My teacher’s heart will probably always be a bit rooted in high school classrooms in the Bronx. When I think about translingual or translanguaging pedagogies, they’re peopled by the students I worked with there. When I read things about accessibility in the classroom, I think about the shortcomings of all my students’ IEPs and the strategies I had to develop with individuals who were often much more savvy about getting their own needs met than I was. When I think about education and social justice and assessment, I think about the neoliberal machine grinding down NYC schools, and I think about the little victories my students and I could manage.
Learning to be calm about it 