Lisa M. Dorner, Ph.D.

teacher, researcher, life-long learner

Addressing an Ever-Changing Immigration Context in Schools

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My colleague, Emily Crawford, and I recently wrote an article for EdWeek that addressed what educators should consider in this historical moment of ever-changing immigration law and policies. As professors who help to prepare school leaders and language teachers in Missouri, we offered some practical advice in four areas: (1) What are educators’ legal and ethical responsibilities to im/migrant, refugee, and transnational students and families? (2) How can schools and teachers prepare themselves for newcomers and for situations like nearby raids from Immigrant and Customs Enforcement? (3) How can educators prepare themselves and their students to develop critical media literacy in an era of “fake news”? (4) What do we need to do to cross boundaries, develop empathy, and encourage love in our teaching and learning?

Overwhelmingly, this country is made of individuals who have traversed oceans, climbed mountains, and weathered incredible hardship to build a new life for their families. Historically, the most recent newcomers — no matter where they come from — are viewed with suspicion, but eventually they develop strong bonds with long-time residents and contribute significantly to their communities. We know we can do better than building walls; we know strong societies are integrated societies built upon frameworks of understanding and love, not gates and isolation. We depend upon schools — and ourselves — to work toward a brighter future than blurs rather than builds boundaries.

The Immigrant Learning Center

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On July 11, The Immigrant Learning Center offered a two-day webinar focused on best practices for immigrant student success. I gave a 20 minute talk about developing critical consciousness: we discussed five things that educators can do to support multilingual, im/migrant, and refugee families and communities. This talk was based on a forthcoming article in Theory into Practice by colleagues and I:

Palmer, D., Cervantes-Soon, C., Dorner, L. & Heiman, D. (forthcoming, 2018). Bilingualism, biliteracy, biculturalism and critical consciousness for all: Proposing a fourth fundamental principle for two-way dual language education. Theory into Practice.

The Immigrant Learning Center is a non-profit organization that offers English language education as well as programs for the public to learn more about im/migrants’ contributions and experiences in US society. In addition to their outreach and education efforts, they partner with George Mason University on research projects (see more here). Such programming is essential in our country right now, with its particular political climate that often sets up boundaries between individuals and groups, rather than recognizing the humanity that connects us all.

Foro Fulbright at Uninorte

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I have been so honored to be a part of the Fulbright Specialist program this past February and March 2018 in Barranquilla, Colombia at the Universidad del Norte. I’ve worked for the past few weeks with colleagues at the Instituto de Idiomas on a new undergraduate program: Lenguas Modernas y Culturas. This program has a special focus on not only teaching multiple languages (students will be proficient in two and know a third upon graduation), but also integrating ideas of critical citizenship, discourse studies, and global perspectives into their coursework.

On March 16, I presented some thoughts on this ambitious goal, based upon my own (and colleagues’) work on dual language/two-way immersion programs and transnational/lingual youth in the US (Heiman, 2017; Kim, 2018; Layton, 2017). This work is also inspired by colleagues in citizenship education, such as Nicole Mirra and Thea Abu El-Haj.

I welcome your ideas and feedback on this Foro Fulbright!

“Our future is not in the stars but in our own minds and hearts. Creative leadership and liberal education, which in fact go together, are the first requirements for a hopeful future for humankind. Fostering these–leadership, learning, and empathy between cultures–was and remains the purpose of the international scholarship program that I was privileged to sponsor in the U.S. Senate over forty years ago. It is a modest program with an immodest aim–the achievement in international affairs of a regime more civilized, rational and humane than the empty system of power of the past. I believed in that possibility when I began. I still do.”

[J. William Fulbright, From The Price of Empire]

Doing Service-Research Projects in STL

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Many St. Louis area residents may not think of their city as multilingual, but it is. We could consider just one group that has changed the face of our metropolitan area over the past 30 years: Bosnians. In 2012 (and probably still today), they were the most populous foreign-born group here, estimated at over 70,000. The majority of Bosnians came to St. Louis as refugees in the 1990s, but secondary migration from Europe and from around the US continued throughout the early 2000s.

As an educator of students studying to become teachers, I always look for ways to help others understand the communities that they serve (or will serve). Toward this end, partnering with local educational organizations, students in one of my teacher-education classes studied qualitative research methods and conducted what we called service-research projects. Similar to but somewhat distinct from service-learning or community-based research (Boyer, 1999, see Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professorate), service-research projects combine these kinds of efforts: they are learning experiences that simultaneously teach research skills and academic content, while students serve an organization and learn about its particular community. In one particular semester, students’ projects explored the linguistic, racial, religious, and migrant experiences of youth in the St. Louis area, including those from Bosnian Muslim families.

In a recent publication in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (2017, click here!), my co-authors and I discussed the results of this work. As defined in our abstract, we argue: Skills developed through qualitative research and community partnerships can be essential for developing education students’ cultural competency and understandings about diverse student populations. This paper provides a snapshot of our work by defining service-research and showcasing one student research team that worked with a local immigrant organization and developed three case studies of young women from Bosnian Muslim families. Through an analysis and discussion of service-research and the students’ results, we argue for the integration of qualitative research skills, service projects, and community partnerships into educator preparation programs.

Please join me in learning more about how working and studying with community members helps us understand and work with our communities better!

How can we get out of our bubbles?

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This morning, I was listening to NPR, and I heard a story about how one young man decided to get out of his same old bubble. He built an app that used publicly-listed Facebook events to randomly choose new places for him to go — to get him out of that bubble. Attending random events, he made new friends and had various opportunities to view the world from new perspectives.

So how might we help develop similar bubble-popping experiences for young people? I believe that schools like the St. Louis Language Immersion School (SLLIS) can and do help children view the world in new ways. SLLIS has integration as one of its core values: integration across race, income level, language background, immigrant status, and more. The school immerses children in new perspectives, quite literally, by teaching students all of the typical subject areas using a language other than English. For most students at the school, English is their first and only language, but the school also attracts many children from multilingual households.

How else might schools pop bubbles? We cannot just put people together in the same room to explore new perspectives; we have to talk, think, and write about such experiences. In the spring of 2017, the Quality Teachers for English Learners project led by Dr. Kim Song supported a series of family literacy events at SLLIS. I participated in these events as both a leader and a participant with my daughter. Our goal was to work with families to support them sharing their stories, as one more way to “pop some bubbles” and learn from others. I’m thrilled to share the pre-press version of my daughter’s book, in which she documents how her school has opened her eyes to an Outside World.