The study of language and literacy is about how we make meaning of the world, how we communicate meaning to others and how we understand multiple perspectives. Each individual’s perspective is formed by an identity matrix that includes race, class, gender, culture, religion, language, and so on. Through this framework the world around us develops […]
It has been many months since I have written anything else besides cover letters, dissertation edits or shopping lists. Although I find myself writing every day, my soul has not written a single word. When I announced to a friend that I had just completed my Ph.D., she congratulated me and quickly asked if I […]
Rarely do I take the subway. The years in which I had to ride the subway day in and day out to school and then to work from the North Bronx to Manhattan had left a long lasting stain of intolerance. Once you have smelled the fumes of the underground, the stench of poverty mixed […]
Frank Wu (2002) introduced me to the work of Yale professor Harold Hongju Koh in his provocative and insightful book, “Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White.” This lawyer, I learned represented thousands of Haitian refugees in testing the legality of government policies in the early nineties. In understanding this lawyer’s journey, Wu writes […]
The “Six Pillars of Character” identified as trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship (Traub, 2005) are interpreted in a variety of different education programs – some of which also include other “virtues” such as, criticism, creativity, curiosity, concentration, communication, correction and control (The Seven C’s of Thinking Clearly by Integrity Matters). In sum, schools […]
So, I’m standing outside in a school parking lot freezing as the snow flurries dance around me to the whirl of the wind home only to Michigan or maybe Chicago in the dead of winter. My hands are red and chapped and I can’t go inside because I am keeping four men company as they […]
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