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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): So, Diana, will you stress out? It's a fun to be with it, because you will be singing and the dancing right? Exactly. I am, too. Yeah, I was going to then your own choreography, though, for the nervous.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: Let's do it. I'm going to drop the joy. I'm sorry.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): rude.

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Adriana Ramírez: Okay, everyone. Thank you for being here with us. This for us in the Pacific time is morning. 11

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Adriana Ramírez: Am. For Margarita. She is in Australia for am all. Mj, thank you for being here, so thank you, all of us, for being here with us and sharing this time and space with us. We are also privileged to have this a space we

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Adriana Ramírez: we are privileged to have each other here. We were sharing before we went, like how much we admire each other and love each other. And when I say this I feel like, Oh, my God! I feel love and kindness and energy and inspiration, and I see a lot of hope, too, because we've been doing a lot of work. And we want to share this work with all their colleagues.

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So our panel today is going to tackle 2 important topics. We're going to talk mainly about positionality, and then we are going to connect positionally and intersection out it. Sorry and interculturality.

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Adriana Ramírez: personality and interculturality.

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Adriana Ramírez: So I am going to start by giving a quick definition of positionality for those that are not familiar with with the concept and what it means. Then we're going to develop questions that different members of the panel are going to answer. Then I'm going to talk about interculturality also short, just a definition. We will keep answering questions, and at the end you will listen to our positionality statements. So

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Adriana Ramírez: I'm not going to introduce any of these amazing people. Now, because at the end of the panel each one is going to talk about themselves using their positionality statement. So we're actually going to learn more way, more more in depth about each other. And you will see how powerful this is.

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Adriana Ramírez: So let's get started with positionality. What is positionality? It refers to how differences in social position and power, shape identities and access in society.

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Adriana Ramírez: being aware of our own positionality helps us adjust the way we act from ours, our social position in an and just world

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Adriana Ramírez: normalizing. The sharing of our positionality means being aware of and talking about how our our identities class background, professional privileges, sexuality and race, etc., shape our teaching persona.

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Adriana Ramírez: There are so many benefits about this. What are the benefits it help us to correct possible imbalances that might, we might bring to our practices like challenge, our biases. When we are explicit about it. We build connections with others, students, colleagues, parents, we create a space for others to share about themselves and to challenge the structures of oppression.

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Adriana Ramírez: And we empower others. So with this definition being shared, we're going to start with question number one.

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Adriana Ramírez: And hey, Youon is going to ask for question number one. And then, Diana, I'm going to read the question based on the definition of positionality. Why is thinking about it important for our prophet profession? How you

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Haiyun Lu: thank you. Hi. Everyone so excited that you such an honor privilege and to be on this a panel. Everyone. I'm disappearing. I have the mind. So much. So okay, here we go. It's a positionality. I'm a little nervous. Right? Normally, I speak a very slowly. So let's take a deep press to myself.

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Haiyun Lu: Oh, okay, so I can catch myself. Okay, positionality is the idea that identity can change over time based on historical and the social changes happening around the this person like myself, on my identity, has been constantly involving changing, based on the

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Haiyun Lu: social, dynamic current event. A big political event happening in our society, so institutions are socially constructed throughout the time.

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Haiyun Lu: based on knowledge acquired by different people through socialization. So it's knowledge is not just book knowledge is really a socialization. Who ever in the power to deliver that that narrative. So then, that knowledge is a passed down to the future generation as a truth, schools or institutions. So students go to school to gain knowledge

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Haiyun Lu: based on the institution and the C 2 situations they encounter, which, and then become their own personal reality. So, therefore, students should be given chances to who they are and why they know what they know. That's our job.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you. How you, Diana!

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Adriana Ramírez: Diana, you're muted.

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Dahiana Castro: I just said, Hello!

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Dahiana Castro: I am honored to be here. Hello, everybody! I'm a little nervous as well. I don't know why, but I am very nervous.

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Dahiana Castro: Well, I believe that understanding positionality. It's important because it has a significant impact on our teaching practice and our interactions with our students.

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Dahiana Castro: It helps us understand how our background, our biases, our blind spots. privileges back here might shape our perspective and interactions in the classroom, including

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Dahiana Castro: the readings that we do in our class. The text that we have around in our in our classroom, for The ones that we don't have!

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Dahiana Castro: And I was guilty of that. About 2 or 3 years ago I noticed a blind spot there, how we deliver instruction, the way we evaluate our students, the way we provide feedback to our students.

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Dahiana Castro: here's just a few examples of like how position already affects our teaching practice.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Diana. Now I am going to read question number 2. I also posted it on Facebook. So everyone can have it. Can you talk

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Adriana Ramírez: about a situation or situations in which a teacher's positionality has perpetuated relationships of power. So we're we're going to have. We're going to start with when Ben Fisher Rodriguez, and then Bentley.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: Okay, hello! Everyone from Australia. It's 4 am here.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: I'm also nervous, too. We are all nervous

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Margarita Perez Garcia: to speak about positionality, something really new. And it reflects also

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Margarita Perez Garcia: a changing thing in our profession. Right? I have 2 examples. I think it's very easy to find examples from the staff room.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: because when teachers feel that they are not seen, they are truly who they are.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: and they speak without boundaries.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: So A teacher from a dominant background. That's my dogs making noises behind me

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Margarita Perez Garcia: A teacher from a dominant background may be unaware of the forward dynamic at play, and can criticize, a a speaker, a if a foreign speaker of the language in the classroom. It happened to me about a month ago a teacher said to me, What what's that? What? It doesn't even exist in English?

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Margarita Perez Garcia: I felt

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Margarita Perez Garcia: criticized and so inadequate. Right? Because I am speaking English is the professional. I am actually the word existed the way it was envisioned.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: and he was an English teacher, correcting my English. But I have also seen teachers hmm.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: expressing their bias against some students because of their Latino blood.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: And so it does affect being unaware of your positionality. Does the fact. Your management strategies and you may have biases you are unaware of, and you may have stronger discipline or scrutiny of people use from marginalized backgrounds. So these are my 2 examples.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Margarita. Ben Fisher.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: Hi, everyone!

