Lisa M. Dorner, Ph.D.

teacher, researcher, life-long learner

Blurring Boundaries – Take II

By

On October 19, 2014, I posted an extended blog piece drawing from research I had recently done in my communities across the St. Louis region (urban, rural, suburban). At the time, based upon a research study about people’s perceptions of immigrants and knowledge of immigration policies, I was struck by how people make judgements about nebulous groups of “others,” even while they have good friends, who they respect and admire, who are part of those same groups. In short, we humans so easily create boundaries between “us” and “them,” even as we love and support the folks we may other at times.

Now, today, November 6, 2024, I am struck by how boundaries seemed to have been cemented, rather than blurred, over the past 10 years. I am struck — we still need inspiration and hope and a lot of work to blur the boundaries that divide us/them, and to try to figure out how to work together to build a better future.

I ask you to read through this old blog, to see what may resonate with you, to brainstorm how we each can individually reach out and work toward good, common ground with others: https://www.lisamdorner.com/blurring-boundaries/ … let me know what you think, dornerl @ missouri.edu.

On Writing

By

response to writing prompt by dorner

“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” – E.M. Forster

In October of 2023, I decided to attend a writing retreat. And what a treat indeed: two days dedicated entirely to writing, with workshops and keynote speakers and food provided, in a beautiful out-of-the-way setting. I did this in the midst of So. Many. Other. Situations. that needed my attention. You know, the usual: work, family, health issues, finances. But I went anyway. I was inspired to go after I found out about the opportunity from one of my very good friends – a writer and my walking partner, who, in fact, I do believe provided the inspiration FOR this very event! (Thank you, my friend!)

I am here because I wanted to carve aside time to actually think and write, to set aside space and opportunity for the very thing that is at the heart of my work – communicating ideas – but is something that I rarely get to do any more. So why not try it out? Try to block out the emails, the texts, the planning, the arranging, … All. The. Other. Work.

And so now, here I sit, writing this.

For our first session, I chose “Prewriting.” It was amazingly crafted by the instructor, helping to pull out from the group of writers in attendance what they do to write – why they do it – and what sometimes stops them from doing it. One of the very important insights from this session was that we are always writing. Pre-writing or writing is not something that just happens when you actually put pen to paper or fingers to a keyboard. It’s the thought that hits you in the shower, on the walk. It’s the story that comes to you when you’re chopping vegetables. It’s the email or text you compose to your friend. It’s the quiet time, the loud times, the active times, the silence. It’s the routines and the surprises. It’s what you’ve read and experienced. It’s the people around you. It’s the people that haunt you. It’s the places you’ve been. Or the places you want to go.

This is all true. In fact, the idea for my next blog entry came to me on the 2.5 hour drive to this writing retreat, a drive that started on I-55 north out of St. Louis, toward Chicago, a trip I’ve taken hundreds of times in between my family’s hometown and my husband’s. Perhaps this is what led my brain to pre-write and consider the idea for my next blog focused on space and how it shapes who we are, what we think, how we communicate, and also (in tune with this current event I’m experiencing) what we ultimately write about.

This wasn’t the only insight I gained from the retreat, though. We also reflected upon how writing is deeply personal and how writing is hard. These may not seem like deep insights or something that we need to be reminded about. But in the field of education research – what I essentially do with my work time and help others learn how to do – we spend a LOT of time writing. I don’t think we acknowledge the personal and the difficulty often enough in academic writing. We’re just supposed to know how to do it and do it well by the time we get into graduate school. However, how can we sustain a career of writing if our work is not somehow personal to us? And, ultimately, who reads our own writing the most? We do! (Well, we do if we edit our work like we should! 🙂 ) We also don’t acknowledge often enough how hard it is. It is, as our instructor pointed out, a technology, something we learn, a craft we have to practice. These are additional, important insights that I will carry with me, as I continue on my own writing and life journey, and as I support others in theirs.

So, as I finish this retreat, I’m working on my next blog entry, which I hope will become a new regular series. I’m going to aim for once per month, and maybe someday that will turn into once per week. I will draw from all the pre-writing I naturally do in my daily life (thank you to my instructor, our class, and feminist scholars for pointing out the richness and ideas generated from everyday lives!); I will acknowledge and revel in the difficulty of the work; and I will do this as a gift to myself, to recognize that writing is deeply personal, even as I share it here, with you. Adelante and onward to this new writing and sharing journey!

Equity in Bilingual Education is Possible!

By

Cover Art for Critical Consciousness in Dual Language Bilingual Education

Together with Drs. Deb Palmer, Claudia Cervantes-Soon, Dan Heiman, and Emily Crawford-Rossi — and our amazing cover artist, Martha Samaniego — I am excited to post that our new edited volume has been published! Critical Consciousness in Dual Language Bilingual Education: Case Studies on Policy and Practice (2022) is now available. If you want to see what the book’s about, the introductory chapter is FREE on this page – just click on “Preview PDF” in the upper-right-hand corner! And if you’re interested in buying the book, please use the code AERA2023 at Routledge, for a 30% discount (good til May 31, 2023)!

