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ISSN #2331-6845 

 

Welcome from the Senior Editor 
By Dr. Gertrude Tinker Sachs 

Department of Middle and Secondary Education 
Georgia State University 

gatesolinaction2020@gmail.com    
 

What I learned the summer of 2018:   

Critical reflections of an ESOL, Language and Literacy Teacher Educator 

This summer I was privileged to have the opportunity to spend time in equity-based 

training with the CREATE Project in Atlanta, GA, to study the Holocaust with the Facing 

History Project at DePaul University, to visit the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Illinois 

and to visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum in 

Montgomery, Alabama with colleagues and students from Georgia State University.  

Finally, yet importantly, I had a chance to visit Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. I was 

privileged to have these experiences and I feel obligated to do something with the 

insights I have been afforded.  

Do You Know People? 

 “Privilege” comes in many forms because some people have not been afforded 

opportunities to engage in similar kinds of experiences because it may be that they do 

mailto:gatesolinaction2020@gmail.com


 
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not know people who could help them to access these activities.  Do you know people?  

People who can help you acquire goods and services and access to activities that you 

otherwise would not have been able to have on your own; goods, services and activities 

you would have had to “wait in line” for, might not have known about, or could not 

afford?  You are privileged if you know people who know other people who can help you 

gain insights into places to work or even give you a job or position without having to 

apply or compete for it.  Do you know people, especially people in positions of power?  

When you know people who will help you, you are privileged.  When you have the 

financial resources, you are privileged and when you have the knowledge and skills to 

access these activities, you are privileged.  In addition, yes, there are many other kinds 

of privileges such as our skin pigmentation, the language(s) we speak, our gender, our 

class, our country of origin, our cultural background, our education, our abilities, our 

career or job title and so on. 

 However, the question that haunts me now about these provocative activities this 

summer is what do I do with these privileges?  My first response is to share the 

experiences with you so that you may be inspired by what I write to take action.  

Individually and collectively, these visits and studies spoke to me of the need for: 

language and linguistic awareness; critical historical awareness; the development of 

knowledge, challenging humanity’s injustices and the power of privilege in our ways of 

being in research, service, curriculum and our teaching. Some of these issues are 

addressed in the papers in this edition which I will get to at the end of this editorial. 



 
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Equity-Based Training, Atlanta, GA. 

 As an Afro-Caribbean professor from the Bahamas living in the United States, I 

had very limited awareness of something called “Equity-based training.”  I knew that 

there were facilitators who specialized in helping others address systemic racism in the 

United States but I was not aware of the range or very rich and compelling ways of 

interrogating systemic racism and the privileging of whiteness.  When colleagues from a 

research project invited me to participate in the week-long sessions (from 8 a.m. – 4 

p.m.), I was curious and agreed to participate.  This work was emotionally shocking and 

uncomfortable because during previous facilitations on race in the United States, the 

presenters were always “gentle” and “careful” in awakening attendees to implicit bias 

with examples of what it looked like in the academy and society. This time, we were 

forced to confront our own implicit biases “in the skin we live in” as black, brown and 

white people through the protocols of the San Francisco Coalition of Essential Small 

School (SF-CESS). Their  mission is “to interrupt and transform current and systemic 

educational inequities to ensure all students have access to personalized, equitable 

and high performing schools that believe and demonstrate each student can, 

should and will succeed” (SF-CESS, 2018, p.1).  Through working alone and in large 

and small groups we were, time and time again, pushed by the facilitators and our peers 

to “speak our truth, go to the source of knowledge, stay engaged, experience discomfit 

and pay attention to patterns of participation” (SF-CESS, 2018 pp. 11-16). It was very 



 
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emotionally draining work every day as I worked on myself and with others to be 

better human beings striving to transform schools and society. 

