Teachers Without Borders

" Teachers Without Borders?is the story of four Indian teachers who came to the United States in the face of tremendous personal and professional odds to teach in urban schools. Their experiences are brought to life in this groundbreaking empirical study through interviews with their principals, district representatives in charge of recruitment and orientation, recruitment agency personnel, and union representatives, as well as in-depth classroom observations and student commentary. This well-researched work raises an essential question: If international teachers face daily exploitation, a lack of personal and professional support, and a lack of pedagogical and cultural preparation, are they able to give urban students the high-quality multicultural education they need and deserve? Book Features: An engaging case study that tackles competing discourses about immigration, globalization, and teacher quality. The voices of international teachers highlighting the successes and challenges of their experience and comparisons to teachers in other cities across the country. An examination of the differences in student and teacher expectations and how these influence teaching and learning. Alyssa Hadley Dunnis an assistant professor of urban teacher education at Georgia State University. “Teachers Without Borders?underscores the need for teacher educators and district personnel to incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy into their programs and professional support.” —From the Foreword byJacqueline Jordan Irvine “Teachers Without Borders?documents the advent of hiring international teachers to fill shortages in urban schools. Dunn’s extraordinary analysis shows the lack of preparation of these teachers and, as important, she teaches us how to build the kind of support that will transform this kind of teacher recruitment into a system that matters for students, their schools, and their communities.” —Ann Lieberman, Senior Scholar, Stanford University, co-author ofTeachers in Professional CommunitiesandHow Teachers Become Leaders “Alyssa Hadley Dunn argues that both students and international teachers are being misled. This is an excellent and important study.” —Carl A. Grant, Hoefs-Bascom Professor, University Wisconsin-Madison “In this highly readable case study, Dunn exposes how the rhetoric of ‘cultural awareness’ used to justify hiring temporary international teachers masks a deeper devaluation of teachers, students of color, and pedagogical knowledge.” —Christine Sleeter, professor emerita, California State University, Monterey Bay, co-author ofTeaching with Vision: Culturally Responsive Teaching in Standards-Based Classrooms "Teachers Without Borders?will transport you through the local and the global, interweaving nuanced portraits of teachers from abroad with troubling unveilings of the bigger picture behind teacher recruitment and school reform. Insightful, passionate, and expansive, this book is a must-read.” —Kevin Kumashiro, University of Illinois at Chicago, author ofBad Teacher! How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture; “In this brilliantly rendered case, we see the human consequences when advocates adopt profit-driven strategies, assume quick-fix solutions, and embrace an arid view of teaching and learning. We can also glimpse pathways toward creating a system capable of educating all children in our wildly diverse democracy.” —William Ayers, educator and bestselling author ofTo Teach, Third EditionandTeaching the Taboo “Teachers Without Borders?opens a new window on the complex realities of cultural literacy in our schools, the challenges of culturally responsive pedagogy in our classrooms, and the still promising opportunities for reform today.” —Jeff Biggers, author ofState Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream “This highly-readable and moving book couples compelling case studies with hard-hitting social and political critique. In a sensitive yet unflinching analysis, Alyssa Hadley Dunn exposes the complex economic, professional, and humanitarian issues involved in international teacher recruitment. Although many readers will not be aware of this problem before reading the book, they will never be able to forget it once they do.” —Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Cawthorne Professor of Teacher Education, Lynch School of Education, Boston College "

The future of education centers empowered students in a global learning ecosystem. Despite decades of reform, the traditional borders of education—graduation, curriculum, classrooms, schools—have failed to deliver on the goals of excellence and equity. Despite massive societal changes, education remains controlled by an old mindset. It is time to change that limiting mindset and, more importantly, the ineffective practices in education. To truly serve all learners, future classrooms must remove the boundaries of learning and become student-centered, culturally responsive, and personalized—supportive and equitable environments where each student can direct their own learning and seek multiple pathways to skills and knowledge in a global learning ecosystem. This compelling call for transformative change offers all involved in education Evidence-based arguments that reveal the need to break the traditional borders that limit learning Strategies to personalize learning and remove the confinement of traditional pathways Examples from around the world to create equitable and student-centric learning environments Resources for creating a school learning environment that expands opportunities for personalized learning into the global learning ecosystem It is time to now imagine a different kind of learning, without borders, and to begin the shifts in practice that will result in personalized learning for all students.

Teaching without Borders: Creating Equity and Inclusion through Active Centralized Empowerment provides educators with theories and conceptual tools that they can use to de-marginalize the classroom. The text introduces readers to Active Centralized Empowerment (ACE), a critical pedagogy, paradigm, and praxis that allows educators to create a classroom environment where all voices can be included and valued, and each student has an equal opportunity to excel. This critical pedagogy reflects the idea that every student can learn something new and can be better and more effective when it comes to strategies of inclusion with power. It recognizes students as humans first and demonstrates how their unique attributes and strengths can be leveraged to help them move from the margins. This unique and powerful methodology can be modified for the purposes of each educator and all levels of education, from elementary to university, across all disciplines. Designed to help educators create equity within the classroom, Teaching without Borders is an exemplary resource for programs in education.

A critical resource for K-12 educators that serve BIPOC and first-generation students that explores why inclusive and culturally relevant pedagogy is necessary to ensure the success of their students The practices and values in the US educational system position linguistically, culturally, and socioeconomically diverse children and families at a disadvantage. BIPOC dropout rates and levels of stress and anxiety have linked with non-inclusive school environments. In this collection, 3 educators tell and will draw on their experiences as immigrants and educators to address racial inequity in the classroom and provide a thorough analysis of different strategies that create an inclusive classroom environment. White educators that serve BIPOC students will benefit from these reflections on incorporating culturally relevant pedagogies that value the diverse experiences of their students. With a focus on Haitian and Dominican students in the US, the authors will reveal the challenges that immigrant and first-generation students face. They’ll also offer insights about topics such as: • How do language policies and social justice intersect? • How can educators use culturally relevant teaching and community funds of knowledge to enrich school curriculum? • How can educators center the needs of the student within the classroom? • How can educators support Haitian Creole-speaking students?

The interwoven futures of humanity and our planet are under threat. Urgent action, taken together, is needed to change course and reimagine our futures.

EDUCATION / Urban

Tomiyama Taeko, a Japanese visual artist born in 1921, is changing the way World War II is remembered in Japan, Asia, and the world. Her work deals with complicated moral and emotional issues of empire and war responsibility that cannot be summed up in simple slogans, which makes it compelling for more than just its considerable beauty. Japanese today are still grappling with the effects of World War II, and, largely because of the inconsistent and ambivalent actions of the government, they are widely seen as resistant to accepting responsibility for their nation’s violent actions against others during the decades of colonialism and war. Yet some individuals, such as Tomiyama, have produced nuanced and reflective commentaries on those experiences, and on the difficulty of disentangling herself from the priorities of the nation despite her lifelong political dissent. Tomiyama’s sophisticated visual commentary on Japan’s history—and on the global history in which Asia is embedded—provides a compelling guide through the difficult terrain of modern historical remembrance, in a distinctively Japanese voice.