Debbie Zacarian and Becki Cohn-Vargas
When Francisco Lopez was twelve, he and his parents moved from Santiago, Brazil, to a small town in Massachusetts, where his father began working as a Portuguese professor at a university. Accompanied by his parents, Francisco enrolled in a local middle school, where his father enacted the role of family interpreter.
The school principal, Mr. Murtaugh, greets them and graciously takes them on a quick tour of the school. At the conclusion, Francisco takes a language test to determine if he is a multilingual learner. A week later, he begins school. Hearing a cacophony of sounds in a language he does not understand and unsure where his classrooms, locker, or anything is in the building, he pulls his cell phone out of his pants pocket and calls his mother. “Please come get me!” he implores. His mother grabs her keys and hurriedly drives to the school, where Francisco anxiously waits for her to rescue him from the painful experience.
When his father arrives home from work and asks how Francisco’s first day of school went, Francisco and his mother are afraid to tell his father the truth for fear of disappointing his choice to move the family so far from home. Throughout the rest of the week, Francisco goes to school briefly and calls his mother to take him home. While this occurs, neither Mr. Murtaugh nor his teachers know that Francisco misses the first week of classes. It is not until the end of the week that Francisco and his mother tell his father what is occurring. Armed with this information, the whole family returns to the middle school to meet with Principal Murtaugh to see what can be done to ensure that Francisco is welcomed into his new school community (Cohn-Vargas & Zacarian, 2024, p. 23-24).
In this article, we explore some of the key foundations for building a culture of trust and compassion and why it matters. We also provide three ways educational leaders can foster this culture by building trusting and caring spaces at school and affirming home-school partnerships.
Consider your responses to the following questions:
- Describe 2-3 activities Principal Murtaugh did to support Francisco and his family in feeling welcome.
- List 2-3 additional activities you would have liked Principal Murtaugh to have done.
- How do your listed activities account for Francisco’s home language and culture?
We have asked these questions of many school administrators across the United States and elsewhere. Many discuss what the research demonstrates- the critical importance of building and sustaining a community where all students feel that we care for them unconditionally. A culture of care allows students to possess a sense of safety, belonging, value, competence, and the confidence to speak for themselves and on behalf of others. These conditions are the underpinnings of identity safety.
Our research demonstrates administrators’ influential role in creating a caring culture- especially regarding school policies, practices, and structures. One of the key elements for making such a crucially important culture is partnering with MLs’ parents/guardians and educators.
THREE STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING AND STRENGTHENING IDENTITY SAFETY AT HOME AND SCHOOL
1. Welcome New Students and Families
We might argue reasonably that the reasons for Francisco’s actions were the absence of his feeling safe, a sense of belonging, acknowledgment, and competence and that the omnipresence of these feelings compelled him to flee his new school. One of the key activities that would have helped Francisco and his parents feel welcome would have been having a multilingual multicultural interpreter. While this might seem like an obvious solution, it’s helpful to consider the role that interactions and lots of them play. Renowned developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s (1978) contributions affirm the significance of social interactions. We all make meaning of the world by combining what we already know and have experienced with our interactions and encounters with others.
In our example, Francisco has had years of prior schooling experiences in Santiago, Brazil, and his parents have had years of experience as learners and parents. However, the school principal, Mr. Murtaugh, spoke in a language Francisco didn’t understand and engaged in a monologue that dominated the conversation.
Creating a welcoming environment for multilingual learners and their families must include a flow of back-and-forth interactions demonstrating our curiosity about and openness to building connections. In our example, Francisco was deprived of this urgently needed component- interacting. No school leader, even the most seasoned, wants to deprive students or families from interacting with us.
To do this well means supporting relevant and meaningful interactions between and amongst our students and their families (Zacarian & Silverstone, 2020). For example, let’s say that Mr. Murtaugh enlists a multilingual, multicultural student to join the school tour he is facilitating. Would the student’s presence alone support the type of rich interactions needed? No, there is no guarantee it will happen by chance. We must think carefully about how to partner meaningfully with students, families, and educators. It starts with our creating spaces for listening.
2. Listen to Students, Parents/Guardians, and Educators
Listening involves meeting with individuals or groups, actively listening, observing actions and reactions, and connecting with what individuals and groups say and do. As a school leader, following a conversation and absorbing what is stated without judgment or interruption is essential. The skills needed for engaging in the type of active listening involve:
- Asking open-ended questions to show our curiosity genuinely. For example, as Mr. Murtaugh takes the family on the tour, he could share when school starts and ends and how long classes are. He could then ask Francisco and his family to describe a school day in his prior school.
