According to The New York Times and The Washington Post, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is trying to do away with the disparate impact rule when it comes to federal funding approvals in the last days of the Trump administration. The DOJ has reportedly submitted for presidential approval a change to how it enforces…
The COVID-19 pandemic has unearthed so many challenges for our loved ones and our communities. In my work as a literacy advocate, I think about our children who have been so deeply affected by school closures, remote learning, and social isolation. One of the most powerful ways we can bring children together to experience a…
Rumi in the Language Classroom: Vol. 3 One of the poems of ‘Masnavi-e-Manavi’ of Rumi depicts how risk-taking can lead to success in language classrooms. The story goes like this: Around Rey in Persia, there was a mosque with widespread fame to kill whomever goes there. One day, a stranger arrived at the city and…
Educators, WE Can’t Wait for the U.S. to Change!The global coronavirus pandemic took education systems by surprise, exacerbating the educational and economic inequities that have existed for centuries and continue to be overshadowed by what educators, sociologists, psychologists, and researchers call gaps (the “wealth gap,” the “achievement gap,” the “opportunity gap,” the “language gap,” the…
And Justice for ELs is an essential resource for school leaders. Ayanna Cooper, editor of Language Magazine’s Pass the Mic series and a former U.S. Department of State English language specialist, has “been there, done that” and is now sharing how best to translate today’s federal mandates into actionable steps for ensuring the civil rights…
Every semester as I prepare my classes, I ponder the same questions: Why does our academic English as a second language (ESL) program require so many reading and writing classes before students can enter transfer-level English classes? As reading instructors, why are we forced to choose from textbooks that often seem to exclude fiction and focus…
Infants and young children have brains with a superpower, according to Georgetown University Medical Center neuroscientists, who found that unlike adults, who use specific areas in one or the other of their brain’s two hemispheres to process most discrete neural tasks, young children use both the right and left hemispheres to do the same task….
With only a month of virtual teaching under my belt, this year is already the wildest year I’ve ever taught. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to overcome challenges at the beginning of a school year, but it is the first time I’ve burned the candle at both ends without even a solid grip…
1. When researching Whole (Whole: What Teachers Need to Help Students Thrive [Miller et al., 2020]), what surprised you about your findings?We were looking for examples of schools “outperforming their zip code”—places where the community was viewed by outsiders as rife with poverty, violence, or other societal challenges and yet the schools were thriving. We…
Pocketalk, the global innovator in connecting conversations and removing language barriers, donated 100 new translation devices to U.S. educators teaching English language learner (ELL) students as part of its first-ever Back to School program, equipping teachers with the tools needed during the pandemic to foster inclusive learning environments. During the application process, all 100 recipients,…