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I'm not nervous. Just kidding. I I would say.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I think

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: we as teachers are in an institution that kids are forced to go to every day.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: and so, as a result, we have kind of a direct finger on the pulse of what they are thinking about. what is being fed to them through various media? how they are thinking about these things. what they're wondering about in their curiosity about the world. And

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I saw this especially kind of beginning. I think this was part of my

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: refinement of the sinking was, especially during the George Floyd protests in the United States

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: that students would be coming to school at that time virtually

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: really needing to talk about something they didn't understand.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: and teachers in their positionality as teachers. That is, something was outside the realm of their knowledge.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: or was outside of the realm of comfort or familiarity. And stopped the conversations, using their dominance in the classroom which left the reality, is that we know that when students come in with something on the mind, they are going to want to talk and think about it, no matter what we do.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: And there's I don't think there's a better place in a democratic society than a school to talk through these ideas and talk through the challenges that our society is facing. This happens again and again when there are major historical events of which we've had a couple in the past 3 years, maybe.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: that

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: when we use our positionalities and say, Well, I don't know about that because of our whiteness. I don't know about that because of our status as not being immigrants in our own country. When I don't. I don't know about that, because I'm a monoling English speaker. I don't know about that

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: It forefronts our our ignorance. It forefronts our lack of curiosity rather than

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: the identities of our students, who may be asking about this, because they have some sort of stake in the conversation, or because they are genuinely curious in trying to develop the empathy that we send them to school to develop So if we use our positionality to silence these conversations, then we are cutting off our students, building the skills that we say we send them to school for.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Ben and Benjamin Tinsley. Your turn.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): hey? Y'all, I'm also Helen nervous, but So super happy to be here. So a a several examples come to mind when I think about this question. The first

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): is, I spent the first half of my career teaching in Charter schools mostly, but inner City charter schools in Philadelphia.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I think so much about the majority of teachers who work in the school. This isn't meant to point fingers at individuals necessarily. But when I think about programs like Teach for America programs like Philadelphia teaching fellows that may have some positive intentions.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): But the position largely people who are not from these communities in these positions of power who bring their perspectives about what appropriate behavior is, what proper English to me, what proper English sounds like.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): and without ever having to unpack those lenses, unpack those biases they then are directly part of. You know things that we know of. Like the prison school, the prison pipeline and and and

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): affecting the trajectory of students of people, entire communities because they came in.

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And what's what? What ends up being

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): pretty destructive about that is that a lot of folks who do things like that, who are teachers

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): because they've been in these scenarios. They feel like they then have authority when they're speaking about the problems in the inner city, the problems with kids with underprivileged kids. Well, I work in Philadelphia for 30 years.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): you know, so that they can take that access, that they had, that they only had access because of their positionality because of their privilege, and all that that that we and I'm a you know. I'm not from Philadelphia myself at it, but that we can show up in this community

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): point fingers and then go home.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): and then take the things that we saw through whatever lenses that we have and say, and point more fingers, and and end up voting accordingly, end up serving in juries accordingly, and all that. So that's One of the many examples I can go on for days about that. But the other. So the second half of my career

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): has been in

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): in private schools, in the suburbs, and being who I am, and the ways, how I know that education and politics are inextricably linked.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): but that there's this default to neutrality that really is on the side of is on a particular side. And so, me being who I am, having gotten an education where I've got an education.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): you know, to be in these spaces

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): where my livelihood is at stake, right like. If someone decides that what I'm doing is too political.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): then my livelihood can be snatched from me so to have to negotiate and balance and reconcile all those things based on who I am and who my, who, my students, are

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): in an institution to see students and families as clients

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): as paying clients that that power dynamic.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): and to just show up every day as who I am and to, and to have to establish that I know what I'm talking about, or that what I'm doing is worthy is something that's sort of in contrast to where I started out at it for days. But thank you.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Benjamin.

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Adriana Ramírez: That was very powerful. Now I'm going to read. Question 3. How has your positionality affected your own practice? We're going to start with hyun, and then Diana.

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Haiyun Lu: So Since

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Haiyun Lu: positionality is a fluid, and it has been an interesting journey to recount how my identities and the positionality changing, I think, involving over time for you. So I'm pulling my early earlier years of teaching. My positionality was

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Haiyun Lu: mainly center around the of being a mentoring teacher. Therefore back then. you know pretty much everything I did to fit into that box. Being a teacher mandering teacher.

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Haiyun Lu: In recent years my positionality has been expanded into one of it. It will be Asian American out of a kid. So I haven't been working fearlessly to battle that model minority myth which is rounded

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Haiyun Lu: Asian Americans. Oh, thank you.

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then

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Haiyun Lu: and

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Haiyun Lu: and honestly, I often feel I get a K to the into 2 boxes. One is my introvert personality. I'm a a very quiet layback person, that's my nature, and I need a lot of a solitude to process the information and the recharge that unfortunately play into the model minority box.

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Haiyun Lu: Patient woman's submissive, acquired a good Ed. Of taking care of others, are able to speak of their mind hard working. But you know no leadership is scheduled, not not a leader type. So 9 question is how to battle that right? It's easier to. What I find out is it's easier to challenge the model minority myth.

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Haiyun Lu: But it's harder to change who you really are. So I figure out a bridge to still remain who I am, and then take on the work, which is, you know

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Haiyun Lu: what introverts are good at.

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Haiyun Lu: So number one is, we are very good at expressing ours selves through writing. Not a verbal, and I think Bubble won't go to many people, and I had to be the center of the party. That's not who I am. I wouldn't never become a bad. But I'm a very good hiding behind a computer. Write a column, a put a thought piece out in the world for people to read about it.

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Haiyun Lu: so another feature about being an introvert is very good at a fostering relationship and a collaboration when on one. So I I can't make a friends.

