Transborder Pedagogy: Preparing Critically Conscious Border Educators through Visual Thinking and Translanguaging at the Imperial Valley Borderlands

• In Event: Visual Thinking Strategies: An Expansive Method for Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

In this paper presentation, I illustrate how I apply Visual Thinking Strategies and translanguaging in the classroom as liberatory practices aimed at preparing critically conscious border educators in the teaching credential program in the Division of Education at San Diego State University–Imperial Valley (SDSU–IV). SDSU–IV is a satellite campus of SDSU, located less than a mile from the U.S.–Mexico border in the town of Calexico, within Imperial County, California, at the Imperial Valley–Mexicali border region.
As a borderlands education scholar preparing future educators in higher education, I am uniquely positioned to apply an interdisciplinary approach to my teaching praxis—one that bridges border studies and education through innovative pedagogical practices. Building on concepts of critical consciousness in education (Freire, 1970), borderlands epistemology (Anzaldúa, 1987), multilingual education (Alfaro & Hernández, 2023), and critical visual literacy (Cappello, Wiseman, & Turner, 2019), I define the process of preparing a critically conscious border educator as one rooted in the lived experiences, linguistic capital, and sociopolitical realities of the borderlands, where reflection, resistance, and transformation are central to pedagogical practice. I define Critically Conscious Border Educators as individuals who live, study, and work at the borderlands and who critically analyze education by examining the historical, cultural, social, legal, and geopolitical forces that shape schooling in the Imperial Valley–Mexicali region and the greater CaliBaja borderlands. With this definition, clearly stated in all my courses, I welcome all my students as Critically Conscious Border Educators.
In preparing these educators, I embrace their full linguistic repertoires by modeling and encouraging translanguaging in the classroom (García, Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017), with lessons taught in English, Spanish, and Spanglish. Through Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen & Yenawine, 2000–2001), I also scaffold students to examine the historical, cultural, social, legal, and geopolitical forces that shape education, including the border enforcement policies that impact students in the Imperial Valley–Mexicali region and the broader CaliBaja borderlands.
In this conference paper, I introduce a transborder pedagogy for preparing critically conscious border educators through an autoethnographic study of my translanguaging and Visual Thinking Strategies practices. By analyzing key assignments and student work, I illustrate how I apply these critically conscious border teaching strategies.

Author

• Vannessa Falcón Orta, San Diego State University