 My week at DePaul University and the Facing History and Ourselves (FHO) 

Project and symposium on the Holocaust was humanizing.  We read critical historical 

texts, listened to lectures and engaged in passionate discussions on scientific racism 

and anti-Semitism and the American response to the Holocaust.  One experience which 

was pivotal for this engagement was the visit to the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, IL 

which has been designed for visitors to experience the museum from the personal 

perspective of the survivors through the display of their artifacts.  It is the first museum 

in the world that utilizes hologram technology to tell the survivors’ stories.  We met one 

of the survivors and had a chance to ask her questions.  The work of FHO is built on 

“intellectual rigor, informed civic responsibility, ethical reflection and emotional 

engagement” (FHO, Pedagogical Triangle). Their mission is to “engage students of 

diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order 

to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry” 

(https://www.facinghistory.org/).  Like the work of the SF-CESS, the FHO work was also 

emotionally draining yet also very much uplifting because you could not leave the 

museum as a “bystander, doing nothing” but as an “upstander, doing something to 

make a difference” so that heinous actions of humans against one another would not 

happen again. 

  My visit with colleagues to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the 

Legacy Museum, From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, was riveting and 

emotionally compelling as well.  The work of Bryan Stevenson (2014) and the Equal 

https://www.facinghistory.org/


 
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Justice Initiative (EJI) is “committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive 

punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to 

protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable in American Society” 

(https://eji.org/about-eji).  The National Memorial was “conceived with the hope of 

creating a sober, meaningful site where people can gather and reflect on America’s 

history of racial inequality” (https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial).  The EJI 

believe that:  

…the history of racial inequality and economic injustice in the United 

States has created continuing challenges for all Americans, and more 

must be done to advance our collective goal of equal justice for all. The 

United States has done very little to acknowledge the legacy of slavery, 

lynching, and racial segregation. As a result, people of color are 

disproportionately marginalized, disadvantaged and mistreated. The 

American criminal justice system is compromised by racial disparities and 

unreliability that is influenced by a presumption of guilt and 

dangerousness that is often assigned to people of color. 

(https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/museum). 

 My last summer of 2018 experience was in Albuquerque, New Mexico where I 

travelled to Acoma Pueblo and Sky City Cultural Center Haak’u Museum.  My 

companion and I learned that, “Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico is more than just a tourist 

destination.  It’s part of New Mexico’s cultural heritage, as the oldest continuously 

inhabited settlement in North America and the 28th historic site designated by the 

national trust for historic preservation. Acoma history is also the story of the Southwest, 

https://eji.org/about-eji
https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial
https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/museum


 
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from its initial role as the home to the Anaasazi people, to the thirteenth century 

founding of the Pueblo, which is still alive and well as a community and touchstone for 

Native Americans in the area and nationwide.” http://www.acomaskycity.org/home.html). 

This visit to Acoma Pueblo was very educational and spiritual because I learned how 

much I do not know and appreciate about Native Americans.  I was disappointed to 

learn from our tour guide that the native language, Keres, is not being taught in the 

schools and according to him, the school curriculum was not specialized for Native 

Americans. In this very spiritually moving and beautiful place, my companion and I left 

with a strong sense of disquiet because there was so much more to learn and more to 

do to right the wrongs of the past and their ongoing impact on the present. My four 

experiences this summer speak eloquently and beseechingly to me of my role as an 

educator in the righting of those wrongs.  In our work with English language learners, a 

marginalized and minoritized group, we need to actively pursue language and linguistic 

awareness; critical historical awareness; and the development of knowledge about the 

Other as we challenge a culture of humanity’s ongoing injustices through wittingly and 

unwittingly exercising power and privileges over others.  

In our equity-based training, a colleague and I identified the following descriptors 

that ELLs want to tell educators: 

• We speak multiple languages and dialects; 

• We come from different classes, religions, cultures, traditions, etc. 

