The National Council of Teachers of English Conference 2024
Julie
It wasn’t an easy trek to Boston to join the NCTE conference but it was well worth it as learned so much from the amazing sessions and the many talks held in exhibition hall that we could bring back to our work in Australia. Topics on translanguaging, picture books, writing pedagogies, AI – my goodness, I felt like it was a conference made specifically for me and I was in translingual picture book heaven! Attending as many sessions as humanly possible, I’ve come back really inspired to think more about Critical Literacy.
It was also a very special trip to be able to travel with Raf (ARTP colleague) and Cat (secondary teacher and former MTeach TESOL graduate) as we shared our notes and insights from our own perspectives over meals and whatever sightseeing we could squeeze in. Such a privilege and joy to be working together. Through the brilliance of one of the publishers in the exhibition hall who provided a space for making friendship bracelets, Cat and I made one for each other. Of course mine was ‘Kimchi is for Everyone’!
Cat
Heart, humanity and hope – the theme of this year’s conference in Boston was truly a reminder that our students are always at the centre of our pedagogy. To teach with heart is to create spaces for their funds of knowledge to be brought to the fore during learning. I saw how innovative practitioners were able to tap into this space through the power of small texts such as picture books. It left me inspired as I realised how we don’t often think of a text like a picture book as a starting point to discuss topical issues in our society. Yet, translingual picture books such as Luli and the language of tea and Kao Kalia Yang’s story of “The rock in my throat” were powerful reminders as to what kind of work we as educators need to doing in a time where students’ voices are being drowned out. To teach with their humanity in mind is to welcome these realisations into our classroom. We saw that in many different forms, particularly through embodied arts-rich pedagogies in bookmaking projects and innovative AI student groupings, where teachers were creating multiple entry points for students to come together to amplify their voices. Stances such as seeing students’ language as a resource served as a reminder of the deficit based ideologies that need to be continually challenged in schools. To teach with hope is a commitment to this work – a willingness to commit to students’ lives and voices in a time where education is becoming less proximate to those who it’s meant to serve.
Raf
What an incredible experience to learn with and from thousands of passionate teachers and teacher educators at NCTE. Throughout the many wonderful sessions I had the chance to attend, what emerged most strongly was the importance of harnessing students’ funds of knowledge and language in the classroom. It was inspiring to see how teachers are using rich children’s literature as tools for change, empathy and empowerment and to expand my own knowledge of translingual children’s literature that I can bring back to empower the pre-service teachers I work with. Another highlight of the conference was meeting and getting to know, Cat, a secondary teacher and one of Julie’s former students. The insights provided by Cat and Julie’s work on developing teachers’ understanding of linguistic resourcefulness was so valuable to me as a teacher educator. Their tracking of the years of work and mentorship taken to develop such understandings has important implications for initial teacher education and the ongoing support needed by teachers as they begin their careers.
The rich context of NCTE, bringing together passionate educators from around the United States, provided a wonderful opportunity to present our ARTP work around helping students to develop a multilingual writerly identity and my own work on using drama to help students develop conceptual and linguistic knowledge for writing. The conversations we had with the teachers and researchers who attended our symposium and poster presentations encouraged us to continue to develop our ARTP approach for the classroom.
