Dear friends,
Our Center work is predominantly around so-called "language minority"
issues and we have been tracking and opposing the Unz initiatives for
some time now. I put language minority in quotation marks of course
since we work extensively in communities with 80% or more of these
so-called "minorities" so that the term only serves as a reminder of
these as subordinated or oppressed groups in the wider U.S. context.
It is that work that has continued to prompt my own interest in Activity
Theory.
I have both added to and built upon the work of others in designing our
own CLMER Telementor approach. Our Telementor approach was developed as
part of our funded work to meaningfully integrate technology into
teaching and learning and adult literacy.
Our own focus has been on issues of diversity and equity, in particular
issues of language, race, culture, gender and, to a lesser degree than
we would like to be doing, special needs. Of course, this opens up the
attendant, overlapping and unique, educational, social and political
cans of worms for each of these diversity markers.
Our approach involves gathering teachers (usually bilingual teachers or
teachers with demonstrated multicultural commitment to or expertise in
serving underserved learners), parents (usually low-income, "language
minority"), sometimes administrators (affiliated with the targeted
teachers and parents), and teacher educators (usually those with a
multingual, multicultural and/or critical pedagogical biases in their
work).
We forge cadres of what we call "CLMER Telementors," usually 20-25 at a
time. A recent group involved teachers, parents and teacher educators.
We facilitate the development of social
action/teaching-and-learning-projects making use of what we call six
"lenses."
These CLMER lenses are:
1. Language
Involving everything from language rights/policy to specific pedagogical
issues of language acquisition and language learning in K-12 contexts,
e.g., English Language Development, non-English primary language
instruction and support, two-way bilingual immersion, etc..
2. Critical Pedagogy
Drawing on the work of Freire, Alma Flor Ada, Antonia Darder and others
and accommodating often less critical, though valuable approaches to
constructivist, constructionist or sociocultural learning theories.
3. Anti-Racist Education
Relates to strong, critical multicultural approaches and explicit
anti-racist approaches of folks like Enid Lee, Louise Derman-Sparks,
James Banks, critical race theorists, et al.
4. Community Learning Theory
Our own varietal approach to school-home-community collaboration and
collective action derived from Chicano/Latino community organizing
approaches and related theories and practices of resolana, funds of
knowledge, etc. also draws on other cultural pathways to collective work
and action, drawing on theories and practices derived from work with
Vietnamese American, Cambodian American, African American, Native
American/American Indian, Hawiian/Pacific Islander and other
ethnic/cultural groups and approaches, some theorists include Tomas
Atencio, Luis Moll (funds of knowledge), Freire, Roberto Vargas
(razalogia), et al.
5. Standards
We emphasize the pro-active aspect of Standards (rather than
"standardized"), as in high expectations for all children and
criterion-referenced goals and benchmarks for learning in subject matter
areas; we also critique current implementations of Standards and posit
the need for additional Standards such as equity standards, standards
for inclusion and standards for democratic education.
6. Technology Fluency
We like the term technology fluency as it immediately highlights
linkages to language acquisition and development and also for the
reasons Mitch Resnik, et al give of developing expertise and mastery to
draw from a variety of technologies in conceptualizing and implementing
creative projects; we draw from a number of folks in the edtech vein
under this lens: MIT Media Lab folks, CSCL folks, Community Technology
and Community Networking folks, etc.
We work with our cadre over a 9 to 12 month period, usually 8-10
face-to-face days spread out over this time with online
interaction/collaboration in between meetings and with over-the-shoulder
mentoring and support as well as phone support in between as well.
We engage in readings, activities and dialogue around each of the lenses
and examine how these relate to the specific contexts of participants.
All participants are required to work in teams of two or more (sometimes
folks work alone or with others who aren't part of the group) to develop
"learning projects" which can be as small as a lesson plan or as large
as the creation of a community tech center or an after-school program.
Further, participants are expected to mentor others as they gain
competence and comfort with the lenses, with a focus on meaningful and
contextualized uses of information and communication technologies
(ICTs).
In our recent group two teachers and six low-income Latino parents
created their own after-school program based on the 5th Dimension model,
called "La Ciudad Encantada" (which may be of interest in the Activity
Theory vein). We held our meetings with them in their own community to
help build bridges with their local Boys and Girls Club as well (which
already housed an existing 5th Dimension project).
Through that process we were able to facilitate linkages to others
sources of expertise, support and resources for their efforts. We
showed examples early on of other teacher-parent groups that had created
after-school community learning and technology centers and the group
decided fairly quickly that was what they would like to do. Through the
Boys and Girls Club connection linkages to Don Bremme and the Whittier
College 5th Dimension group were made. Don and others worked with the
group as well on their 5th Dimension implementation and secured some
additional foundation funding for the work. The after-school program
involves snack time, homework tutoring and then the 5th Dimension
activities of "La Ciudad Encantada."
Prior CLMER Telementors in Hawaii created 5 after-school Community
Learning and Technology Centers across four islands based on our
Community Learning Theory approaches, though not on the 5th Dimension.
Those after-school projects created support networks and linkages across
the English Language Learner Resource Teacher Specialists who are often
low priority on the district's technology resources and initiatives. So
we have also made use of edtech approaches to help raise status and
involvement of traditionally underserved educators and the children they
serve.
I consider our Telementor work to be highly susceptible to Activity
Theory approaches and analyses. That work is one key source of my
interest in Activity Theory.
In Peace,
Kevin Rocap
Director, Program & Development
Center for Language Minority Education and Research
P.S. I am still interested in the course-of-course and willing to help
as needed.
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