Advocacy is Exhausting

October 17, 2021

Lately, I am very aware of being tired. A L L T H E T I M E. I think that my personality (all in) and my career of choice (education) are contributing factors… lol. I own my choices here- my career and my hobby happen to be the same ^_^ Now that my eyes are so widely open, I feel compelled to advocate based on what I learn. I feel compelled to advocate for the time to collaborate with my peers. I feel compelled to advocate for equity in a system that marginalizes so many students. I feel compelled to advocate for change in a system that claims to want to be inclusive.

In my free time, my first choice is almost always some sort of #DIYpd4MLs. I find my field to be fascinating and ever-evolving. There is always another webinar I want to watch, another book I want to buy & read, another #chat I want to participate in. There is always a new staff member to connect with and define roles & responsibilities with. This means that I am almost always in ‘go’ gear. Unfortunately, I also feel that taking a break means letting someone down (myself, a student, a colleague).

‘Guilt’ is one of my best emotions… lol. When I notice myself getting the most run-down, I notice myself “sheltering in place”. I avoid people, avoid collaboration, and start to ‘coast’. I start to accept being an assistant instead of a co-teacher.

The system I work in has no time built in for collaboration. This means that I try to meet with classroom teachers after school. I work in 19 different classrooms with 20 different teachers. Thankfully they are all in the same school! My colleagues aren’t so fortunate! I try to plan the big ticket items like units and assessments, but I also accept that timing doesn’t always work, so I parachute in and hope that I can be helpful. It feels like I don’t always ‘earn my keep’. Is this what is meant by ‘imposter syndrome’?

Then there is the bigger system. Public education. Ministry of education. I thought a simple discussion could result in changing a single letter on our forms to move from English language learners to Multilingual learners. Let’s drive change from the grassroots, right? WHAM (ran into the great wall of bureaucracy there).

How about the right to service? Our ministry only allows multilingual learners to have 5 years of funded support with a specialist teacher. How is this not discrimination? WHAM (ran into the great wall of bureaucracy there).

I am tired. Are you tired? How do you get around feelings of guilt, or inadequacy, or ‘imposter syndrome’? How do you keep fighting to move forward?

Language Matters

My "world" has been transitioning away from the label of "English Language Learners" (ELL) to "Multi Lingual Learners" (MLL) over the past couple of years. I have been nodding along so far, but not really feeling the difference. Until school started again in September of 2021 and I started using the new label and having to explain it. It really is true that if you want to demonstrate that you understand something you should teach it!

The first time I began feeling the difference was when I was explaining "MLL" to one of my kindergarten teachers. I explained that we don't just want to develop the English skills of our students. If we just think of ourselves as "English" teachers, we eventually end up with students who can no longer communicate with their grandparents. Grandparents communicate with the heritage language and grandchildren communicate with the new language. That breaks my heart.

This doesn't mean that we are supposed to be fluent in all of the languages of our students... lol. It does mean that we can look for connections between languages- like cognates (words that are very similar in the new language and in the heritage language). We can also look for patterns in languages... like root words or grammatical rules.

This train of thought really stuck with me all week. I began to wonder if "ELL" was somehow putting English at the top of a hierarchy of languages. Like, "you are here to learn English now". Canada prides itself on its multiculturalism... but I am not really convinced. I have also heard the label, "English as an Additional Language", but it still seems a bit hierarchical... am I over thinking this?

Eventually I have come to see how the term "MLL" is more asset-based. It demonstrates and validates that a student is learning in multiple languages. It shows that a student has multiple access points through various languages to connect with concepts. It shows that ANY language is something foundational to be built upon.

Please share your thoughts it the comments...

Patience, Perseverance, Productivity

January 9, 2021

My professional development goal (and the goal of this blog) is co-planning and I think this mantra will help me to achieve progress towards that goal. Goals within a goal, right?

I don’t really make a new year’s resolution, but I do try to focus on specific things, and the new year inspires me to reconsider things. As I tackle this blogging hobby, I am inspired to share my thoughts with you.

Patience:

Patience has never come easily to me. I get excited about things (I call this ‘getting passionate’ now :P). When I get passionate about things, I want others to be passionate with me. I have noticed that this has more of a steam-roller effect than the desired ‘co-passionate’ effect… lol.

I need to be patient while developing relationships with co-teachers, potential co-teachers, administrators, and fellow colleagues. We are all at different places (professionally, socially, emotionally), have different passions, and have different hopes and expectations. I have learned that putting the time and patience into the relationship now will have bigger and stronger benefits later. Later there will be more trust as we spend more time together collaborating (with (co-teaching)or without (co-planning) students).

Public education is a huge system and it usually takes some time for changes to take root. Patience, to me, means starting with small suggestions and working creatively wherever I can.

Perseverance:

I put ‘perseverance’ in my goal-within-a-goal because I need the reminder to keep trying. Either keep trying something new/ some new angle, or keep trying at a later date. I find that I can easily fall into the status quo and just go with the flow. I think I will do a future blog post about ‘enough’ not having to be a dirty word, but to me, ‘enough’ usually means that I am being complacent. I often feel like an adjunct so I need to remind myself to advocate for my profession and for language learners until we are a standard piece of the conversation. Education has a lot of pieces and each of us need to persevere in being a standard piece of the conversation among different passions, experiences, expectations, etc.

Productivity:

‘Productivity’ is in my goal-within-a-goal because I am beginning to get excited about the different ways that I can help and support classrooms (both students and teachers!). While my big goal is to sit down, with classroom teachers, and co-plan units (including the assessment piece of the unit), I recognize that it will take time, and patience ^_^, to get there. In the meantime, every little activity I bring along the way builds up relationships with the other teachers in my building. I can quickly create word clouds to sum up student thoughts during a brainstorming session and then print them off for students to use while writing. I can quickly create spelling games to help students have fun while preparing for weekly spelling tests. I can quickly create content games to review materials from socials/ science/ etc. units. I can quickly create graphics/ visuals/ word lists to support students while writing or participating in discussions. There is a lot of creative ‘micro- collaborating’ that I can do while I prepare to sit down and co-plan. 'Micro-collaborating'… new word… I like it- they are steps along the collaborative spectrum that I can celebrate!

-SherryTeacher