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Haiyun Lu: Go to a party like everyone, become my friends. Just that's going to kill me. I love a deep a conversation, 1. One conversation. So I approach to my colleagues. History, English is social study, one on one. Why at a time, how we conversation pop into their office. So what do you think about this? And I soon like my colleagues to add

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Haiyun Lu: books, Really, to Asian Americans, to to the English equipment add units Asian American history unions into history. So I feel, okay, that's introverted. Right? You know these things. One step of time we we still get to that now.

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Haiyun Lu: And I also redesigned a my creek home in spring, for example, my Chinese intermediate 3, and the 4 students to spend 8 weeks deep, dive into Japanese American incarceration unit. The whole learning experience to turn it into a much needed, that advocacy work in Wisconsin which is

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Haiyun Lu: past the Asian American History Bill, we still working out that we went to the public experience. Now we add a vacating for possibility in the Senate. So

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Haiyun Lu: yeah, those are just some quick examples.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you. Hi, you and Diana.

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Dahiana Castro: all right. well, thank you for that. Hey? June? What was the question again I forgot. Oh, how was my position already affected? My own practice?

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Dahiana Castro: Yes, right? Okay. It informs my teaching. I believe that now I prioritize on building stronger relationship with my students

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Dahiana Castro: through personal, I personalized question and answers. I get to like, get to really get to know them. Understanding their unique stories. I also make sure that my classroom has a very culturally relevant curriculum, and I'm going to give you 2 examples of that.

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Dahiana Castro: About 2 years ago I had a student. Very good student, he would just do anything, you know, like, as soon as I followed the rules, and she was having a very difficult time picking her next book for Fvr. And I looked her. And I'm like, why you don't. You don't like this book. Have you tried this one? She just saw me. All the books are the same. They're all about a boy and a girl.

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Dahiana Castro: and I looked around, and I'm like, Oh, my goodness, I had absolutely no books about. That will represent my queer students.

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Dahiana Castro: absolutely 0, I just note. And I'm like, Oh, yes, this is a problem, and I fixed it. I believe now I have only about 8 titles, because I there's only about 8 books out there right now. Somebody wants to write more. I will, I will! I'll buy them all right. but that's one little thing that I noticed that I was doing that was not helping represent my population, so I fixed it.

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Dahiana Castro: The other thing that I the my position already has helped me to change my practice is when teaching French. I was mostly teaching about Canada and France especially, not to so Paris.

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Dahiana Castro: It's a little obsession I had there with Paris, and I've after I watched Band Tinsley presentation. I was like. Oh, yes, Diana, we need to fix this so little by little I have been changing St. Ben as well Ben Fisher for helping me integrate who your identities in in lb. To Q. Plus identities in my classroom. I'm forever honored.

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Dahiana Castro: Another thing that I change that so anybody can do this as to change when you enter in an image into your slide presentation, you can do this. You can do this with me. this little exercise.

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Dahiana Castro: Look for the word, for image, for either family or doctor. The first images that you will see will represent one group.

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Dahiana Castro: Primarily you have to scroll down, or even add the word Asian to it or Latino. If you want to get all the groups. A doctor or a family of other groups now type. The word violence

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Dahiana Castro: awards with a negative connotation, and the first few images that you will see will be of minorities. Now I teach, and I might not already school. I don't want my students to associate their lives with negative things, so you have to like, really scroll down, do a little. Few more clicks, adds a little bit more of words

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Dahiana Castro: to make sure that you are representing the community that you are teaching. Okay? So my personality has helped me select more intentional and mini phone images, books, video clips, promote social justice in the class, integrate diverse perspectives into the curriculum, fostering critical thinking, empathy, huge thing, empathy and appreciation for global perspectives.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Diana. I am going to read question number 4 and Ben Fisher Rodriguez will start answering that one. And then

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Adriana Ramírez: what are the benefits of being aware of our positionality? What kind of things might change in our profession, then?

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: Thank you for the question. I think to dovetail off of what Diana was just talking about. I think we have an opportunity when we see when we are aware of what we don't know of what identities are not ours and that we are not familiar with we're able to fill our curricula

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: and the center majoritized identities. So not only pick texts or images that show the majority, like, Dana said, only having heterosexual relationships.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: maybe it was a Diana. Just there was the water. Culturally, dinosa swimming in that we also am in. And you just you just don't know. And so you you have the moment of clarity with your positionality, and then you make a change, and that benefits your students to see that people live all sorts of ways across the world. and that's great, and that's great that the way it is. And we celebrate that. And this helps you build empathy also, like Diana, said. Diana was playing the hits on my answer. So thank you.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: but it helps you build that empathy for that which is different from you. Right like is is hearing people's real stories here, real lives, personalized questions. really

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: helps. it helps to build that empathy in our students and build that kind of critical critical thinking.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: So I would say, the the one thing that really hit me when I was thinking about this question is that I, when I would go to diversity, equity and inclusion trainings. As a young teacher. I would sit through them, and I would hear about ideas related to race and I would go. You know what? That's a lot like me being gay, and the bigotry that I've experienced.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: And then I had a break, screeching moment where I went. No, it's not because me being gay, being a white game, us American is never going to give me access to the experience of being black. it is never going to give me the access to the experience of being Asian And so I think.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: in being clear that

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: my gayness. trademark is part of my identity, and that is part of what makes me. Me. It is one part of what makes me me and the other parts of my identity that intersect change and augment that experience in different ways. And so I maintain all of the privileges that I had by being white and able-bodied, etc. and I don't have access to those things, even if I think it might be an analogous experience. What that has helped me do

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: is try to break the white solidarity that exists in many of our professional circles. Instead of accepting

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: jokes and holes in curriculum and things that we just say well, like, Oh, they just don't know, or like they are in this kind of community, or like their community. Is there that many people of Xyz, or like they don't know anybody who's Xyz

