Language

One question that's really been at the forefront of my mind lately is "How does this all tie back into Education?"I received comments back on my AERA conference proposal and all were fairly positive, but all kept saying "We would like to see more clear ties to Education."

The connect--or at least one--came to me this morning as I was thinking about how all of my participants tie together.  3 of the 4 are second generation, and yet all three speak the language of land where their parents immigrated from.  In the twentieth century, this was practically unheard of.  America, the great "melting pot" was the place where you came, shed your former identity, and took on a new American identity and system of values.  It's really only been within the last 20 years or so that "pluribus" as Lessow-Hurley (2009) frames it has been accepted and encouraged.  This is what I noticed especially in Rose's narrative--talk about nurturing both an "American" and "Syrian" identity; an "American" and "Muslim" identity.  As Sapir-Whorf (1956?) theorized, language and culture are integrally linked, and all three second generation participants talked about the importance of learning the language in order to better understand the culture.

In the wake of World War I and II, schools lessened opportunities for foreign language learning as it was perceived as more of a threat than a boon.  Most foreign language programs and dual language programs were eliminated during this time as a result of growing isolationism and nationalism (Lessow-Hurley, 2009). Maintaining a home language was enough to make individuals seen as national threats. While English-Only movements still exist and receive some legislation, we have seen some attitudes again shift towards favoring multilingualism in the US. In an effort to strengthen national security, President George Bush launched the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI)  in 2006 to push for more foreign language study.  The initiative designated funding to support language instruction at every level of education, but it was never funded in the long run (Zehr, 2007).  As the department of Education in the state of Missouri recently stated (DESE, 2011), more students are now taking foreign language to help prepare them for a future in a more global society.

The success of the participants in my study and their comfort with multiple cultural identities should further encourage language studies.  Growing up in the 1980s when little foreign language support was available in schools, they learned through trips to their native countries (at least as often as every three years) and through six months to two year stints living in the country at some point during their young adult lives.  In each case, these times of living abroad were mentioned as transformative and valuable experiences, often leading to job opportunities in the US related to their foreign language abilities.

While I know that there is other information related to Education to be drawn out (including Rose's focus on storytellers as important educators in her life!) language and cultural knowledge gained through language learning seems a critical point in my mind.  If we want our children to learn and grow confident in who they are and how they understand the world, we must provide more opportunity and encouragement for language learning in our schools.

References:
DESE. (2011, Nov. 14).  Foreign language, world history classes are on the rise. 45 (103). Retrieved on November 29, 2011, from http://dese.mo.gov/news/2011/int-ed-week.htm

Lessow-Hurley, J. (2009).  The Foundations of Dual Language Instruction, 5th ed. New York: Pearson.

Zehr, M. S. (2007, August 1).  "Students get taste of 'national security languages.'" Education Week, p. 5, 12.

Letter to an Advisor that somewhat sums up the past two weeks....

Honestly?  Getting this (fellowship grant) would put me back on track at least mentally.  I'm not sure I'm behind on the timeline at all.  I got my second rejection on a job that I had been encouraged to apply for (and through a newsletter for the college, not even a 'thanks for your interest' letter), and now the Thailand trip may be postponed for a year.  I'm just having trouble transcribing my most recent interview (motivation-wise solely, as the technical pieces are working just fine) because I'm feeling discouraged to push for any sort of 'deadline' for the final product.  With no job possibilities on the horizon, it's hard to feel the urgency to finish. 


On a more positive note, I'm making progress with the newspaper articles and CDA portions.  I think I can finally "prove" some of those claims I tried to make last spring in the paper for our immigrants course.  My plan is to re-work that paper some before the end of the semester.  


Also, after re-reading some of the Narrative Inquiry materials, I think fewer subjects and more interviews/conversations is more authentic to the approach.  We can talk more about that later, but I do know that I now need to read Dewey's "Education and Experience"--who knew that he countered his earlier positions (in TCH ED 2211, we talk about Dewey's approach in "Democracy in Education" and the importance of preparing them to think and interact, focusing on respecting each other and looking at social problems, but that he didn't seem to focus on ways in which student's lives at home and experiences outside of the class matter in the class itself), saying that experience and understanding others' experiences IS the essence of education, and that the good educational research projects need to focus on experience. 


