Highest Aspirations

What are the primary challenges EL families are facing in their communities and how can programs like FLI address them? How did COVID and other recent challenges in the education world impact absenteeism for students, and how can those issues be repaired? How can we support parents and families to address trauma they have experienced in order to improve their relationships with and outcomes for their children? We discuss these family engagement focused topics and more on this episode of Highest Aspirations featuring Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch and the work her team does through her Family Leadership Institute (FLI).

Born and raised in a small, borderside barrio of Laredo, Texas, Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch conquered the challenges of poverty, discrimination and illiteracy. Raised without material wealth, Consuelo learned from her immigrant parents that their wealth was in culture, tradition, values, and faith. The values Consuelo learned as a child were reinforced throughout her career in the United States military. After graduating from Hardin Simmons University, Consuelo entered the U.S. Army as an officer and served for two decades. During that time, she broke barriers and set records when she became the highest-ranking Mexican-American woman in the Combat Support Field of the U.S. Army. When selected to assume a command post, Consuelo disrupted her advancement by deciding to retire. She chose instead to honor her mother’s dying wish – for her to return to her roots and become

a community leader. In 1996, Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch founded the human development company, Educational Achievement Services, Inc. (EAS, Inc.), to fulfill her mission of preparing tomorrow’s leaders through grassroots leadership development. Consuelo Kickbusch affirms that her greatest achievement stems from motherhood. She loves spending time with her husband, five daughters and six grandchildren.

On this episode of Highest Aspirations, we explore the importance of building personalized professional learning opportunities that provide educators with opportunities to continuously reflect on their work. Our guests Shélynn (Shey) Riel and Anna Ciriani-Dean provide simple frameworks within an experiential learning cycle designed to improve instruction and reframe negative self-criticism into more constructive, actionable feedback. 

Shey and Anna produce and host the Teacher The Teacher Think-Aloud Podcast to create a reflective listening experience for teachers of the English language and to build a community of educators around the world who unite behind a shared fervor for teaching and learning.

Shélynn (Shey) Riel holds a Master of Education in TESOL and over fifteen years of experience in education. Alongside her work as co-host of The Teacher Think-Aloud Podcast, Shey works with Bridge Education as the Expert Series Webinar Moderator, facilitating live monthly webinars that bring together ELT experts to share insights and perspectives on the latest industry trends. Shey has held positions of leadership in curriculum development and program administration at universities and non-profits in the U.S., served as a facilitator for various digital exchanges for global English teachers, and delivered professional development to teachers on the ground in Argentina and Bangladesh. She adopts a holistic approach to education, emphasizing balanced environments for learning and reflection. Beyond the podcast, Anna works as a Learning & Development Coordinator for English Language Programs, a program of the U.S. Department of State, where she develops orientations and professional development courses on specialized topics in English language teaching for participants in teaching exchange programs worldwide. She holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and has worked within the field of English language education, abroad and in the U.S., for over 12 years as a teacher, assessment specialist, curriculum designer, program manager, and instructional designer. Her goal as an educator is to empower learners by giving them agency in their learning process and providing them with the tools they need to excel in their academic, professional, and personal lives.

For episode resources and more, visit our EL Community blog. Download the full episode transcript here.

On this episode of Highest Aspirations, we take a deep dive into how professional learning can help create and nurture the skillsets and the mindsets educators need to best serve multilingual learners. We challenge the often idealized assumption that “every teacher is a teacher of language” and explore ways to make that a reality rather than a desired state. We also talk about how effective leadership be used as a means to overcome issues teachers are facing like fatigue, burnout, and working in silos. Finally, we highlight some ways schools can leverage partnerships within the community to navigate teacher shortages and build their diverse educator pipeline.

To help us address some of these complicated topics, we brought in Dr. Sarah Schmidt de Carranza. Sarah has been has been an educator in Saint Paul Public Schools since 2003. She achieved National Board Certification in Teaching English as a New Language in 2009, and successfully re-certified in 2019. She joined the Saint Paul Public Schools Office of Multilingual Learning as a supervising administrator in 2019, and has served as the Executive Director of the Office of Multilingual Learning since 2021. 

For additional free resources, episode takeaways, and more, visit ⁠our blog.⁠ Download the ⁠full episode transcript here.

What is cultural linguistic responsiveness and what does this look like in action in the classroom? What are some of the biggest challenges facing the school system in becoming more culturally responsive, and what are some steps to take to address them? How can professional development be an effective lever in improving cultural responsiveness in a lasting, sustained way?

We answer these questions and more in this interview with Dr. Sharroky Hollie. Dr. Hollie Dr. Sharroky Hollie is a national educator who provides professional development to thousands of educators in the area of cultural responsiveness. Since 2000, Dr. Hollie has trained over 150,000 educators and worked in nearly 2,000 classrooms. In addition to his experience in education, he has authored several texts and journal articles. Most recently, he wrote Strategies for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching and Learning (2015).

For additional free resources, episode takeaways, and more, visit our blog. Download the full episode transcript here.

What are cross-linguistic connections, and how can they be used to develop metalinguistic awareness? How can pulling in both English and home languages during instruction actually accelerate learning, among other benefits? How can this holistic approach to language learning lead to biliteracy?

We discuss these questions and much more with Dr. Sandra Mercuri, who we met last fall at the La Cosecha conference in New Mexico. Dr. Mercuri is a nationally recognized Educational Consultant in the area of second language acquisition, dual language education, and curriculum integration for biliteracy development. She has over 28 years of experience in teaching in K-12 schools and at the university level in Argentina and the United States.  She is currently working on research on the development of academic language across the content areas, language transfer, and the effect of long-term professional development on bilingual and ESL teachers’ instructional practices.