In our introduction, we noted that this book came to being “amid challenges that feel insurmountable: millions of people from Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Yemen fleeing their homes due to unprovoked and civil wars; countless Central Americans pleading for asylum in the United States; and an on-going pandemic disproportionately killing people of color. Black, Brown, LGTBQ+, and other marginalized communities continue to experience violence and inequity across our educational, legal, and civil institutions time and time again.”

But then, we continued: “there is hope and love in the world too. People are welcoming refugees into their homes, youth are committing their lives to activism against racism, and new organizations are working to fairly distribute life-saving medical care. We know how to fight back against oppression. But it takes opening our hearts and minds, developing our consciousness of inequities, and figuring out how to take action.” 

This is the heart of our new edited volume. In showcasing examples of equity and positive action in bilingual education and dual language programs, we hope to provide inspiration for educators and families alike, especially those working in primary and secondary schools in the United States. At the heart of each case study is the question: how can we ensure equity in bilingual education? Now, we share the volume with you, so you may ask this question of yourself and your community.

We truly look forward to your feedback on the ideas and stories presented in the book. Whether you are a student, teacher, principal, parent or community member working with bilingual schools, please contact us any time. You can find me at dornerl @ missouri.edu.

New Conference on Bilingual Education in the Midwest

By

Do you work in a dual language program that serves bilingual and bicultural students? Are you interested in developing more equitable programs and enhancing educational opportunities at your school?

Building Raciolinguistic Justice in Midwestern Dual Language Programs through Research-Practice Partnerships is a year-long project supported by the Spencer Foundation; coordinated by me, Trish Morita-Mullaney, Deborah Palmer, and Amy Young; and implemented in partnership with many other bilingual educators and scholars. The project is designed to enhance and develop critical consciousness in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) in the US Midwest.

What is DLBE and why is critical consciousness important for it? Dual language bilingual education is a unique educational approach where teachers provide content instruction in English and another language, aiming to develop bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism for a diverse student body. Yet despite the fact most programs integrate and serve students from various backgrounds, DLBE continues to face persistent challenges with equity, especially for students of color and youth who speak languages other than English (see here). This is true in all program models regardless of the label (one-way, two-way, 90/10, 50/50, etc.). In turn, we must build critical consciousness, that is, processes to study such inequities and take action to disrupt them.

The project has three main goals:

  1. Document and more deeply understand how Midwestern DLBE programs serve diverse students, especially children of color from bilingual and bicultural homes.
  2. Develop research-practice partnerships and new research agendas for understanding and addressing equity challenges through critical consciousness.
  3. Foster a community of practice and network of researchers and practitioners to build antiracist, equitable DLBE programs across the region.

We invite DLBE educators to join our webinar series this June! Partnering with the Cambio Center and CARLA, these four webinars will develop an understanding of DLBE challenges and opportunities across Midwestern DLBE programs. The webinars are organized around four actions that enhance critical consciousness:

  • Historicizing Dual Language Communities and Ourselves—Tuesday, June 14
    Learn about deconstructing mainstream explanations of the past and foregrounding individuals’ and communities’ local histories.
  • Critical Listening in Dual Language Education—Thursday, June 16
    Explore ways of engaging students, educators, and families with others for meaningful and transformative connection through developing curiosity and attention, sharing, caring, reciprocity, and responsivity.
  • Embracing Discomfort in Dual Language Spaces—Tuesday, June 21
    Experience and learn from the inevitable unsettled feelings one might have in recognizing, reflecting on, and acting against the ways in which our own privilege, sense of entitlement, or silence reify and reproduce social injustice.
  • Interrogating Power to Develop Equity in Dual Language Programs—Thursday, June 23
    Examine ways of calling out oppression, and working to push those in power to take note of injustice and to transform systems.

All webinars will take place on Zoom from 4–5:30 p.m. (Central Time).

For More Information

Pandemic Policymaking

By

The COVID-19 pandemic was a crisis beyond most of our imaginations. In 2020 as school buildings closed, teachers started teaching online, students learned how to learn from home, and educational leaders managed a new kind of crisis. Principals had to figure out how to get meals to children in a socially distant fashion; how to provide access to the internet in areas that never had it before; and how to support families who didn’t have computers or tablets for their kids to use. In short, educators and their schools had to create all kinds of new policies, procedures, and practices in a relatively short amount of time.

But they didn’t do so alone – policies are never made in isolation. Responses to the pandemic were dynamic and social, as educators enacted policy in partnership with external organizations, families, and within their particular school districts.

In 2020-2021, colleagues and I worked alongside one elementary school and its non-profit partner to see how they managed and responded to the pandemic. We developed an ethnographic study to understand how policies were made and enacted over time and with others. We tracked the school’s policy responses, specifically the structures, resources, and discourses that shaped two policy areas: family-school communication, and access to remote learning. In this AERA Open article, we demonstrate that external partnerships can bring much needed resources to a crisis response, but existing structures and racialized discourses that exist within district and community contexts can hinder their best intentions for equitable policymaking. We concluded:

To “address the complex needs of the most vulnerable students,” it will take “grass-root associations” and myriad other actors “close to the field” (OECD, 2020, p. 19)…. School-community engagement has the power to shape crisis responses and policy enactment–but to fully understand such an interactive, negotiated process, one must understand schools’ external partners, their resources, structures, and discourses as well as their students, families, and communities.