Therefore, their experiences and our interactions/experiences together need more attention and less categorization, I think.  While I definitely see a number of similarities that we can talk about in the discussion and even between the chapters, it's the individual stories that need some attention.  Each, at this point, are women from different countries and have different experiences--but ALL FOUR OF THEM have been involved in teaching at some point or another (and that's not how I met them or all of my sources met them), and that in itself seems very interesting when we get into the discussion and how this experience, identity, and education "puzzle" fits together :D

Anyway, that's where I'm at in a nutshell.  How are classes going for you this semester?  I'm looking forward to the December party/meeting and catching up with others again.

 --Emily

What Mona Simpson has to do with this

It's fairly safe to say that most people in the US were impacted by Steve Jobs.  Yes, I sit here typing on my ibook while my iphone charges and we have a few ipods lying around here too.  Technology is great and I'm thankful for the inventors of the world who bring these things to fruition.  However, as the eulogy for Jobs was released yesterday, it was his sister, Mona Simpson, who impacted me even more than the story of Jobs himself.  As she was talking about his last days, somewhere in the middle of her eulogy, she stated:
"We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories."(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all)
You see, this journey began as a search for "the truth" and bringing injustices to light, and then shifted abruptly.  Words, even just a few of them, can do that.  I had gone to Dar al-Islam in New Mexico for a teacher's institute, not really knowing what I'd find other than some more knowledge about Islam and a few allies perhaps in my efforts to combat misinformation.  What I found was both friendship with my colleagues and a new and deeper appreciation for stories.  They stood out to me then and continue to stand out now as important markers along the journey.

“We have stories.  We all have Stories. Now I can give you stories.  Let me now ask your permission to travel with me on my mental highway about Islam in America.”—Dr. Suleyman Nyang,  Howard University Professor  and Dar Al-Islam  instructor"

It was here that I learned a bit about Tariq and Rehana who helped their father run the institute.  I learned about Tariq's adorable little boy at home who was about the same age as mine--and we'd talk to each other about them when feeling a little homesick.  I learned about Ali and his conversion experience, coming to the camp at 21 on a trip with his college class, and about his life in Morocco afterwards as he sought to learn more about his new faith and the language of the scriptures.  And then I heard Dr. Nyang talk about history as telling stories, and it was through his use of story that I was most struck; it was story that I remembered most when I left the institute and stories that still cling to my memory.  

I struggled for so long to make this a "legitimate" study with statistics and discourse methods and, yes, a lot of that is still present, but it's the STORIES for me that make this so important.  It's one of the oldest ways of transferring knowledge and providing education that we know of.  Scriptures tell the stories of faith and their impact--their "legitimacy" is in more than just who passed them down and how long they've been around--it's in their being there, weaving through other stories together that we begin to understand history, life, and ourselves.  

To Mona Simpson I must say that her words ring so true in my ears today--we all die in the midst of stories, in the midst of many stories.  The stories carry on and carry weight and carry importance.  Just a day after all saints day, I continue to sit and think about stories that have ended, but that yet continue because they threaded their way through my own story, and I couldn't help but pick up that story and weave it into my own life and approach to other people.  There are things each of us leave unfinished when we die (how can we not?  We never know when that might happen), but the story continues on.  

I like to think of scripture as not just a chronicle of time, but a love story between God and humans (yes, we're the inconsistent partner, but sometimes we really do try!) and it's a story of life, of learning and most of all a story of forgiveness and love.  I see the same threads running through the Torah, the Bible and the Qu'ran.  It's all a story of God and his love and our lives and faith--and it's a story in medias res, still being written, though many have lived and died in its midst.  It's a powerful story, often best shared by examining lives today, seeing how the scripture "threads" have crept into their lives, their living, and the ways in which they share their identities.  Thank you, Mona Simpson, for reminding me and others that we die in the midst of stories and the stories we all share matter. greatly. 

