Stories of Our Evidence: Humanizing Pedagogies in a Post-Truth Era

• In Event: 28.059 - Humanizing Schools for Multilingual Learners in the "Post-Truth" Era

Abstract

Purpose: The current educational policy climate has shaped language policies that aim to leverage the linguistic assets of students. While many of the reforms that began with the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act were ostensibly meant to reduce educational disparities, the promised outcomes have not been forthcoming. Yet prior to the implementation of these reforms, there existed highly effective and successful programs that pushed the boundaries on educating students in more than one language. This paper describes a retrospective view on one notable dual language school and the constellation of variables that coalesced to enable a linguistically rich and academically supportive context for dual language learners.
Method: Because this K-5 dual language immersion school was the subject of numerous studies, there are abundant data that document the contours of curriculum, ideologies and practices as the school implemented its dual language program in the 1990s. During this time period, the student body was approximately 250 students: 66% Latinx, 23% Euro-American, and African American, Native American, and Asian American composing the remaining 11%. Participants in the study are graduates of an elementary school’s dual language program who completed their fifth-grade year between the years of 1997 and 2003. These graduates have now grown into adulthood, and, at the time the study was conducted, were between the ages of 22 and 28 years old. As part of a larger study, there were a total of 52 graduates who contributed to an online discussion board via a Facebook group. Ten of these also participated in two separate focus group discussions. Three case study participants were also selected as part of the study.
Results: Students’ overwhelmingly positive narrative reflections are stories of multi-modal evidence that document how humanizing pedagogies positively shaped their early language learning experiences and their identities as learners. Researchers identified six elements of schooling that were prevalent during the time these students attended the school: 1) a whole-school investment in bilingualism, 2) school-wide ideological clarity, 3) faculty commitment and autonomy, 4) humanizing, caring pedagogies, 5) community as a resource and creating community, and 6) a climate of confidanza/mutual trust.
Significance/Implications: Graduates’ continued uptake of multiple literacies and global awareness perspectives begs the question: what did this school get right?
By carefully theorizing the practices that led to the long-term success of graduates, a nuanced picture emerges of how schooling that allows teacher autonomy, forges strong linkages to the community, insists on a whole-school commitment to learning in more than one language, as well as an unwavering ideological clarity, can inspire the multicompetencies of students and can go beyond the current narrowing of the curriculum and the muting of teacher voices.

Authors

• Nadia Regina Granados, The University of Arizona

• Norma I. Gonzalez, Tucson Unified School District