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I instead of

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: you know I have empathy for that, because I mean, you just don't know what you don't know. And also The more that I become aware of my positionality, the more that I become aware of the ways that I've been socialized in this world like how you and was saying becoming aware of how I know what I know and how my positionality has changed over time has been work that I did on myself, that then plays out in my classroom, and that then plays out in my professional circles in my school, in my work in in any of our professional organizations.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I I I don't want to give it as an excuse anymore. I'm not. I'm gonna break solidarity with the silence, with the not knowing, with the well, I just didn't know. And it's not my experience. So how will I ever know.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: There are spaces out there that are inviting you in to talk about these ideas. I was in a space with Lgbtq students, and they were like. We want people to come, and no one will come. And I was like, Oh, God! There must be black spaces where people are inviting me to come in, and I'm not coming. We're immigrants are inviting me in, and I'm not coming And so, being aware of my positionality helps me

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: build that empathy in myself, and also the knowledge, the professional. Where, know how to do these things? and that can really change our profession, because I think an unfortunate dynamic is, if you are a part of a group that is being affected by something people expect you to speak up. People would expect me to speak up about anti queer bigotry.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: People wouldn't expect me to speak up about anti-black bigotry, and so I can break that

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: hypnotic lull of of not engaging by modeling in my capacity as an educator. that breaking of the solidarity and the curiosity and the learning that is requisite to that.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you so much, Ben. Diana. Your turn.

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Dahiana Castro: Hi! So thank you. It was beautiful. I wanted to say something of Ben yesterday during your presentation you said something that I almost cried. You said, I want people to know that I'm not a bad person. We're not even me and my husband. We just come home and watch TV.

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Dahiana Castro: And I I don't know why, just really emotional for me. And I'm like, yes, like, what would people see or think? There's anything wrong with that. It's you know. I'm a normal person, like every single one of you. I thought that was beautiful.

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Dahiana Castro: anyhow. so I believe changes are coming. I think if we are aware of our positionality is going to help us prepare our students to be successful in the light of the forms of oppression that may encounter what they are encountering. Right now we all know that

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Dahiana Castro: I helps to identify and address biases in stereotypes and stereotypical language helps us prelimitize stereotypical language messages, stories, means media, etc. any helps us students to prepare them to analyze

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Dahiana Castro: and address discriminatory practices that exist within the deep structures of schooling, and there are a lot, and he starts with the way a students shoot. And I hear that I hear this one the way a student dresses.

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Dahiana Castro: Right? We we hear teachers criticizing this. How come they have money for tennis shoes, but they don't have money for no books.

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Dahiana Castro: and when you use the word, they who are you referring to? Right? We know who what you're saying, just because you're not saying that the ethnic group we know what you're saying. Right? So if you're aware of that, you over your blind spots, you're aware of your language that you're using. and you're where your positionality and the privileges that you have that comes with your positionality and the ones that you don't have.

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Dahiana Castro: it will help you, us, all of us, including myself. I told you I am still learning. I'm still changing my curriculum and still adding things, getting rid of things

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Dahiana Castro: all the time. We can do this. I have faith in all of us.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Diana. Every time one of you answers, I get this bum. This is just fantastic. So we are going to move on to question 5. But before we get there I am going to share with you the definition of interculturality. This definition comes from the periphery.

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Adriana Ramírez: It's not the definition that you will find in United States websites, and it's from the borders. It's a definition that I learned from what the Magnolo. He's a scholar from Argentina, and he's a professor at Dukes University.

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Adriana Ramírez: And this is what he shares about interculturality. It means that 2 different cosmologies are at work on the same level. Cosmologists are ways of saying and understanding the world.

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Adriana Ramírez: so they are at the same level. All subjective understandings are part of the system there is call construction, not just recognition.

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Adriana Ramírez: There are no borders and centers. there are multiple centers and no borders. It does not mean it's speaking the same knowledge into different languages. But putting into collaborative conversation to different logics, for the good of all

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Adriana Ramírez: interculturality leads to a Pluri cultural system where there is more than one valid cosmology. it is not convenient for the status school, therefore they promote the idea of multiculturality.

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Adriana Ramírez: This is different idea, so based on this definition.

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Adriana Ramírez: I'm on a requesting number 5. How can you link positionality and interculturality? And we're going to start with Margaret.

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Adriana Ramírez: then Benjamin Tinsley and myself

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Margarita Perez Garcia: well for me.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: being aware of my position, my gender, my race, my nationality, my socio-economic status.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: allows me to better understand the interplay between the multiple identities that are in my school. In my school we have a large proportion of

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Margarita Perez Garcia: Asian students, Asian international international students. We are here in Australia

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Margarita Perez Garcia: and

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Margarita Perez Garcia: Many people think that because

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Margarita Perez Garcia: Chinese students are learning English they are unable to learn another language

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Margarita Perez Garcia: because they are seeing these students from their monolingual eyes.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: and it is a constant battle to keep a language program open

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Margarita Perez Garcia: for people who are learning a third or a fourth language, because there are so many biases from here. White monolingual teachers.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: so

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Margarita Perez Garcia: being aware of that situation helps me to navigate the int intricacies you say in English of the administration, and making available that opportunity for my students, even though the majority of teachers think they don't have the right, because if they don't speak English well, why would they learn French or Spanish, and all the language

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Margarita Perez Garcia: but also being aware of the multiple identities that play in school allows me to be a more empathetic teacher. We have had a long, I mean.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: for our international students. It has been 3 years without seeing their families.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: without eating at home, without seeing the parents without being able to return to China. It's terrible for them, and so people don't seem to think to see their their suffering. They are in a boarding house isolated, spend the week in isolated, so

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Margarita Perez Garcia: I am also separated from my children. I haven't seen one of my children in 4 years. so, being aware of that also helps me to create a classroom where

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Margarita Perez Garcia: I have more compassion for the students around me. So I think it's really really important.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: That's it less than 2 min.