• Our histories are older than the United States;  

• We come from various school systems with VERY HIGH standards; 

http://www.acomaskycity.org/home.html


 
7                                      GATESOL in Action, Fall 2018 
 

• Immigrants have contributed to every sector of the U.S., e.g., Steve Jobs 

was Syrian; California rail system was built by Chinese laborers.  

• Talk to us, learn about us, INCLUDE us, let us use our languages, hear our 

truth; 

• Talk to us/speak to us in OUR LANGUAGE; 

• Maximize our Presence! 

You can feel the pain of being an outsider in our words.  Can you HEAR us?   

Native speakers of English feel privileged that we speak the language of power in the 

US and in many international contexts around the world but Kracsch (1997) has a 

different “feel” for “native” speakers.  Here is what she says: “The native speaker is in 

fact an imaginary construct-a canonically literate mono-lingual middle-class member of 

a largely fictional national community whose citizens share a belief in a common history 

and a common destiny” (Kramsch, 1997 p. 363).  Is that you?  I believe not but let us all 

examine our privileges and not let them obstruct our work towards equity and justice for 

all.  My summer of 2018 has been AMAZING to put it mildly, I hope yours was too. 

As I referenced earlier, the need for: language and linguistic awareness; critical 

historical awareness; the development of knowledge, challenging humanity’s injustices 

and the power of privilege in our ways of being in research, curriculum and our 

teaching, our seven papers in this edition, take up this gauntlet. 

 In Personal Stories and Perspectives, Choi encourages all of us to be brave if 

we are mutilingual and to practice translanguaging.  Choi, a multilingual speaker, writes 

about her trip to Peru and her attempts to learn Spanish that were complicated when 



 
8                                      GATESOL in Action, Fall 2018 
 

her other languages began to interfere.  Her piece, Multilingual self: Inspired by a recent 

trip to Peru” is translanguaging in action!  

 In Critical Viewpoints, Jeddi writes her views on racist immigration policies and 

sentiments and the ways in which these ultimately impact ELLs in schools.  In her piece, 

“This warrants a visit to the Human Rights Museum,” Jeddi critiques government actions 

in the summer of 2018 and urges educators and everyone to practice equity and to 

become more welcoming and knowledgeable about people of diverse backgrounds 

because of the numerous benefits they provide: “diverse skills, experiences, language 

resources, and worldviews.” 

 Lake in his Book Review of Farrell’s (2017), Sociolinguistics and Language 

Teaching, offers us some food for thought on selecting books that help us to develop 

our critical views and knowledge in sociolinguistics. Our text choices have the potential 

to influence how educators welcome and teach others with diverse linguistic 

backgrounds to our classrooms.  Lake contends that knowledge building can be 

facilitated through “discussion questions with the potential to open up meaningful 

discussions” for educators. 

 In our first Innovative School-Based Program and Report, Leckie writes about 

a “Language experience camp: Connecting schools, students and families in southeast 

rural Georgia.” We are very pleased to welcome a school-based report to our 

publication and we encourage more of them. Leckie’s report on a summer camp with 

“no tests” describes how a team of educators developed and conducted a week-long, 

theme-based interactive summer camp for ELs. The camp was developed in response 



 
9                                      GATESOL in Action, Fall 2018 
 

to educators’ desire to “expand social opportunities for ELs and their families as well as 

provide intensive continued language development support.”  

 In From the Trenches Outside of Georgia, McCleod-Chambless writes her 

critical reflections on “Learning to teach again, in China.”  McCleod-Chambless takes us 

on an exciting intercultural roller coaster ride that is filled with highs and lows, rough 

spots and smooth coasting pathways all as she learns to live, learn and teach in a new 

setting. In the process, she becomes a different educator and human being. 

 “Boys and girls for others,” is our Classroom Praxis Report.  In this piece, 

Jackson provides a detailed description of how she incorporated a critical multicultural 

approach to integrate social justice in a third grade Social Studies EL classroom.  The 

purpose was to help students become critical thinkers as they tackle real problems to 

become agents of change in their lives. 