- Paying attention to what students, families, educators, and others share by demonstrating that we are actively listening. It entails using a speaker’s name, referencing what a speaker says, extending the conversation by asking for clarification and more information, and/or collaboratively expanding what is being stated. An example is from an interaction that Cinda Jones, a teacher of multilingual learners, has with her school principal. Cinda states: “It is difficult for me to know what students understand in English. I am trying to assign them roles that they can do, like group timekeeper and illustrator. In response, the school principal states: “Cinda, I, too, find it hard to know what a student is and is not understanding. How have you found the roles of illustrator and timekeeper helpful for your multilingual learners?
- Moving away from being judgemental, engaging in a monologue, and asking questions that require a one-word (e.g., yes/no) or fill-in-the-blank response. Actively listening and responding moves us to having an open dialogue and showing our genuine interest and curiosity about MLs, their families, and educators. It signifies a move toward creating identity-safe spaces by building deeper connections and relationships with everyone.
3. Foster Caring Relationships
One of the most action-oriented steps that school leaders can take is to support students and families for who they are and the tremendous assets that they possess. Essential ways to encourage identity safe spaces across school and home are to encourage teachers, specialists, and everyone, including ourselves, to:
- Share the positives that we see students doing with parents and guardians and
- Support these positives to occur in the classrooms and at home.
Three strategies for supporting identity-safe spaces at school and home include:
- Continuously provide teachers, specialists, and all who work with multilingual learners with examples of positive experiences you have observed of students’ multiple and varied identities. For example, high school principal Mr. Stanley shared the following with a US History teacher about student Abdul. “Abdul is a careful listener with his class partners. He clarifies what he has heard and affirms what classmates have stated. I appreciate his collaborative leadership. Abdul is also an incredible illustrator. He often draws what is being shared when he works with a group. His classmates seem to appreciate his ability to visualize the key ideas. It would be great to share these many positives with his parents and honor what they do at home to support Abdul’s strengths. It is so great when we learn from students’ families!”
- Supporting awareness and offering tools to deconstruct, dismantle, and counteract the power of the negative stereotypes about identity. For example, share positive experiences you have observed in a classroom, cafeteria, and elsewhere, such as: “Jamille is very strong at seeing when things are unfair. For example, she noticed a classmate wasn’t participating. I appreciated her noticing this, sharing it politely and respectfully, and asking classmates to encourage their peers to speak. Jamille is a natural mediator who seeks and encourages everyone’s active participation! It would be great to share this with her parents and learn more about what they do at home to support Jamille’s leadership and empathy.”
- Helping children celebrate their different social identities and cultivate diversity as a rich shared resource. Learning about students and their families’ various personal, social, cultural, and life interests and experiences is helpful. We can do this by encouraging everyone in a school community to ask questions about each child and family’s rich identities to support them to feel safe, have a sense of belonging, value, competence, and, as importantly, the confidence to share their thoughts, hopes, dreams, and questions. It involves having a sense of curiosity to learn as much as possible about our students and their families and encouraging everyone to do the same. It’s helpful to encourage staff to learn about the activities that students and their families enjoy and draw from them to build affirmational partnerships and connections. Let’s say, for example, that we learn that a favorite activity of one family is taking the train to see a student’s father and uncle play at jazz performances. We might encourage them to come to a history class studying the Jazz Age to build students’ connection to learning.
This article explored some of the key foundations of identity safety. We discussed the importance of school leaders building a culture of trust and compassion with students, families, and our school community and why it matters. We provided three key ways for educational leaders to welcome new students and families and strengthen our partnerships with students, parents/guardians, and staff.
This article originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of Language Magazine. The ideas from this article were drawn from Identity Safe Spaces at Home and School: Partnering to Overcome Inequity by Becki Cohn-Vargas and Debbie Zacarian.
References:
Cohn Vargas, B. and Zacarian, D. (2024). Identity Safe Spaces at Home and School. NY: Teachers College Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society (M. Cole, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Zacarian, D. & Silverstone, M.A. (2020). Teaching to Empower: Taking Action to Teaching to Empower: Taking Action to Foster Student Agency, Self-Confidence, and Collaboration. Alexandria, VA. ASCD.
