Being less silent: exceeding the safe confines of U.S. academic rightness

I try to listen to various podcasts, read blogs, and watch YouTube channels and vlogs in order to supplement, and sometimes to correct or exceed, the reading I do in my doctoral studies as much as possible. The best work, I think, includes collaborations led by immigrant and immigration-focused creators and activists, like Chat It …

Flipping It Horizontal

By Baxito - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 In 2018, I wrote a piece in Left Voice about the ecological nature of CUNY education: “I believe that CUNY is an educational ecology with relations flowing in many directions, meaning that what affects us as adjunct professors affects our students, which in turn affects their engagement …

Daring to be dumb in educational practice and scholarship

Like some of my other posts, I decided to leave this post title without a clarifying subheading. It refers to a suggestion made by Brad Heckman, an educator and specialist in conflict resolution with a background in international peacemaking who now leads an organization that provides conflict mediation training for police working in urban communities. …

Learning with lions: public pedagogy in NYC

Recently, a friend of mine shared with me an amazing opportunity to join a reading group with Stanley Aronowitz, professor emeritus and world renowned public scholar in the fields of sociology, political science, and critical theory who taught at the Graduate Center for over 30 years. My advisor at UMass Boston had mentioned Aronowitz specifically …

My first publication: The limits of pedagogy: diaculturalist pedagogy as paradigm shift in the education of adult immigrants

I've published my first solo article, "The limits of pedagogy: diaculturalist pedagogy as paradigm shift in the education of adult immigrants"! Please find the prepublication "Accepted Manuscript" version of "..." here. Enjoy, share, and give feedback! the-limits-of-pedagogy_-diaculturalist-pedagogy-as-paradigm-shift-in-the-education-of-adult-immigrants PLEASE NOTE: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Pedagogy, Culture …

Rancière and the role of education in political conformity/contestation

Yesterday I read a paper by Gert Biesta, a professor of education drawing from philosophy and political science whose interdisciplinary thinking inspires those of us like myself who are unconvinced by the all-too-often superficiality and dilettantism of the field of education. (I will write about this this week, as it bothers me greatly that those …

Pro-immigrant activism in Boston

Yesterday morning I went with organizers from the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (https://www.miracoalition.org/) to the State House in Boston to advocate for the support of amendments to the state budget which protect immigrants' access to housing, in-state tuition, education, and health care. We spoke with representatives and their aides and interns about this complicated …

A call to action: adult immigrants as heterogeneous learners (too)

Tonight, Ofelia Garcia and Jim Cummins, two of the world’s most well-respected linguists and educators, spoke at the Graduate Center of CUNY where I am doing my PhD. I work with Ofelia and tonight, my graduate students got a chance to tune in with me to watch the discussion, which dealt with multiliteracies and multilingualism …

Islamophobia and a call to action for ESL teachers

On the recommendation of a committed and insightful professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York, where I am now in my second year of study, I am resuming my blog. Thank you, Steve Brier! This came from the NY Times the other day, regarding the Islamophobia that many Muslims across the …

Service and skills as euphemisms: the “bread and circus” for teachers and students in non-profit adult education

INTRODUCTION In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire uses an analogy to illustrate how oppressors in society perpetuate the subordination of those they dominate. In ancient Rome, the elite classes sought to win the political favor of the commoners by supplying them with their most primal desires, panem et circenses, (bread and circus) (Juvenal, 1999); …