For more episode resources and additional free content on supporting multilingual learners, visit our EL Community blog. Download the full episode transcript here.

In this shortened final episode before holiday break, we're sharing out a few highlights from the season and what's to come when we get back.

As always, thanks for listening, we wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season and will be back with new episodes January 16th, 2024!

Visit https://ellevationeducation.com/el-community for more free content and resources.

In this episode of Highest Aspirations, we're discussing dual language programs: what key features make them successful, how we make them more equitable, the steps we can take to further progress in the dual language movement, and much more.

For this conversation, we're interviewing Conor Williams, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, where he writes about education, immigration, early education, school choice, and work-life balance challenges for American families. He is an expert on American educational inequity, English learner students, dual immersion programs, urban education reform, and the history of progressivism. He was previously a senior researcher in New America’s Education Policy Program, a senior researcher in its Early Education Initiative, and the founding director of its Dual Language Learners National Work Group. He has taught postsecondary courses at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and American University. He is a member of the Children’s Equity Project and the National Conference of State Legislatures’ State Policy and Research for Early Education (SPREE) Working Group.

Williams is a regular columnist at the 74 Million. His work has also been published by the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post, The New Republic, Dissent, Commonweal, The Daily Beast, Vox, Talking Points Memo, and elsewhere.

Williams holds a PhD and MA in government from Georgetown University, an MS in teaching from Pace University, and a BA in government and Spanish from Bowdoin College. Before beginning his doctoral research, he taught first grade in Brooklyn, New York. Williams attended public schools for his K–12 education, and has two children enrolled in a public elementary school in Washington, D.C.

We hope you enjoy the conversation - and invite you to find additional episode takeaways and resources on our EL blog. You can download the full episode transcript here and access the report referenced throughout the interview here.

Welcome back to Highest Aspirations, an education podcast focused on providing educators with inspiration and strategies to help multilingual learners achieve their highest aspirations. In our last episode, we spoke with Dr. Joanna Dreby and Dr. Eric Macias about the work they are doing facilitate meaningful discussions among undergraduate students on immigration at the University of Albany and how some of the strategies they use might work in K-12 settings.  In this episode, I spoke with one of their students about how the experience impacted her and shifted her academic trajectory.  Falmari Rojas-Barrios is a graduate student who worked with Dr. Derby and Dr. Macias. She joins us to share a student perspective on how access (and lack thereof) to EL services impacted her K-12 experience, the challenges she and many young people with immigrant parents face in sharing their migration experiences, and some recommendations for how schools can better support the many students who share her experience. 

We will be featuring Dr. Joanna Dreby and Falmari Rojas-Barrios during our 4th annual IMPACT conference. This is a free, virtual event that takes place on December 4th, 5th, and 7th. You can find more information and register by visiting our EL Community at www.ellevationeducation.com/elcommunity. 

We have a repeat guest on Highest Aspirations today. I first talked with Dr. Joanna Dreby and some of her students back in March of 2022. We discussed the challenges that US-born children of immigrants face in school, family, and social environments. The two episodes we did were really eye-opening for me and many of our listeners. Joanna and one of the students we profiled in the series - Falmari Rojas-Barrios - will be joining us at our upcoming IMPACT conference to talk more about this topic, but we also decided to put this episode together around some of the other work Joanna and her team are doing at the University of Albany. Dr. Eric Macias has been an integral part of this work, and he joins us in this interview to make connections between what they are doing with undergraduate students and how we might be able to apply their learnings to K-12 settings as well. 

We dig into an impactful independent study experience they designed at the University of Albany to facilitate meaningful discussions among undergraduate students on immigration, the strategies they used to create a conducive environment for sharing personal migration stories, how K-12 educators can create inclusive and supportive environments for students to share their immigration experiences, and much more. 

As always, thanks for listening to Highest Aspirations and please enjoy our conversation with Dr. Joanna Dreby and Dr. Eric Macias. 

, and visit our EL Community blog for additional episode takeaways and a library of free resources for educators of multilingual learners.

How has a misinterpretation of “self-care” led to burnout in the education field? How can heightened emotional intelligence improve our ability to understand and manage our emotions, particularly when advocating for our MLLs? What are some improvements or changes we can call for in the educational ecosystem to provide better, meaningful emotional support for educators?

Dorina Sackman-Ebuwa in an honest, vulnerable, and sometimes emotional conversation about how a misinterpretation of “self-care” has led to burnout in the education field, how heightened emotional intelligence improves our ability to understand and manage our emotions, particularly when advocating for our MLLs, and some improvements we can call for to provide better, more meaningful emotional support for educators. 

Dr. Dorina Sackman-Ebuwa is known as The Lab Coat Teacher and affectionately “Miss Dorito” by her students and colleagues from around the world. A Top 4 Finalist for National Teacher of the Year and Florida Teacher of the Year, polyglot Dorina takes her 26-year ELL/Bilingual/ELSVA classroom experiences and doctoral research on Transformative Emotional Intelligence and travels the globe inspiring, motivating, empowering, and elevating educators with professional and personal learning that starts from within. From trainings from the heart using her YouTube Channel BELIEVE_Café, to her authentic and humorous real talk “Keyshops” on reflequity® through Emotional Intelligence, Dorina Sackman-Ebuwa encourages all to B.E.L.I.E.V.E.! ® - Be the Educators who Lead to Inspire and Empower Via Empathy! When not wearing the many hats of an educator, Dorina dons a Stetson and works on her “Franch”, tending to her beloved special needs rescue cows, goats, chickens, ponies, mini donkeys, and barn cat named “Cool Ranch”. Find Miss Dorito on twitter @Dorina_BELIEVE or visit www.dorinasackman.com