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Adriana Ramírez: Random, intensely.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): thank you for sharing that.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I have a a lot of ideas, and I think

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): the ones that I'll stick to, for now is, I think, about a lot of this through the lens of sort of pragmatic practical applications in the classroom, and one that stands out

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): is looking at the actful intercultural communication, proficiency benchmarks.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): and thinking about that as like an anchor, and how I construct units, and how I construct things in my classroom. I'm just going to read this really quickly, but the intermediate level, it says in my own and other cultures, I can make comparisons between products and practices to help me understand perspectives.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): And so to start units in the startup are learning from this idea that the student is going to be centered right, that they are going to be looking at their own cultural practices and products and perspectives that that's going to be. And I might be misusing the term centered, but that the idea that that's part of I even tie it to again. If we go to the other modes of communication, all of them share the language of being able to speak about familiar topics.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): So to decenter myself in the classroom, and to say, This is your learning.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): that your identity, your positionality, you, as the student, are the one who matters most here, and that that's going to inform the ways that we can make those cultural comparisons.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): those those comparative analyses, and all that.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): so that everyone can better understand, not just the perspectives of another, but to better understand our own perspectives, to be able to unpack. I feel like so much of that starting, that process of

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): of looking at ourselves, looking inwardly and and modeling that in our classrooms is the work that we're talking about, about unpacking our lenses right and unpacking our own biases. If we can

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): learn how to do that and model how to do that. And trains young people who are gonna inherit this world

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): filled with problems that they did not create, but that they were inherited on the left

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): to start from a place of saying, Well, who am I? What is what is it about the way that I interact with the world that

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): get color as my lens, and what is similar, and what's different between me and the person across from me. So if we can start our lesson, start our units from that place of

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): honoring

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): the cultural practices and products of every kid in my class and training them to look at those cultural practices and products through a critical lens, critical, not meaning negative but analytical lens.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): And then to make that comparison between that and not only of other people in the French speaking world necessarily, but of other people. In our classroom, of our teachers, of the different, you know, intersecting identities that exist in our classroom. We can start from that place. I feel like it just

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puts us in a position both as a teacher

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): and a students in the classroom to honor the humanity first, and then the rest of the content that we have is only there to serve that goal

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): as opposed to

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): hoping that that's some sort of like aspirational detour that hopefully, at some point, we'll be able to talk about culture and talk about people and all that. But that's the center of what we're doing. The only reason why you should know history is because human beings are effective by the reason why, you know, science is because you can help make the world better for human beings. So

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): it's one of them. A couple of things happen.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Ben. I am going to share my thoughts about this question. I find that if we really want to do intercultural work in our classes in our lives, the first step is being aware of our positionalities, being aware of who we are, our privileges and oppressions.

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Adriana Ramírez: because that's how we move in the world, what we are. When we are aware of that, we start using our privilege, finding ways to use our privileges, to challenge the status quo, and to try to change the system where we are at when we are doing that work, and we find people doing that work.

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Adriana Ramírez: Then we can start a real intercultural approach call constructing from our oppressions, from our privileges and creating a class environment, a community environment school environment in which we are really call constructing. And we are at the same level

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Adriana Ramírez: and as an immigrant that since it came to Canada I've always left failed.

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Adriana Ramírez: not at the same level, but

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Adriana Ramírez: lower level. I would like to see that I can be call constructing and creating and challenging and using my privileges, because I do have a lot of privileges

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Adriana Ramírez: to create a better system, more equal system for all.

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Adriana Ramírez: Okay. Question 6. How does our positionality influence the way we approach culture in our classroom? We are going to start with. Hang you.

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Adriana Ramírez: then, Ben Fisher, Rodriguez, and myself. How you

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Haiyun Lu: thank you.

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Haiyun Lu: Ben Teslen, brought up the act. Well, I wanted to. He, through that so actively has a national standard for culture competency. It states that a culture is a presented as the philosophical perspective, the behavioral practices, and that the product of a society also. What do we see in many language classrooms.

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Haiyun Lu: products, right teachers and students and mistake cultural products as the core cultural competencing practice.

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Haiyun Lu: And there's still a lot of language teachers out of their approach to culture. Pretty much of like, how we talk about race. it's a it's a capital. On the shelf, is the object. Okay? How did you amount to take it down? Do one activity out of? Oh, there you go back to the shell. This is pretty much a lot of people to do that.

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Haiyun Lu: but couch here.

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Haiyun Lu: that's teaching culture product to reinforce the stereotype. That's not about teaching culture. I'm sorry to see that.

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Haiyun Lu: So you know my positionality. So culture.

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Haiyun Lu: I believe a culture should be integrated, and I embedded in everyday lesson faster and understanding. The perspective and practice is a way more important than that showing demonstrate a few products. so

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Haiyun Lu: and then, okay, so how do we do this like we want to? You can sample right. We will know

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Haiyun Lu: that in Asian culture respect, that is one of the core values that. Then how do you respect this? So

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Haiyun Lu: being visible? then, through the way, how you interact with the students. Talk to them. treated that especially during the time of a complex and

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Haiyun Lu: difficulty. this is more invisible. But that's just how we we respect the students and the students know whenever they are respect, and even when they made a mistake. And this is behaving. We still talk in a respectively. That's how they learn about respect, the value of the respect.

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Haiyun Lu: So I also have a concrete example, for holidays. So second, the largest holiday in China is called the mid autumn of festival, often lens to somewhere in September. So it's really this is like a how they pump come up

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Haiyun Lu: right after the school starts for new students, they might call us. So that's pretty much that first holiday they're going to learn about it. How do I teach you to? Well, I do teach you the a legend, the classroom, which is the the practice. We have monkeys, a baking contest the product.

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Haiyun Lu: and they are required to create a time space that have a family meal together. That's the perspective of a family togetherness.

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Haiyun Lu: So the second largest, the holidays, because of the value of a family getting together. So that's what I want my students to practice here.

