View Content #28016

Becky Peterson has spent two decades working in education. From urban education and French teaching in Nashville, Tennessee, to teaching in higher education at both Peabody College in the Secondary Education Program and in the Department of French and Italian at Vanderbilt, her desire to support pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and language learning is clear.

Becky’s areas of interest are in promoting and sustaining humanizing pedagogies in all classroom spaces, approaching classroom management from an ecological perspective grounded in the notion of care and belonging, thinking intentionally about the triad relationship of student teacher-mentor teacher-university mentor and infusing each of these with a lens for social justice and equitable practices.

Becky is also the current president of the Tennessee Foreign Language Teachers’ Association.

When I enrolled my son who had fairly extensive disabilities, including limited communication abilities, in our local Spanish immersion school, I had my fair share of well-intentioned people (at least I hope they were) look at me sideways with quizzical looks. I even had a few ask if I was making the right decision for him. As not only a new parent, but also a language educator, this decision made good sense. The students were all beginning together at a new school, with new friends and ultimately with a new language - rich with symbols, sounds, colors, variety, and as many of you know, the great opportunity to differentiate. He learned through song, his anxiety was low, he made true friends, and he used the target language in the community. I believed (and still do) that there were connections being made in his brain that were vital to his thriving in this world. That was nearly ten years ago now. Honestly, there are moments where I long for those beginning days where inclusion in the language classroom did authentically look like belonging, and I’m grateful that we made the decision we did.

The beauty of the work we do in the language classroom is that we have the power to make this space one of the most inclusive in the building, much like what my son experienced. We, as a society, necessitate a shift to thinking about what students can do with the language, an invitation and openness to the breadth of what this looks like, allowing for abilities of all kinds. We need to move away from what was historically considered only for "men of letters." We want our classes to reflect what society looks like.

What exactly does belonging look like and how can we cultivate this in our world language classrooms?  Professor Erik Carter centers much of his research on what belonging looks like for those with disabilities, and this is where we can continue to make our spaces equitable and accessible for students who may not be traditionally included within our cinderblock walls. He cites ten aspects of belonging including:

• To be present
• To be welcomed
• To be invited
• To be known
• To be accepted
• To be supported
• To be cared for
• To be befriended
• To be needed
• To be loved

I suspect that many of your classrooms already include each aspect of belonging on the list, but have you extended this to include those with disabilities? How could you improve said extension? We teach not only a language, but we also teach who we are, as Parker Palmer says.

Ultimately, we want to foster a worldview through the language we teach, one without borders and barriers and by creating spaces of belonging for all students through the vehicle of language, we give all of our students the opportunity to learn both the tangible aspects of the language and the intangible aspects of what it means to be in community. I know that I made the right choice for my son and what I learned as a parent and educator has informed what I do daily in my classroom to emulate what belonging means for each person in my care.

References

Carter, E. W. (2018, July). Ten dimensions of belonging. Plenary presentation at the NCE Summer Leadership Institute. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Carter, E. W. (2016). A place of belonging: Research at the intersection of faith and disability. Review & Expositor, 113, 167-180. doi:10.1177/0034637316637861