English Education: A Tool of Power or Empowerment?

"Education is a form of power but it is also a form of oppression."

This is what another Fulbrighter said at the conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where 80 Fulbrighters from 10 different countries throughout Latin America joined together to share experiences and best practices.

We were in the Q&A section of a talk on Immigration in the Americas during the third and final day of the conference. The talk focused on how the US typically poses itself as a country which improves immigrants (people immigrate to the United States for freedom, for opportunity, to live "the American Dream" and become something 'more' than what they were before they became hyphen-American) whereas many of the countries in Latin America see themselves as improved by immigrants (especially lighter-skinned immigrants, regardless of whether this aligns with what would be considered 'white' in the United States).

So what does it mean, we asked, for us to be educating our host communities about our culture, our English, our lives? How can we dismantle the image of White America, especially when many of us are ourselves white and also the only Americans our host students have met, thus reinforcing the idea of the typical American as "white"? How can we teach the English language without perpetuating the colonialist violence that erased indigenous languages in favor of Spanish and English? How can we challenge the expectations and idealization about living in the United States and express the reality of what it means to be an immigrant in Trump's America?

How can we take steps to empower rather than oppress in our positions at Latin American schools?

In the midst of all these questions, someone said the statement above about education, power, and oppression, and I scrambled to jot it down on the piece of paper in front of me.

I'd been struggling to put into words this feeling that had built up during the conference, and in fact that had been in the background ever since my arrival in Argentina-- rather, ever since my decision over two years ago to apply to be a Fulbright ETA.

This statement, while it doesn't cover everything, is a more concise and accurate way to describe the mild unease I felt about this position that I could not seem to put my finger on.

During the opening remarks on the first morning of the conference, one of the speakers thanked us for "giving the gift of English." I also scribbled this down in my notebook, not because it resonated but because it made me feel slightly sick and I couldn't fully explain why.

I don't place any judgement on my students for wanting to learn English-- for heaven's sake, I was an English Lit major! I love studying the English language, I find it fascinating and I am passionate about teaching it. And it is undeniable that speaking English does open up mountains of opportunities. It is the "lingua franca" practically anywhere in the world, it's more or less essential for international relations and business, and a huge portion of popular media is in English. But these facts originate in imperialist power structures that have violently forced English on different groups of people throughout history. It's hard to ignore that backdrop when teaching the language, to say that English is a "gift" without recognizing that people around that world have had that "gift" shoved down their throats. It's especially difficult when, according to the New York Times, one language goes extinct every two weeks... and here I am, spreading more English and politely showing that "not ALL Americans are self-centered bigots!" (#notallmen #notallwhitepeople #thereisareasonthesehashtagsareproblematic).

So, it's complicated. How can I actually empower my students and meet their needs and desires without contributing to the troubling ethnocentrism and oppression of my home country?

A lot of the strategies that we discussed at the conference have to do with a very basic premise: ask the students.

Ask the students why they want to learn English (maybe they, too, have complicated feelings about learning the language-- maybe the complexity can be a point for discussion).

Ask the students what they want to be able to use English for, so that you can teach specifically to those needs.

Let students direct their education and language learning process: place their lives and their stories at the center instead of making it about your preconceived notions about what an English Language Learner needs to know.

This seems pretty straightforward, and it's reiterated by the literature I've read about teaching English as a Foreign (or Second) Language, but it's a guiding principal that I don't think I had fully articulated to myself.

As we discussed our roles as English Teaching Assistants and brainstormed strategies, activities, and lessons to empower rather than oppress in our classrooms, another complex power dynamic came to the forefront, this time within the English language itself rather than between languages.

In Argentina, professors traditionally teach British English rather than American (US) English. Some of my fellow Argentine Fulbrighters have been told off in the classroom because their English isn't the "right" one. This is generally not true of my professors-- some of them do have a clear preference for British English, but for the most part they just encourage students to choose a style and stick with it.

Even within American English, though, there's a hierarchy.

I told this story during a focus group in the conference, and I hadn't even fully realized the implications until I explained it out loud:

At my school, students (and occasionally professors) constantly praise my English. They tell me what a beautiful accent I have, how clear I am-- they come to me begging me to help them improve their own accent (this in itself has made me uncomfortable-- I understand them easily, and it's impossible to erase an accent entirely... why do they have to learn to pronounce things exactly my way when they are perfectly able to communicate with their slight Argentine accent?). As I have mentioned, another Fulbrighter works at the same school as me... he is from Chicago, his family is Puerto Rican (although he was raised speaking English not Spanish), and he is visibly non-white and openly gay. Sometimes he teaches slang phrases like "on fleek," "spill the T," and "throwing shade" (most of these phrases originating from Black communities, AAVE, drag culture, and other marginalized communities). To me, his spoken English sounds just as American as mine, and I have no trouble understanding him... but he does not get the same praise when he speaks. In fact, students (and, again, sometimes professors) will complain (often to me and sometimes to him) that he has a strong accent, that he's hard to understand, that he doesn't "enunciate" properly.

