “don’t understand,” and always have a lot of work to catch up on. “MS. B, this is a list of tasks that so-and-so needs to complete [insert content area]”
What do you do when racial, linguistic, cultural, and social obstacles are heaped on your students every day by educators whose job it is to break down barriers and raise the bar for all students? ?A white girl from upstate New York and a Haitian immigrant unterminated teacher are wondering how we can understand the blatant, if covert, racism that serves as an invisible web in our collaborative practices.? Is that what you’re saying? We were just her two teachers with a hunch, with no independence (and unstable tenure).
It seemed like our students were stuck on daily discipline and suspension rosters, but we found what we needed. data. Regardless of anecdotal hunches, assumptions, or lunchtime conversations, we needed numbers. But what kind of data is there and how do you get it?
Once in the state’s data hub, students could see language scores for Hispanic and white students. Data for Black multilingual learners was not available. Perhaps ɳ was below a set number and there were not enough students in a single location to count? There were enough Haitian-Creole new students in the school that I thought that was impossible. And beyond our small state, a recent infographic from OELA shows that in cities like St. Cloud, Minnesota, more than 50% of English learners identify as Black. I told you. And in Lewiston, Maine, students of African descent make up 72 percent of the English learner roster.
We called the state Department of Education’s Office of Achievement and requested performance data for students who identify as both Black learners and English language learners. This intersection is not part of the current algorithm my state uses to monitor students. During our investigation, my supervisor received a call from the head of performance asking why we were looking for this data that had never been requested before.
The obstacles faced in obtaining achievement data for Black English learners, while extensive and detailed, simply demonstrate that no one is counting this subgroup of students. they haven’t seen it. We know there is a way to count Black English learners, and there are ongoing calls to do so. There is now an expectation to count and monitor the achievements of Black English language learners. Perhaps this is the first positive outcome of our hunch.
There is no question that Black students, who are multilingual learners, need to be seen, included, and supported.Ask Lourdesginia Ruiz1 or seque bolende2 Arden Amber Desormeaux.3 A good read on this importance is Awad El Karim M. Ibrahim’s ethnographic study “Being Black: Rap and Hip-Hop, Race, Gender, Identity, and the Politics of ESL Learning.”Four
Ibrahim delves into how being black affects learning English, especially for refugee African youth attending Canadian high schools. These students, considered black by society, absorb black stylized English from hip-hop and rap and end up identifying with black America. His research emphasizes that language learning is not simple and is intertwined with policies such as race, social acceptance, and linguism.
Cooper and Ibrahim also published a collection of essays. Black Immigrants in the United States: Essays on the Politics of Race, Language, and Voice (2020), in an effort to bring more attention to the experiences of Black students.
In education, we talk about equity, inclusion, and diversity for all. If large scale data is being collected about all students, but some students cannot be seen, is that fairness? I don’t think so. Last year, I had the opportunity to watch civil rights icon Kimberly Crenshaw speak at the Courageous Conversations Summit in Washington, DC.Five In her work, intersectionality recognizes that people’s lives are shaped by the complex interplay of factors such as race, gender, class, and sexuality. In the role of a TESOL teacher, that “more” also includes language.
Race, language, and culture create unique experiences, especially for new arrivals of African descent. An April 2021 New America blog post by Leslie Villegas and Efren Velasco discusses the importance of this, noting that “many students in EL groups, including Latinx and Asian students, “We are experiencing issues of racism, discrimination and xenophobia in the United States.”
But for Black ELs, issues of language, culture, and race can be difficult to separate, meaning their needs cannot be equitably met without addressing the anti-Blackness that echoes throughout the education system. Masu. ”6
The role of educators is critical in building or removing barriers for Black immigrant students who are multilingual English language learners. We can build collaborative partnerships to improve student outcomes and practices that are implicitly and explicitly steeped in deficit thinking and bias. Either way, black students who are learning multiple languages need attention.
What can teachers do? As Dr. Ayanna Cooper once said to me, I have taken the liberty of paraphrasing it. Please say the words. racial diversity. anti-blackness. It’s important to get the word out. Otherwise, diversity will forget racial diversity, and racism will forget Black English learners. ”
Put on your anti-Black racism lens and categorize your questions into three categories.
• Policy – How is data collected? Who is counted? What language is used in policy? Who is prioritized?
• Profession — Are there Black ELT professionals at the table? Who are represented by organizations such as CEA, NTL, and TESOL? Who is the TESOL MA program marketed to?
• Practices and Programming — How does anti-Blackness manifest in programming systems and structures and in your organization? Do Black ELs see themselves in curriculum materials and instructional practices?
“Every community needs a group of angelic troublemakers.” – Bayard Rustin, American civil rights activist
I am willing to take issue if it means that all of my students have what it takes to avoid and break through the restrictionism that stands in the way of achievement and success. And I believe that all teachers who understand all ‘isms’ can have the agency to create systemic change. Just say the word and ask the question.
Link
1. www.boston.com/news/the-boston-globe/2023/07/17/madison-park-valedictorian-lourdjinia-louis
2. www.greencardvoices.org/speakers/sekuye-bolende
3. www.instagram.com/reel/CsWAZT1q-a4/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Four. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2307/3587669
Five. https://courageousconversation.com
6. www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/look-beyond-the-typical-english-learner-the-interectionity-of-black-english-learners-in-us-public-schools
References
Coates, R. D., & Morrison, J. (2011). Hidden racism: Theory, institutions, and experience.. Critical Social Science Research, vol. 32. Brill.
JW Comrie, AM Landau, KT Riley, and JD Williamson (2016). “Anti-blackness/colorism.” Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. www.bu.edu/antiracism-center/files/2022/06/Anti-Black.pdf
D’Angelo, R. (2022). Great Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm. Penguin Books.
Larkart, V. (2022). “Black immigrants in the United States face hurdles, but outcomes vary by city.” Migration Policy Institute. www.migrationpolicy.org/article/black-immigrants-united-states-hurdles-outcomes-top-cities
Singleton, Georgia (2022). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide to achieving equity in schools and beyond.. Corwin.
jill bessette I am a multilingual learner education specialist at LEARN in Connecticut. She is a 25-year veteran educator and is completing her TESOL PhD at Anaheim University. Jill is an Associate Lecturer at St. Her Joseph College in Hartford, CT.
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