As a department we talked about centering our existing focus on diversity and inclusion by bringing into focus with greater clarity our students of color and native speakers, the roles they play, and the potential they hold in our classes.

We are committed to making a small change in some area of our practice albeit, curriculum content, pedagogy, by reinventing a project, assignment, or even the way we structure a class and empower the students to engage.

We began our meeting by reviewing our notes from last meeting and raising the question of our native speakers and the role they play in our classes. We debated the merits of using them as leaders and how this more often than not oculd have an adverse affect on their own identity and relationships with their peers. As teachers with whom our native speakers can convese and identify, we have the responsibiity to help them feel confident and proud of their bilingualism.

With the end of the trimester soon upon us, we discussed our end of trimeter projects and agreed to have those projects reflect some issue of social justice, or area of equity and inclusion, either through current events, research, oral presenetions, or group discussions.

In our next meeting, we will discuss the topic of “gender” in teaching a langauge and  how we are addressing it with our students who are often confused and ourtraged by it. And in the upper grades we will work to expand our reading list to include a wider range of author, more representative of our studens and world.