{"id":201757,"date":"2017-04-04T11:39:12","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T15:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=201757"},"modified":"2023-07-25T11:43:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T15:43:55","slug":"teaching-in-turbulent-times-inspiring-dialogue-among-educators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2017\/04\/teaching-in-turbulent-times-inspiring-dialogue-among-educators\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching in Turbulent Times: Inspiring Dialogue Among Educators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faculty in the Neag School teacher education program this March brought together more than 70 people \u2014 from current students and alumni to local educators and school administrators \u2014\u00a0for an interactive discussion focused on the theme of \u201cTeaching in Turbulent Times.\u201d Prompted by ongoing discussion in recent months among faculty and educators about political divides surfacing in today\u2019s classrooms, the event \u2014 led by\u00a0Dorothea Anagnostopoulos<\/a>, executive director of teacher education at the Neag School \u2014 was intended to serve as an opportunity for a diverse range of people in the education field to network and speak openly, offering suggestions and concerns.<\/p>\n

Current students, practicing teachers, faculty, and local administrators alike, Anagnostopoulos says, have in recent months been raising questions about how to confront challenges within the classroom that have stemmed from the recent contentious presidential election campaign, the education policies currently being put in place by the Trump administration, as well as the larger movement of ethnonationalism across the U.S. and Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a moment where we can actually work together and\u00a0create bridges amongst ourselves\u00a0\u2014 and also with our students.\u201d\u00a0\u2014 Dorothea Anagnostopoulos, executive director, teacher education<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Educators play an important role in students\u2019 understanding of what it means to become active and informed citizens, Anagnostopoulos says. For example, she says, recent events have \u201craised critical questions about how we can find ways to support students who have been victimized and to educate students on hate crimes.\u201d \u00a0Teachers, she adds, may not always know how to address these kinds of issues with students in their classroom. This is what spurred the idea for a two-way conversation that addresses the needs of current and future educators and school administrators.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a moment where we can actually work together and create bridges amongst ourselves \u2014 and also with our students,\u201d Anagnostopoulos says.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeachers have started to voice concerns about these types of issues,\u201d says Kelly Lyman, superintendent of Mansfield Public Schools and an\u00a0adjunct faculty member<\/a>\u00a0of the UConn Administrator Preparation Program, who attended the March 6 event on the UConn Storrs campus. \u201cThis is an important time for finding safe spaces for others to have conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy district is quite diverse, and the immigrant population makes up the fabric of who we are as a school community,\u201d adds Vonetta Romeo-Rivers, director of Talent Development for Manchester Public Schools. \u201cWe started having these conversations, but they are tough to have in a professional space. If we can\u2019t do it \u2026 ourselves, we can\u2019t help our students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anagnostopoulos kicked the event off, followed by remarks from Parag Joshi, a history teacher at Manchester High School, and Neag School assistant professor\u00a0Glenn Mitoma<\/a>, who serves as director of UConn\u2019s Dodd Center. Each speaker highlighted educators\u2019 rights and responsibilities in the current policy setting. During the latter half of the evening, attendees split into groups to discuss questions raised by faculty.<\/p>\n

Neag School assistant professor\u00a0Rachael Gabriel<\/a>\u00a0called it a \u201cnice balance of sharing resources and also speaking and connecting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal with a roundtable discussion is that it\u2019s a structural symbol of equal participation, which is helpful for people who don\u2019t know each other,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m really conscious of the idea that we are preparing future educators, but also that we have a responsibility to current teachers. We don\u2019t have a lot of answers right now, which is why we feel that more of a connection is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Topics of conversation included the responsibilities of current and future educators toward undocumented, refugee, and immigrant students; ways to help students navigate fake news; and available resources to help students with these issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope there will continue to be events like this so that people will feel less isolated,\u201d says Teresa Bulanda, a math teacher at Classical Magnet School in Hartford.<\/p>\n

Neag School associate professor-in-residence Eliana Rojas says she also found the dialogue led by teachers and the schools \u201cinspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter this type of event, it makes it very energizing and positive to work in this environment,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faculty in the Neag School teacher education program this March brought together more than 70 people \u2014 from current students and alumni to local educators and school administrators \u2014 for an interactive discussion focused on the theme of \u201cTeaching in Turbulent Times.\u201d Prompted by ongoing discussion in recent months among faculty and educators about political divides surfacing in today\u2019s classrooms, the event \u2014 led by Dorothea Anagnostopoulos, executive director of teacher education at the Neag School \u2014 was intended to serve as an opportunity for a diverse range of people in the education field to network and speak openly, offering suggestions and concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":201758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2426,2424,1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2455],"class_list":["post-201757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curriculum-instruction","category-neag-community-engagement","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-23 10:40:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201757"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201760,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201757\/revisions\/201760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/201758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201757"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=201757"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=201757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}