Guest Speakers

Guest Speaker REFLECTIONS

 

Thoughts to consider:

 

SEPT. 30

Visit to ENLACE (ENgaging LAtino Communities in Education)

ENLACE Photo Thank you

Thank you Mabel, Carolyn, Lourdes and Carly for sharing your individual stories and ENLACE services, projects and programs with us. ENLACE is a statewide program and it reflects the needs of the community. ENLACE has provided an Immigration Workshop for Educators at UNM (San Juan Center) and we would like for Mabel and Christopher Ramirez to offer this workshop again. To date ENLACE has served 1,400 individuals. ENLACE continues to make history at SJC with its culturally relevant outlook. Our UNM students engaged in a dialogue about privilege and power, social issues, immigration concerns, and Senate Bill 582 (Dream Act). One of the outcomes of our diversity course is to encourage all of us as teachers to listen more than we speak. To show compassionate listening without the noise of our insecurities and biases. There is a humility in this kind of listening and I am still practicing it daily myself.

 

MARCH 8, 2012

We met at ENLACE after our practicum. Although arriving a little late, Mabel Gonzalez, ENLACE Director/Coordinator, was gracious and understanding. Anna Marie brought in homemade pretzels for our snack and we shared them with ENLACE staff and students. ENLACE staff Carolyn Martinez and Lourdes also shared their roles and spoke along with Mabel about their mission, grass roots presence in serving the community. ENLACE is a statewide organization focused on programming and initiatives that support Teachers, families, students. ENLACE also serves as a political arm advocating to sustain policies that support families and communities. ENLACE has partnered with the Farmington Public Library's Prime Tine intergenerational reading program, Parents as Teachers, local schools, community centers and UNM. Although 10 years young, their future initiatives in meeting the needs of Latino/a families as well as other families that have been underrepresented in colleges and universities, drives what they do. They are a passionate, motivated staff who continually give back to their community. As teachers we can now share with other parents, the resources of ENLACE. Thank you, Mabel, Lourdes and Carolyn!

 

FMS Mathematics Teacher Rocky Torres

Thank you, Mr. Torres, for taking time out of your teaching schedule to come and share with us about formative assessment. The Williams article and Web's Depth of Knowledge  provided ways to engage in conversation and discussion while at the same time building up our background knowledge. "Formative assessment is using evidence of learning to adapt teaching and learning (teacher and learner) to meet immediate learning needs, day-by-day, minute-by-minute." Formative assessment is reflective practice and relying on other practitioners in a professional learning community. It is effective teaching and learning by looking at students' work, discussing what it means or tells us and discussing these teaching stories with our colleagues. Your philosophy of education reminds me of a fortune cookie saying, Education should teach us how to think, not what to  think when, you described what you say to students: "I am trying to teach you how to think; I just use math to do it." Our UNM webpages are an example of formative assessment for they document student progress overtime and can be considered student data.

 

 We look forward to viewing your powerpoint. Thank you, again, Mr. Torrres.

 

 JAC FOURIE

bhp Billiton New Mexico Coal President & COO Jac Fourie operates two coal mines in our area. I co-judged with Mr. Fourie at the district science fair and during a conversation was impressed with how he described the importance of listening and communication with his coworkers. I invited Jac to share his perspective about communication and the art of listening with our class and he graciously made time for us and shared his expertise.

 

Jac spoke with us on Feb. 24, 2011 about communication, particularly, difficult conversations. Jac's visit was very timely because in our previous practicum session, I had some interactions with students that I felt I could have handled differently. As I reflected on the quality of my interactions, I needed to provide more support to negotiate student communication. Since I was leading the whole group discussion, I relied on my group of students to fend for themselves, thinking the students would be independent and skilled enough to cooperate in a conversation and arrive at a consensus. The personalities within the group proved otherwise and talking with Jac and the other students provided insight in how to support them better in the future. Above all, it is in the art of listening that true communication or generous listening thrives. When we are stressed or pressed for time, we revert to our background conversations, which biases our ability to truly hear and be able to suspend the noise of our thoughts to generously listen with empathy. The book that influenced Jac is Difficult Conversations audio book (also available in book format).

 

Jac described his job as having conversations with people. "I have been a student of having conversations with people" he said. More explicitly, how do we use difficult conversations to move things forward to accomplish things.

Jac referred to three Message Delivery conversations:

The delivering a message conversation we are aware of our Background conversation that is always ongoing in our minds as others are talking. Once we realize that others have a message to convey, we give them the opportunity  to say their message and silence our own background conversation. "Until you listen to someone, they cannot listen to you."  Jac explained that Background conversation "is a human trait that helps us make sense of our world." To the extent that we can become aware of this, we can suspend our background conversations, thereby taking time to fully appreciate what someone is trying to communicate. This is the level of generous thinking-an unselfish way of having a conversation. This generous thinking stance also allows you to be in a position to be influenced by someone. You do not have to change or give up anything in doing so; just be receptive to be influenced in the conversational process. Generous listening means suspending your background conversation, forgetting your message with priority on what others want to say to you and with a willingness to be influenced by them.