 In our second Innovative School-Based Program and Report, Paynter and 

Arnett discuss the “Benefits of collaboration and the ESOL Teacher and the Library 

Media Specialist.”  They challenge ESOL educators to capitalize on the resources that 

library media personnel possess not just for their own professional benefit but also for 

their students.  The authors describe how the media room can become a strong refuge 

for ELs outside of their regular classrooms. They model how teachers can work 

collaboratively to maximize learning experiences for their students.  

 Our papers in this edition all speak to empowering our learners; developing 

teachers’ skills, knowledge, and experiences in a wide array of settings; the importance 

of learning other languages and being cultural brokers.  Collectively, all the papers 



 
10                                      GATESOL in Action, Fall 2018 
 

encourage us to go beyond the basics and, if we truly want to improve the lives of our 

learners, it starts with us as educators.  We must put out more effort to learn about them 

and their world and to advocate for them in all matters. 

What a summer it has been!  Many thanks to our reviewers!  We hope you have 

an awesome fall!  



 
11                                      GATESOL in Action, Fall 2018 
 

References 

Equal Justice Institute  https://eji.org/ 

Facing History and Ourselves   https://www.facinghistory.org/ 

Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center  https://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/ 

Kramsch, C. (1997).  The privilege of the nonnative speaker. Modern Language 

Association, 112(3), 359 – 369.  

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/462945.pdf?casa_token=TbLOROVSxDYAAAAA

:-dgFO-

fCQgUsTcb4zHWuMDYBv6P1MMEkCVBXEmQRQSKGRsjCsz5HgYxMvLW8bl

WdGVeIZaXDuHimPDPVsKjoFJN9LMIk7CNbE6YyVKouHbNahAoj7Zwk 

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice  https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/ 

The San Francisco Coalition of Essential Small School (SF-CESS)  http://sfcess.org/ 

Sky City Cultural Center Haak’u Museum  http://www.acomaskycity.org/home.html 

Stevenson, B. (2014). Just mercy: A story of justice and redemption. New York, NY: 

Spiegel & Grau. 

 

https://eji.org/
https://www.facinghistory.org/
https://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/462945.pdf?casa_token=TbLOROVSxDYAAAAA:-dgFO-fCQgUsTcb4zHWuMDYBv6P1MMEkCVBXEmQRQSKGRsjCsz5HgYxMvLW8blWdGVeIZaXDuHimPDPVsKjoFJN9LMIk7CNbE6YyVKouHbNahAoj7Zwk
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/462945.pdf?casa_token=TbLOROVSxDYAAAAA:-dgFO-fCQgUsTcb4zHWuMDYBv6P1MMEkCVBXEmQRQSKGRsjCsz5HgYxMvLW8blWdGVeIZaXDuHimPDPVsKjoFJN9LMIk7CNbE6YyVKouHbNahAoj7Zwk
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/462945.pdf?casa_token=TbLOROVSxDYAAAAA:-dgFO-fCQgUsTcb4zHWuMDYBv6P1MMEkCVBXEmQRQSKGRsjCsz5HgYxMvLW8blWdGVeIZaXDuHimPDPVsKjoFJN9LMIk7CNbE6YyVKouHbNahAoj7Zwk
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/462945.pdf?casa_token=TbLOROVSxDYAAAAA:-dgFO-fCQgUsTcb4zHWuMDYBv6P1MMEkCVBXEmQRQSKGRsjCsz5HgYxMvLW8blWdGVeIZaXDuHimPDPVsKjoFJN9LMIk7CNbE6YyVKouHbNahAoj7Zwk
https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/
http://sfcess.org/
http://www.acomaskycity.org/home.html

	Welcome from the Senior Editor
	By Dr. Gertrude Tinker Sachs Department of Middle and Secondary Education Georgia State University gatesolinaction2020@gmail.com
	What I learned the summer of 2018:   Critical reflections of an ESOL, Language and Literacy Teacher Educator

