I'm officially a doctoral candidate and am ready for CUFA in New Orleans next week! I'll be part of a large elementary social studies roundtable on Thursday and will also be presenting strategies for teaching social studies to emergent bilinguals at NCSS on Friday with my partner-in-crime Dr. Cinthia Salinas. Catch me if you can!
When those who have power to name and to socially construct reality choose not to see you or hear you, whether you are dark-skinned, old, disabled, female, or speak with a different accent or dialect than theirs, when someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked in to a mirror and saw nothing. Yet you know you exist and others like you, that this is a game with mirrors. It takes some strength of soul—and not just individual strength, but collective understanding—to resist this void, this nonbeing, into which you are thrust, and to stand up, demanding to be seen and heard.
- Adrienne Rich
