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'00..0.0 .' 0. .. . ..0I d O . . ..-.vl..:t.l0..lo....\..u..e......I....410u" :28‘1: 010., a... ..0.......¢t....0|..:l.... .2. . . II t o ... o .00 0.5.? .0. . 4.4.3.. II 0:00.. 30... .30 . .3 0': o . . VI I . I :. 3: 7| - I. . .. 1....Il ..,p. -. :c... .. c . . . . . .. , . . c..-A I. . . . 0 . . I. . . . .. . . . o 0“ ..4..wo00..0 ‘0 II. 11‘... |I . .r.. . ..: 0...: .400: S. 0 00. .I'III'I 8 0 03:0. Erifii O c D”. . 0.... 0'7V90.’ - I I 5.“. 9 § . 0. «1‘ .n .. . Ir... 4.0.0 I. IIIII' | . .0. . . . ‘I’ . n 'I LIBRARY Michigan State University This is to certify that the dissertation entitled OPENING SPACES FOR THE INTERACTION OF ESL STUDENTS AND THEIR PEERS: IMPLYING LEVINASIAN ETHICS OF THE OTHER presented by Anny E. Fritzen has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policx a. v 7 /t,§/\~- Major Professor’s Signature 1/ £1th a... :7L 51‘ / 0 / Date MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record. To AVOID FINES return on or before date due. MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested. DAIEDUE DAIEDUE DAIEDUE 5/08 K:iProj/Acc&Pres/CIRCIDateDue.indd OPENING SPACES FOR THE INTERACTION OF ESL STUDENTS AND THEIR PEERS: IMPLYING LEVINASIAN ETHICS OF THE OTHER BY Anny E. Fritzen A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy 2010 ABSTRACT Opening Spaces for the Interaction of ESL Students and Their Peers: lmplying Levinasian Ethics of the Other BY Anny E. Fritzen Cultivating meaningful and sustained interaction among English language learners (ELLs) and their English-speaking peers at school is a desirable, yet often an elusive goal. In order to better understand the dynamics of such interaction, I explore how a group of high schoolers -- recent refugees (ELLs) and long-time immigrants (non-ELLs) -- interacted in an after-school project to create a digital video. Using observation, notes, audio- and video-recordings of group meetings, and participant interviews, I analyze how the technology-rich curriculum both supported and hindered interaction. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy of relational ethics, I consider three concepts related to both interactional breakdowns and rich collaboration: proximity, understanding, and responsibility. In contrast to the curricular approach of “closing gaps,” I propose an ethical orientation of “opening spaces” - a Levinasian-inspired conceptualization of how we might structure, mediate, and think about interaction between ELLs and their peers. In contrast, but not in opposition to, curricular interventions that seek to narrow gaps and decrease the risks associated with interaction across difference, an opening-spaces viewpoint calls attention to and embraces the inherent vulnerability and uncertainty embedded in sincere attempts at interaction across difference. It calls for a responsive and improvisational, Other-centered stance rooted in a sense of ethical responsibility to and for an Other. Copyright by ANNY E. FRITZEN 2010 DEDICATION To Peter and each of the other young immigrants whose goodwill, good humor, and resilient spirits remind me what is right with the world. and To Archie whose unwavering presence brought much needed spark and inspiration. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It takes a village to write a dissertation. Through this process I have been the beneficiary of many gifts - gifts of time, intellect, conversation, experience, encouragement, nourishment, and spiritual support — freely offered by a community of smart, generous, and helpful friends, family, and faculty. My dear friends in my writing groups helped me conceptualize the project, persist in making it happen, and provided ongoing feedback and friendship. “T hank you” seems an inadequate expression to convey the deep gratitude I feel. It was an honor and privilege to work under Ann Lawrence’s brilliant facilitation of our writing groups. Her pedagogy was exceptional, her feedback was always generative, and her influence will be enduring. The group members — Cherice Montgomery, Marjorie Cooper, Christine Dawson, Mary Tomczyk, and Deb Van Duinen - and Sheila Marquardt, are among the smartest, most generous women I know. Thank you for the countless occasions when you dropped everything to provide “just in time” help and much needed encouragement. I gratefully acknowledge the prayers and support of my wonderful family: Mary Jane Fritzen, the Ballards, the Blairs, and numerous other relatives. A special thanks also goes to my Tante Heimy - the first “Dr. Fritzen” in our family — who opened her home for writing retreats and kept me grounded. Thank you to Carol Lynn McConnell for being my mentor and collaborator; our shared interest in facilitating croSs-cultural and cross-linguistic interaction was the seed-bed for this study. I also express my gratitude to Brian Case, who came on the scene at exactly the right time and provided exactly what I needed over and over and over again. The members of my dissertation committee - Lynn Fendler, Jeff Bale, Suzanne Wilson, and Dorothea Anagnostopoulos — are not only exceptional scholars, but remarkable people, who gave generous, insightful feedback on my work. I will always be grateful to my advisor, Lynn, who patiently allowed me to explore until I finally found my scholarly niche and who consistently modeled rigorous, ethical scholarship and high-quality teaching, all the while graciously and gracefully juggling a very full plate of responsibilities. Last but not least, I wish to thank the administrators of the Refugee Center and Central High School who allowed me to join my efforts with theirs. I