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Haiyun Lu: and the the, the the homework requirement is that they supplement a fault to offer their family eating a meal together. Some families like it really took out the opportunity to make a Chinese food or take out most of them when I just their family stables.

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Haiyun Lu: What do they eat? So not to. It doesn't matter. So we really talk about the being together. What does that mean? How all thing and how that feels? I have the Neil. I'm a school night. So. So that's a 2 examples about

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Haiyun Lu: got that?

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you. How are you. Ben?

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I think I draw a lot of my approach to culture from my learning from Ben Tinsley, who is here so yay But I think the

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: in addition to honoring and uplifting the cultures of the students that are in your classroom as the kind of beginnings of being able to make those cultural comparisons and relativeize culture a bit. we really have to make, I, I think. And I'm saying we, I think, in my situation I teach students who look a lot like me, white American, us Americans who most are not immigrants, and I

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: endeavor to really make a parent to them that the things that they do in their lives and the products that they have, and those underlying perspectives are cultural and you and that the things that we do our culture like I've I've had plenty of students who are like, oh, it's just I. I'm just normal.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: What does that mean? What does normal mean? where does normal come from? And so it, you know, when we're doing content, based instructions. I I take my kids through school schedules in Germany just because they're a

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: fun thing that are different. schools are very different. And kids spend a lot of time in school. So they're curious. and we have a 7 period day. And I'm like, why do we have a 7 period day, and the kids are like what we just do. And I'm like, No, but why? And again, it's part of the breaking solidarity of. I know I I know I'm in the culture, too. This is what I'm used to. It's not unusual for me. It doesn't break anything.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: but if I just am insistent, and why is it like that? Why, what do you think that says about a Us. American culture, about Washington and culture, about the culture of our area, that we 7 periods of the same thing every, and try to make it sound almost as strange as we sometimes unfortunately make other cultural products, practices and perspectives sound like, can you believe that in a different culture they have a 7 period day every day. And I'm oh, wait! That's us. you know, trying to

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: build that kind of disorientation of the own cultural self and just be like, you know? so that they see. And they build awareness of their own positionality, of the way that culture flows through everything. including again, like how you and said, socialization. We were socialized to think that all these things were normal. and so that starts to reveal practices. and that starts to reveal those perspectives that are the deeper philosophical, underlying things.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: that my hope is to move kids from describing

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: things as normal or not normal or gross or weird, that the you know the various things that we see come up in these like weird foods from X culture, and start moving them linguistically in the direction of being able to describe them in the language. Well, like that is a meal that consists of these things.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I probably wouldn't eat it, because I don't like the texture of X, or I would love to eat that because I love X. You know that sort of thing.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: but it takes kind of laying bare. How all the things we do are cultural. I think it comes up with food, too, where kids are like when I'm like, Well, what do Americans eat, and then that just becomes a

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: garbage fire of hamburgers. and then we talk about how we actually so many noodles and other, you know, cultural foods or whatever right immigration background for our country.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: yeah. So I think shocking students with their own culture like, why do we do that like in an insistent way, even if it is apparent to me as a fellow like White American, sharing a lot of the identities with my students.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: and then

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: allowing the time to sit back with that discomfort and say, Oh, I've lived in a world that's going on this road, and there's another world going on this road, and now I can see that road more closely and kind of describe what's going on over there, and that is building that skilled the comparison of the the being able to describe things as opposed to just react emotionally. Maybe.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Ben. I'm gonna quickly share my answer to this question. I find if we're not aware of our positionality, we risk approaching culture with many biases. So that's the first step and this is where I find teachers, and I did it at 1 point.

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Adriana Ramírez: because we grow up with internalized depressions, and we have to work to get rid of those.

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Adriana Ramírez: So we're we're not aware of. Our positionality is where teachers tokenize all the eyes, perpetuate the stereotypes and power relations. Read a stories written by outsiders paper to perpetuate the colonial tradition of narrating others.

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Adriana Ramírez: and this tradition has created a lot of depth and dependency.

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Adriana Ramírez: So our positionality influences the voices we choose to amplify in our classes. In our teaching it. It influences the stories that we read the cultural doors that we choose to open

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Adriana Ramírez: the learning about or the learning from the target culture. So it is just

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Adriana Ramírez: so important in the way we approach culture in our classrooms.

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Adriana Ramírez: We are going to move on to the last question. And then, after this, we're going to read and share our personality. Statements. Question number 7. And first, Margaret, that we'll answer it. And then, Benjamin, intensely. How can we work towards a more culturally responsive language classroom from our positionality?

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Margarita Perez Garcia: Hello again. Well, 2 simple ideas for me, I think.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: that's the first thing I did. Actually, I started incorporating Di various teaching resources in my classroom

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Margarita Perez Garcia: on one side, resources that reflected the diversity of my students, so that their experience, their life experiences validated.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: That is really important.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: And but also my classroom is an open door

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Margarita Perez Garcia: to all the cultures so

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Margarita Perez Garcia: incorporating materials that broaden their horizons and their understanding of these other cultures that are not necessarily the cultures

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Margarita Perez Garcia: of the places where the target language is spoken.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: I have incorporated on voices, into the resources, into the free Voluntary Reading Library, because it is important to make place for the voices of the minorities and

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Margarita Perez Garcia: voices

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Margarita Perez Garcia: and narrative from within the culture that it's really important. So that is one concrete thing that you can do

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Margarita Perez Garcia: right now. But I also want to remind us that this is the process. And so we really need to be kind with ourselves. We will make mistakes along the way.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: very recently I made a mistake.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: I was ages. Can you believe I call the that of a little girl her grand? That because he had right here?

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Margarita Perez Garcia: Wow!

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Margarita Perez Garcia: Wow! That means. And so we really need to be kind with ourselves, because we are going to make mistakes along the way. And it is the learning process and what we don't see today. We will see tomorrow.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: That's it.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): thank you. Again. I think I'm re-reading culturally responsive teaching in the brain, absolutely brilliant. If you haven't, let it, please read it and relate it, and all that.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): And the thing that comes up again, just like

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): an example is thinking about feedback for students. And and how can we make our feedback? How can we reimagine

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): what success looks like in a language classroom?