This always made me a little uncomfortable, but I kind of just laughed it off... and I hadn't really thought about how these microaggressions contribute to a particular (false, harmful) image of the United States and of American English.

Several summers ago when I taught with Breakthrough SF, I remember that the staff members explicitly taught students about the meaning of "code-switching." For students who grow up speaking and learning different dialects of English in their homes, being told that their speech is "incorrect" in the classroom can be traumatic. If the way they speak is "wrong," that reflects on their family, on everyone who speaks that way. It places a value statement: this English is right, this is wrong. Speak the right way, or else what you have to say doesn't matter. At Breakthrough, students learn that different situations require different types of speech. These different Englishes all have their own sets of vocabularies and grammatical rules, and none of them are "wrong." What is important is the ability to identify which English to use in a given situation, and to be conscious of which set of vocabulary and rules you are using: code-switching.

At my Institute here in Córdoba, there is a strong value placement on different types of Englishes. Learning slang phrases or colloquial speech is "fun," but students are sometimes told that they will fail if they use that type of English on a test. In some cases, it seems that the emphasis is less on effective communication and more on an idealized version of "proper English."

It's really hard to find the right balance of teaching English grammar and pronunciation so that a student can achieve effective communication without enforcing a dominant white-straight-college-educated-upper-middle-class English.

I think the general idea is to be descriptive rather than prescriptive (if you've taken an introductory linguistics course you know what I'm talking about). Prescriptive means teaching "this is the rule and it is the only correct way and therefore this is how you must do it," whereas descriptive means explaining "this is one way this is used in actual speech to communicate this thing." For the prescriptive linguist, language is this (imaginary) fixed entity that is not flexible and does not change. The descriptivist view allows for the reality of language as something that is spoken with the goal to communicate, and as it is used by people, it is constantly shifting and morphing in different ways.

My hope, when I get back to work after Winter Break, is to ask each teacher for a little time during their classes when it fits in with their schedule to do a few lessons that relate to the topics I've been grappling with here. I'd like to do a lesson that explores and challenges the cultural stereotypes of Argentina and of the US, a lesson on code-switching and the value of different types of Englishes, and perhaps some follow-up lessons based on where students have questions or want to discuss further.

A final aspect of this whole education-is-power thing is that I am here as an assistant, not as a teacher, and so it feels weird to me to be pushing my teachers to give me more space in the classroom... these are their classrooms, and they are the ones who have grown up in this country and actually studied to be English teachers. For all that they tell me I have "native speaker expertise," they are way more qualified than I am to be standing up in front of the class talking about English to a group of Argentine English Language Learners. But at the same time, the issues of diversity of US culture and the diversity of American English are topics that I feel it is important for me to address from my own perspective during my time here.

I said that was the final aspect, but there are so many more thoughts about this subject and other related subjects that came up at the Rio Conference. I don't have time to describe it all in detail here, but to mention a few things: I went to a discussion for femme-aligned Fulbrighters where we discussed the gendered issues we had faced and the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality; I went to workshops on Task-Based Teaching, How to Talk About Trump, and Hegemony in the Classroom; I heard from a Cultural Affairs Officer about the current state of the US State Department (hooo boy); I brainstormed for Life After Fulbright; I had some great personal conversations about identifying as queer in Latin America; I attended a break-out session on how to tell our Fulbright stories (yay blogs!); I ate a TON of really good free food...

It was honestly one of the most amazing parts of my experience so far, and I truly believe it has transformed the way I see this opportunity. I think I spent the first half of my grant just struggling to settle in, to find my place (figuratively and quite literally in terms of housing), and to deal with a lot of practical details and personal processing. While I never regretted my decision to come to Argentina, I was a little angry with myself at times and wondered whether there was a real purpose other than just to prove to myself that I could make it through. After being in Rio and talking to 80 other people who felt similarly, who had their own sets of struggles adjusting, some of whom hadn't even started actual classes or were still struggling to develop a feasible side project... it just really changed my perspective. It made me feel like I was part of something, and that I was supported by other people who were as critical as I have been, who were as passionate about making a positive difference in the world, who were as dedicated to holding themselves accountable and being responsible for what they do in their time here. I feel reenergized, and I feel inspired, and I feel like... I genuinely want to be here.

And, oh yeah, I was in freakin' RIO for a week!!

The view from the rooftop of our hotel in Copacabana

Where the Olympic Flame was lit

Largest street art in the world created by Kobra before the Rio Olympics, representing indigenous cultures from 5 continents

View from the first cable car stop up Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf)

(had a video of the cable car ride but it won't load properly :( )

Me at the top of Pao de Acucar

Sunset over Rio, seen from Sugarloaf

Acai (pronounced ah-sigh-ee, not uh-ki), one of the many Brazilian desserts I was told I had to try. A super sweet ice-cream like dish made from acai berries.

Sunrise at the beach. We didn't have very much free time to explore the city, but I got up each morning to meditate with the sunrise before going down to breakfast...

Friends :)