Everyday heroism looks like this
This post shares original stories included in my forthcoming book about teacher advocacy. Click the form below if you’re interested in getting on the pre-sale order list!
Everyday heroism vs. our scary political reality
The current political climate often casts a long shadow over multilingual education. From op-ed pages decrying the "cost" of bilingual education to headlines detailing proposed cuts to vital programs like Title III, the landscape can appear bleak. Reports highlighting executive efforts to double down on "English-only" mandates fuel a sense that our emergent bilinguals are a burden, not a blessing. These aren't just distant policy debates; they're daily reminders echoing through school hallways, inciting deficit thinking even among colleagues who claim to be "apolitical."
A silent battle is being waged against the "one language only" mindset in education and if you’re reading my blogs, you are a part of the resistance! This post extends my earlier writings about the Monolingual Bias, diving deep into what it means to truly disrupt it and revealing how everyday educators are becoming unsung heroes in their scholastic communities. To start, you can embrace Tara Yosso's concept of "resistance capital" (2005) – the knowledge and skills advocates cultivate through the daily work to chip away at inequality. This idea is one of your greatest weapons to combat deficit thinking about multilingual learners in the minds and hearts of your peers.
Brief video of Dr. Lillian Ardell explaining ‘resistance capital’
While it's bleak out there, in my world of research and everyday support for language teachers who disrupt the Monolingual Bias, I see glimpses of hope and dedication. As I mentioned, I’ve been working on a book of stories about that document everyday heroes in their fights for linguistic justice. These are stalwart advocates who deployed a range of skills and strategies to champion bilingual learning in their respective spheres of influence. Serena is one such advocate.
It's my honor to share the following Disruption Story, courtesy of Serena.
This is what a Disruptor looks like. Meet Serena.
Sowing the Seeds of Disruption
Serena is an absolute legend in her field. She’s a proud Afro-Latina who grew up navigating English and Spanish and felt the llamada to become a bilingual educator. Across her career, Serena dedicated her craft to building better learning experiences for dual-identified emergent bilinguals (these are bilingual students with special education assignments) .
What’s Serena’s secret weapon? Observing problems through a logic tree, which means she's not one to get emotionally flooded when people reject her bids for advocacy. Which is good, because she faces a lot of resistance, even from well meaning colleagues.
Take, for instance, the time her school won a grant for a bilingual drama artist-in-residence program. At the time, Serena taught a 4th grade bilingual inclusion class with students along the autism spectrum in the largest urban district in the country. Serena wished for her students to be included in the pilot year of the grant, but when her principal countered with the cognitive load for her dual-identified students she didn’t back down. "That doesn’t feel like a good reason, their cognitive capacities. (sigh) What do I need to do to get an artist-in-resident this year?" she challenged. The principal caved (first victory!) and within a week Serena’s class had a resident, Valeria, but with a catch – Valeria spoke only English. When the non-profit supervisor, Lydia, suggested crafting the play in just one language to "reduce one of the cognitive demands for your (pause) students," Serena calmly dropped a truth bomb: "That’s a myth—this idea that students who are disabled can handle less, so you must give them less. My students will do just fine in both languages, and I’ll take on the bilingual duties. I always like a good challenge."
GIF of a mic-drop by a very sassy young woman.
And what a challenge it was! Serena and Valeria were a match made in heaven, passionately guiding the students to create a bilingual play that took place in the NYC subway, which was a nod to Jackson, one of her students who had an obsession with NYC metrocards! (2nd victory!) This was culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy at its finest. On performance day, her play received a standing ovation. Serena overheard colleagues remarking, "I can't believe they pulled it off - especially the bilingual part. That Julissa, what a ham!" Was Serena a bit smug by the end of this disruption story? Sure, but she didn’t care; she would continue to rack up evidentiary anecdotes that her students were more than capable.
“That’s how I sow the seeds of disruption: I prove people wrong by showing them what dual-identified students can do.”
Dr. Lillian Ardell explains how one bilingual SPED teacher embodies advocacy in two specific ways. This video is a part of a blog post titled, "Everyday heroism look like this"
High expectations > rigor
Serena embodies what it means to hold high expectations for her dually identified students – a vastly different, and far more effective, approach than pursuing the idea of performative "rigor". She’s a prime example of an educator transforming challenges into triumphs, proving that her bilingual students were capable of so much more than deficit thinking suggests. (When you get my book you’ll see countless more examples of this difference.)
Impatient for the book to drop and ready to follow in Serena’s footsteps and disrupt the Monolingual Bias? You can download our comprehensive guide, "Doable Disruptions to the Monolingual Bias," to discover specific disruption strategies tailored to your role in a school or district, covering both immediate and long-term impacts. Here’s what one ML Director has this to say about the guide:
“Having this Disruption guide nearby gives me the daily dose of courage I need before I step into a contentious data review meeting or have to have a hard conversation with a colleague. I love how Dr. Ardell gives me everyday and longterm advocacy tasks to work with.”
Image of Language Matters Doable Disruptions Guide with a sneak peak of the pages contained in the guide (6 pages total).