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): And and what are some of the barriers in the way of us doing that.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): And so a Biggie for me is unlearning what we

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): what we've been conditioned to know as proper language, and what's improper.

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and how that shows up in terms of every correction, how that shows up in terms of how we police

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): the shared language in the classroom who speaks English. How many times I've heard language teachers say, well, they don't even speak English properly. and that's like

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): they do. And the way how they language is theirs, and that's part of their identity and all that.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): And so how does that extend into the ways that we give feedback to students away. So we assess, student success. What does success look like? So really thinking about? on learning what proper language is unlearning, what a native accent is particularly in the French speaking world, who's to say.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): unlearning in terms of the cultural content that we do. having conversations about why we choose certain cultures to study. Are we really looking at

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): people who live in Western Africa as human beings who have rich cultural identities worthy of study? Or are we saying, these are our favorite. These people were colonized by our favorite Europeans.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): And that's what consum value. Yeah, sorry, then. But so how do we really see the human beings? How can we unlearn what we see as valuable? How can we unlearn and think of in a very sort of practical way? How can I give feedback to a student in in

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): pointing towards the right hand is amazing work. I'm gonna get feedback towards the students. It's actually going to propel their growth. It's actually going to put them in a position in the quote, unquote, real world, that where they can

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): build new knowledge and create a new paradigm and and and dismantle oppressive systems. And I don't think that that's by marking up

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): with a red pen where they missed accent marks. I don't think that that's by limiting what we study to the French speaking world as opposed to learning, about learning, about and learning from other people in the world and using French as a conduit for that

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): so

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): the other piece that I

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): that I'd add to it quickly. I'm sorry, and I'm going over time, but is to model the curiosity that we hope to see in our students. I know that a large

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): barrier for a lot of teachers is that? Well, I know Paris right. I've been to Paris. I've been there a million times. That's what I know.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): all right in the Quebec. I know K. Back, or I don't. I've never been to Africa. So I this will come later, but I have never been to the continent of Active, but I model the curiosity, the lifelong learning that we're hoping to see in our students. And whatever it is that I do know, or that I'm continually learning has been the result of

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): leading with curiosity and saying, I I'm excited to learn about this, to learn from folks alongside you. So modeling that lifelong learning, modeling that intellectual curiosity and that humility to say, I'm still learning here, and I'm excited to learn more from people

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): and

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): you are students who happen to be in the same room with me as I. You know that I'm inviting you along in this journey. So I think that that

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): a plus the other piece about having the cultural perspectives of our students come first. And as we see what's the common cultural underlying cultural values that manifest through these cultural practices and products. That that is what culturally responsive teaching looks like

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): in a in a space where we've just deconstructed and dismantled what traditional proper language is and what it isn't.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Ben. Okay. So we've finished with the questions. Now we're going to. We want to read and share with you our position on these statements. I'm going to call your names. Are you ready?

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Adriana Ramírez: Okay? So yeah, I'm going to start with you.

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Dahiana Castro: Okay, Hi, I'm going to read it for the sake of time. imagine Dominican, Dr. dumbores in Congas plane, and imagine palm trees just swing in behind me. Just just imagine that. Okay?

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Dahiana Castro: So my identity as an Afro-latina Dominican feminist, liberal immigrant, holds a deep meaning in my life in teaching practice. Coming from a vibrant Afro-latini culture. I carry the richness of my heritage, traditions, and language my language, which is Spanish, but it's not just your regular Spanish.

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Dahiana Castro: It is Spanish. Mix with African words, such as Mofungo, Kachimbo, Mondongo, and Tayino wars mixed with words like Amaka. Yes, a word hammock from Sprontay, you know the natives of the Dominican Republic! Borillo barbecue! That word comes from Taino as well in canoa. Canoe also comes from Taino.

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Dahiana Castro: being an immigrant. Twice because I immigrated to Puerto Rico, then to California, being an immigrant. Twice I understand the complexities of adjusting to a new country and the language

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Dahiana Castro: and the challenges faced by my students who share similar experiences. I do teach a lot of students who are immigrants as well as a teacher. I strongly believe in the power of embracing diverse perspectives fostering inclusivity, which I'm not 100% there. But I do try to do that in celebrating the trends that every student brings to the classroom

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I just had to say, Come on, now.

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Adriana Ramírez: I failed. The palm trees and the drums.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Diana. Fantastic Ben Fisher Rodriguez, your turn.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: Hi! So I'm Ben Fisher Rodriguez. I am a white Cis gay man. I I consider myself a member of queer culture in that queer culture pushes against the gender roles.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: The sexuality roles imposed upon us by straight society. That is really important to my identity. I am not disabled. I do wear glasses. I was raised in. I was in socialized in a Catholic household

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: in a lower middle class, Catholic household, and I'm now solidly middle class because of my profession.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I have lived abroad. But I am not an immigrant in the country where I live. I am from the United States.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I am multilingual. I we're straight-sized clothing.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I am an extrovert. I thought of that was how you and was talking. I was like, not me. I'll be yelling hoot and hollering all the time. my! My! My English is Helen, nor Cal

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: It is influenced by the Spanish of colonization in California.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: what is now called California. I and I joke, I mean you may see my last name. I am Hispanic, adjacent. I would never claim Hispanicness. For myself. My husband is Mexican American. but I think that that has given me

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: through him and through his family access to more perspectives on being brown in the United States. and again, that will never be my experience. but I truly have learned a lot from being Hispanic adjacent next to Hispanic people. And so that's that's a that's a joke that I make is a mostly, you know, silly, but I think it it offers a lot of perspective. I think

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: I covered all the things that I wanted to say.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Margarita. Your term.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: Actually, I have written my positionality statement. I think it's a very difficult exercise, and