 

Less generous conversations are based on background stories, similar to retrieval from our storied anthology. When we interpret or relate what we hear in a conversation to something similar (story), we may respond in a generous or less generous way. In less generous conclusions, we take to a message delivery stance and are less open to listen in a generous way. Our tendency to revert to automatic listening happens more often when we are stressed or pressed for time. So when conversations go wrong, both parties are contributing to the conflict. That is when we need more generous listening to really understand and resolve the conflict.

 

We have a tremendous need to be right in protecting ourselves and our identity. So when we are having a difficult conversation, we can identify if it involves our identity: our competence may be challenged-we have a right to receive love and attention; or our feelings-complexity of emotions that we do not realize sometimes are conflicting. At these times our fight versus flight primal fears surface.

 

Jac helped us to remember that all three communications are important and to recognize that we are not always at our best all the time. Identity is not a black or white issue is helpful to remember. As teachers communicating and listening is comparable to teaching and learning and difficult conversations are happening all the time in our interactions with students at all ages. The way we respect the space between our ears and the space in our classrooms requires ongoing maintenance and reflective diligence to make sure we are honoring and respecting the communication we give and receive from others. A gentle and generous reminder from Jac: Until we listen to others, they cannot listen to us. 

                                                

MABEL GONZALEZ

Mabel Gonzalez from ENLACE spoke with our UNM students about herself, the goals, mission and resources of ENLACE on Feb. 3, 2011. (See photo album)

 (The following four paragraphs is what I learned about ENLACE and Mabel during our visit.)

Mabel is a first generation born in the U.S. and first generation college graduate in her family who speaks English, Spanish and Portugese. Her parents are from Chihuahua, Mexico. Mabel was born and raised in Farmington as well as in Mexico, Texas, California, Illinois, and Wyoming and considers herself an immigrant, although born in the U.S. Mabel is the oldest of three siblings and attended Animas Elementary School when she was in the thrid grade. Since Mabel could speak only Spanish, she experienced cultural and language shock in elementary school and was placed erroneously and insensitively into a Special Education D Level classroom. She asks "What do you do when you have a student who is Spanish speaking? Everywhere in the U.S. this is an issue." [This is why we have a course Educating Linguistically Diverse Students in teacher education programs now. This is also why the majority of school districts are requiring teachers to be endorsed in TESOL.]

 

Mabel considers herself bilingual and feels fortunate and privileged to have different perspectives. Mabel graduated from Farmington High School in 1989, New Mexico State University in Elementary Education and did her student teaching in Central America and in 2008 received her masters degree from University of New Mexico in Latin American Studies traveling to other countires to live and learn. Following graduation from UNM, Mabel worked in the Ethnic Studies Program and during a visit home to Farmington saw the position announcement for ENLACE regional coordinator.

 

ENLACE (Engaging Latino Youth for Education) is a state funded ($200,000 yearly budget) to work with Latino students and all first generation students who want to attend college. ENLACE, affiliated with San Juan College, is a unique program in that a family center is directly working within an educational community. ENLACE is housed in a higher education facility, such as SJC and its counterparts are affiliated with NMSU, Highlands University and Clovis School District. Because it can be very intimidating going to a college campus for some parents and students, ENLACE's family center and neutral, inviting atmosphere mitigates some of the emotionally related stress. This work within the community started more than 10 years ago in the bilingual program at McCormick Elementary School with Carolyn Martinez and Lourdes known as the Family Room where they would translate for parents and students and offer needed services.

 

ENLACE offers GED in Spanish, ESOL and invites volunteers to teach English, computer, math courses. College preparation support is also available. Since the focus is on leadership building, working with partnerships throughout the community is essential, teaming with the Farmington Public Library, Sycamore Center Boys and Girls Club, local district schools, among others. ENLACE is a resouce for the community. ENLACE works with a wide spectrum of families who have just arrived to assisting with tracing their geneology back to Spain. As a result, ENLACE is politically active. ENLACE is active in the push for immigration. Student leaders took the initiative  to go to the legislators for passage of the DREAM ACT, whereby all graduates of New Mexico high schools would be eligible for financial aid regardless of their status. February 2 was the Day of Action, where youths made over 160 calls to government representatives and senators to support immigration initiatives.

 

Thank you, Mabel, Frances 

New Mexico is a bilingual state. As culturally relevant and responsive teachers, how do we advance students' education with deference to their own knowledge and identity?

 

Poem for MABEL by Frances Vitali

Anna sounds better in English than my given name.

Mabel  reminds me of Shame, embarrassment, hurtful past.

 

First generation American, who felt like an immigrant

as a Spanish speaker and

put into special education level D classes

because no teacher could understand me.

Shame, embarrassment, hurtful past:

Why must I choose and why feel so inferior.

 

Now colleged and acknowledged

I guide others in a program absent for me:

Preguntas, por favor, I implore.

 

I return to my native home to advocate and to my other to rejuvenate.

I am bilingual like two intelligent people

with two proud perspectives and two proud histories.

 

I am finally, Mabel.

Shame, embarrassment, and hurt are in the past.

Mabel, I am!