Addressing Race, Racism, and Social Justice in World Language Classrooms

As a  world language teacher, delivering effective teaching instruction in the target language is only the beginning of one’s ability to succeed in U.S. schools. Oftentimes, cultural differences pose the biggest challenges to success. In the wake of the George Floyd protests and the Black Lives Matter movement, the U.S. social climate is difficult to navigate particularly for many international language teachers that have made a new home in the U.S.

A panel of teachers from Asia Society's Chinese Language Partner Network will discuss some of these challenges and provide insights into how they address race, racism and social justice issues in their personal and professional lives, as well as in the classroom. 

The Center for Global Education is proud to bring this 'Teaching Truth to Power' dialogue to our audience. Introductory remarks will be provided by Dr. Anthony Jackson, Vice President, Center for Global Education.

Speakers

Lin Tao was born and raised in China. She received an associate degree from Sichuan International Studies University; and later earned a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Liverpool in the UK. The United States is the 3rd continent she has resided in within the last 10 years. She has lived in Indonesia, the United Arab of Emirates, and Ghana before moving to the United States with her family in 2014. Two interesting facts about Lin are that she is an avid runner and that she summited Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2013.   

Kathleen Wang is a lead founder of the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in western Massachusetts.  Her school is a K-12 public charter school with a diverse student body from over 30 rural, suburban and urban communities.  All students are required to take Chinese and the high school is an International Baccalaureate Diploma Program.  This is Kathleen’s 14th year as Principal and she has almost 20 years of experience in education. She enjoys nature, hiking and learning new things.

Haiyun Lu has been a Chinese teacher since 1993. She is passionate about employing Comprehensible Input-based instruction in her classes and implementing mindfulness in education. She is a mindfulness coach for her school’s track and field team and the volleyball team. She has been training and coaching language teachers throughout North America and Asia. Haiyun is a co-founder of the Comprehensible Midwest Conference, Learn Together Academy and also co- founded Ignite Chinese. She is a blogger and writer; she has written 16 storybooks in Chinese. When Haiyun is not teaching, she likes to hike, meditate, drink tea with friends, enjoy a good meal with family and play games with her son.

Jennifer Wu-Pope is currently a Chinese teacher in the Half Hollow Hills School District in New York. She has about 15 years of experience in the K-12 classroom, having also taught French and English as a New Language. She has worked with pre-service teachers at the university level and has presented at national and state world language conferences.  She is passionate about building students’ cross-cultural understanding and global competence skills. Last year, she participated in the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in a Teaching Semester Research Program in Singapore. Her future goals are to write a children’s book and to climb all 35 high peaks in the Catskill Mountains.

This panel will be moderated by Cleopatra Wise, Director for Asia Society's Center for Global Education, China Learning Initiatives (CLI). She is responsible for managing the team and executing programs that promote Chinese language learning among young people in the United States. Before joining Asia Society, Cleopatra lived and worked in China for eight years. Cleopatra holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Southern California. She also earned an MBA from the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. Cleopatra is a Florida native and speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and West African Krio.