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Margarita Perez Garcia: when we speak about positionality we do not need to say everything about ourselves. Just those things that we feel comfortable with.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: My name is Margarita Perez Garcia. I am a 53 years old. Venezuelan cisgender, able woman with white hair. I come from a mixed heritage with indigenous Portuguese, African, and Spanish roots. I have been an immigrant for over 34 years, living in 8 different countries and moving back and forth multiple times. Throughout my life I have faced the challenge of being perceived as exotic

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Margarita Perez Garcia: and difference, and different, due to my background and being considered as a foreigner or other

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Margarita Perez Garcia: most of my life.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: I speak 5 languages, Spanish, French, English, Maori, and Japanese, although I speak them with different degrees of fluency, and 4 of them with an accent

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Margarita Perez Garcia: discrimination has been an intersectional experience for me as I have in contact prejudice based on my skin color, my gender, my foreignness, and my age, and now, my here

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Margarita Perez Garcia: I come from an educated background. Both of my parents were university professors, and I had the opportunity to push a higher education in Venezuela, in France, in the Uk, where I qualify as a teacher.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: I am a mother of 4,

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Margarita Perez Garcia: triling well children, 2 of them with reading difficulties. This has motivated

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Margarita Perez Garcia: Mit.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: and finally, I have been fortunate to have moved to the southern hemisphere. I have lived in New Zealand. And now in Australia, where the impact of colonization is less than 200 years old.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: and where there is a strong decolonization in language. Revitalization movement in this context allows me to reflect on my own experience as a teacher, as a misty. So woman, and reconsider my understanding of identity and cultural heritage. That's it.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you, Margaret. That lovely

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Adriana Ramírez: Hi, you your turn.

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Haiyun Lu: Yeah, that's just so hard to follow everyone.

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Haiyun Lu: yeah. But now it's like, Okay, I'm the last. Well, I'm a mid age Asian American woman living in the United States heterosexual Cisco gender body able

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Haiyun Lu: pick an introvert. So we establish it that well, today.

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Haiyun Lu: and love a nature always 11. Nature.

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Haiyun Lu: a mindfulness of practitioner. That's a big part of my life. I have a

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Haiyun Lu: by cross-racial marriage raising a bi-racial child. to be a bilingual by cultural or or fostering inter culturality competency

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Haiyun Lu: educator. mom

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Haiyun Lu: writer out of kid many rules. I bring the experience of my cultural heritage background and my professional development to my work.

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Haiyun Lu: I acknowledged my privilege, the access to academic and financial resources and to the oppressions I experienced. I am as a minority and a woman

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Haiyun Lu: I strive to be aware of on my own basis, and I recognize how they may shape the way I teach.

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Adriana Ramírez: Thank you. How are you?

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I gotta follow literally. Oh, yeah.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I've been set up to fail all the time in my life, but you've really got me on this one. My name is Ben, and I'm blackety black.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): Oh, I am. I am black us American born.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I am cisgender, heterosexual.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I come from a lower middle class, upper working class background.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I am the child of a teacher.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I am not to say bold.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I am. I am a black American. I'm also a light-skinned I'm from New York originally, and I'm from the

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I've lived the majority of my life in the North East. you know, coastal northeast of the United States.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I am a language learner. I'm not a native or heritage. Speaker of the languages that I teach.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I am married.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): and I am a father to 3 children. one of whom identifies as clear

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): and married in a multilingual I mean a multilingual family multi-ethnic family.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): I am.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): There was another thing I wanted to say to and I'm second generation American of Caribbean descent.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): And to monger this point to that the parts of ourselves that we share, that we're even aware of.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): You know this isn't every part of our identity but it, as I look at this list, and I don't need to go over. But so look at this list. I think about how these things affect my approach as a teacher. My effectiveness, the ways that I'm received as a teacher of the way set.

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Benjamin Tinsley (He/Him/His): all of those things, the ways, how it it it informs and and dictates and directs my practice as a teacher. So

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Adriana Ramírez: thank you, Ben, and I'm going to read mine very quickly.

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Adriana Ramírez: I am a Cs gender immigrant woman from allergy in Columbia, with Africa, Columbia roots on my mom's side and indigenous routes on my dad's side. Fair scheme. I never failed. Discrimination of racism in Colombia with an accent. daughter of a school drop out and then University drop out

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Adriana Ramírez: married, and no kids atheist with a master's degree, able, narrow, divergent. I am dyslexic writer and advocate of own voices.

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Adriana Ramírez: high school and adult Spanish teacher double major in psychology in Columbia. I am a psychologist, but it doesn't count in Canada

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Adriana Ramírez: in my own process of the colonizing myself and my practice.

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Adriana Ramírez: And that is it. So?

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Adriana Ramírez: It's 1210 we're finished. I'm still happy. This is so powerful. I find it is so powerful to finish with our positionality statements. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for those that we're watching and being here in this panel, and and writing comments and asking questions. We don't have time for questions, because we're moving on to Margaret's presentations now.

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Adriana Ramírez: so no time for questions. Sorry. But maybe we can answer it in the chat because the chat is going to be there. Yes, so thank you. This was an honor. Thank you, my panelists. I love you, love you, love you. This was like a healing an hour and 10 min that it

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Dahiana Castro: that's my heart full of love, and we should take that picture. Remember those means I've been sending you, but it's just us. the the table, all of us at the table, the picnic.

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Dahiana Castro: You know what I'm talking about, the meme.

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Dahiana Castro: It's us

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Dahiana Castro: I'm lost. I'm lost

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Margarita Perez Garcia: to the

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: for the good of the order. The Q. A. Is being moved to the fluency fast zoom room.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: What

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: a fluency.

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Margarita Perez Garcia: So you're in the command performance room will be.

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Ben Fisher-Rodriguez: yeah. Question mark. Yeah. Karen is nodding still. So we're good and then the Q. A. For this panel will be moved to the fluency. Fast zoom room.

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Dahiana Castro: that's all for today.