Research in Cape Verde the impact of colonialism on its culture and language to work toward creating a welcoming and social justice-oriented school community where students emigrating from there feel valued and empowered.
I have learned many new things about the culture and history of Cabo Verde. I learned about the way that schools are run in CV and together with my colleagues will make recommendations to our school on how to bridge the gap for students coming to us by incorporating similar structures that they were familiar with.
I plan on using information I learned about Amilcar Cabral, the Cape Verdean Revolution, and identity within my identity unit at school as well as social justice themed units. I collected some texts and stories as well that I plan on infusing into my units and sharing with other teachers.
Having the chance to visit families of students abroad was one of the greatest accomplishments of doing this fellowship because it allowed me and my colleagues to get a different perspective on our students lives and where they come from. I realized by speaking with families the painful ripple effects of separation all in the hopes of a better life for their students. This insight will help us support students better socio-emotionally.
The report that we are writing will give recommendations to administration about our findings while in Cape Verde and what we can adopt from the Cape Verdean school system to support our students better. Also, having learned some Kriolu, I think it will help me to build connection with students better and help me to clarify content when students need language support.
We have made strong connections with Amilcar Cabral High School. We're hoping to return to CV and to continue partnering with AC High to share ideas about curriculum, assessment, school policies, and language learning (given that students learn 4 languages there!). Further my colleagues and I are hoping to work with teachers from the HS to create an exchange program for teachers from our school to go and learn more about the culture and history of CV to better support students & instruction.
I plan on celebrating student learning by having more publication celebrations that showcase their learning and the work they do around identity and social justice.
Given the social justice aspects of our curriculum, I am hoping to pair my students with students from Amilcar Cabral high school in order to exchange ideas from across the world about social justice and ideas about how to address different socio-political and economic obstacles that students both in the US and in CV face.
I have worked with Cape Verdean students for a long time and never really knew much about Cape Verde other than its geographical location. The opportunity to go my students' country deepened my understanding of who they are, their history and culture. This was a crucial trip because without understanding my students' identities I cannot effectively teach them nor create curriculum that they can relate to. This trip will help me in being more culturally & linguistically sustaining in my practice.
FUND FOR TEACHERS ©