Rose

A week ago today, I had the opportunity to interview yet another core participant to my study.  She immediately began by asking me questions and we got to the subject of age.  I admitted that I'd be turning 30 in February and she said "Oh! You're only a month older than me then!"  As she's the first participant who's exactly my age or younger (all others have been a year or two older), it was a fun interview when it came to talking about significant events.  Her favorite TV shows as a kid were Muppet Babies and "that one on PBS where the mannequin comes to life?" "Today's Special!" I announced happily.  It was so interesting and nice to hear someone start by saying "I had a really happy childhood, where my parents let us eat junkfood and watch Saturday morning cartoons."

Other events that coincided for us both weren't as happy.  As she'd spent the first 12 or so years of her life "On the other side of the river" as we say here in MO, there was a significant event for BOTH of us.  She'd lived for two years in Saudi Arabia in late elementary school before returning to the same house, whereas I moved to IL for the first time.  I told her about how we'd taken an African-American friend to a movie theater and seen the ugly face of racism for the first time I could remember in my life.  She nodded, saying that that was right after the "First Iraq war" and that people started acting fearful of her and cases of racism really rose.

She married young--younger than I did, actually, in a sort of arranged marriage and then ended up going to Berkley for part of her undergrad degree (which, of course, made me a bit jealous).  She was actually there when 9/11 happened, and said laughing that people she met were kind and, if anything "would stop and ask me 'are YOU okay?'" because they knew about the hate crimes happening against Arabs and Muslims. She was already somewhat active in the community, but became more so, trying to dispell myths about Islam and Arabic speakers, reaching out into the community and joining many of the political protests at Berkley.

As she took a semester abroad in Syria and with previous experiences, she spoke Arabic fluently and after graduating with a BS, she ended up working for the "Mosaics" news from the middle east television program.  She translated stories from different countries (especially those within the "Middle East") and the program tried to represent multiple points of view on one or two events  every broadcast. Unfortunately, it was at this point that her marriage completely fell apart.  Her husband had asked for a separation before this, and she was hoping that it would help, along with some counseling.

When her parents found out, they insisted that she move back home, and her mom even came out to California to forcibly move her back.  She doesn't and didn't begrudge this at all, as she knew that the happiness at this point was only a facade. She moved home, and started trying to figure out  what to do with her life.  She volunteered with the local chapter of CAIR (Counsel on American-Islamic Relations) and with the Muslim Student Association.  She had an undergraduate degree in pre-med and her parents kept encouraging her to go to Med school. She fell in love with architecture and tried going to school for awhile for a masters in architecture, but found that she loved the design and beauty more than the laws, restrictions and long isolated hours that went along with it.  She ended up going back to school awhile later in public health, combining her love of being with people, translation skills, and medical background.  During her internship with the city public health office, she was the only Muslim woman working there and the only one who had worked there (or who wore hijab and was open about her beliefs).  She said one of her co-workers commented on how she was nervous around her at first, but all she had to do was watch her and see from Rose's demeanor and example that she had nothing to fear.  In fact, she was recently invited to speak at her supervisor's church during the education hour.

The part that struck me most about Rose is her natural speaking ability, poise, and ability to put others at ease.  Meeting under other circumstances, I think we could become fast friends.  Who knows?  Maybe we will.  I talked with her quite a bit about how this project is, in a way, a journey of faith for me as well and a search for a way to re-inliven a generation of Christians that's become completely quiet, fallen away because of hurt caused by the church, or joined the loudest voices that do not represent Christ's call to love their neighbors and care for the poor, widow and orphan.  I am embarrassed to say that I'd just thrown on some nicer looking clothes before leaving (sweats have become my 'uniform' as a mama lately), and the top ended up looking lower cut than I thought.  I hated that here we were talking about modesty and I looked a bit racy-er than is my norm ( I hope I didn't make her uncomfortable!)

Her item to help tell her story?  Her computer, saying that most of her pictures, her writings, journals, papers and her "life" was on that computer.  I know exactly how that feels as I sit here typing away, thinking about this project, and hoping that we get a chance to continue our conversation soon.