also express my appreciation to Cherice Montgomery, Sheila Marquardt, and Alisa Kesler-Lund, who helped facilitate the project. Thanks to Betty Okwako who helped with translation. And without the willingness of the video project participants and their parents, this study never could have happened. To each of them, I say asante, am an ban, gracias, mahadsanid, and of course, thank you. Thank you for teaching me what I never could have known without you, even though I still don’t understand. vi PREFACE Yeah — I don ’t have problem - everybody like me and I like them. I cannot say that l have to hate any student or a teacher or anybody. . . I think it was Jesus helping me to come here. How I can hate them if Jesus take me [here]? I can't. I have to work together with them. - Landry, newcomer There’s a recognizable genre to writing research about youth who attend English-dominant schools but don’t speak English at home.i With the same predictability that “once upon a time” starts a fairy tale, an article about “English language learners” begins with a retelling of the dramatic increase of non-English speaking children attending underfunded schools with under-prepared teachers. This statistical recitation is intended as a wake-up call, I suppose. But it also implies a foreign invasion. I don’t want to start my dissertation this way. I want to humanize the situation, to speak of young people not numbers, to honor the heart and soul and voices of Asha, Bosco, Gilbert, Hamisi, Innocent, Julia, Juma, Landry, Marisol, Nadif, Peter, and Victoria. Take Peter for instance. Peter who is Landry’s brother, the sidekick of Innocent, the one whose playful teasing and stubbornness endeared him to Marisol. The middle son of his parents. The one whose death and funeral planted stoic, heartbroken expressions on the faces of teenage boys — eyes sobbing without tears. There is only one Peter. Thoughts of Peter and the others bring back an image of myself walking up two flights of stairs in Central High School overloaded with bags of necessary goods: cameras, tripods, snacks, markers, poster paper, and my laptop. Once | Vii reach the classroom, lwiII set up the audio-recorder and video camera. I will hope the participants show up. I will hope the activities go as planned. I will hope that we make actual progress on our task. I will hope that our time together is pleasant. I will hope something interesting happens, that I will catch something in my nets. Now, I sincerely hope this dissertation honors the young men and women who enabled this project. I hope my portrayal does not fasten them with pins like carefully preserved butterflies in a museum display. I want you to see them alive and flying, landing for a brief moment on a leaf, stopping here to suck some nectar from an orange blossom, fighting vigorously to escape the net. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................ xi CHAPTER 1: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE VIDEO PROJECT ............................ 1 The Case for Interaction .................................................................................... 2 Facilitating Interaction ........................................................................................ 6 The Video Project Curriculum .......................................................................... 10 Finding Participants ......................................................................................... 13 Naming the Participants: Newcomers and Old-timers .................................. 15 Our Group .................................................................................................... 16 Gathering Student Perspectives & Making the Video ...................................... 20 My Role ........................................................................................................... 23 Making Sense of It All ...................................................................................... 25 Levinas’s Philosophy of Relational Ethics ....................................................... 26 Humanities-Oriented Research ....................................................................... 29 Closing Gaps and Opening Spaces ................................................................. 31 Dissertation Overview ...................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER 2: PROXIMITY .................................................................................. 33 The Proximity Problem .................................................................................... 35 Levinasian Concept of Proximity ..................................................................... 37 Orchestrating a Curriculum of Interaction: Beginning the Video Project .......... 39 The Comfort of Knowing and the Discomfort of Proximity ............................... 48 Teaching the Other .......................................................................................... 52 Mediating Proximity ......................................................................................... 57 Resonances for Future Interaction .................................................................. 69 Experiencing Proximity .................................................................................... 71 CHAPTER 3: SAYING AND UNDERSTANDING ............................................... 73 Overcoming the “Language Barrier" ................................................................ 75 The Saying and the Said ................................................................................. 78 Finding a Way to Understand: Strategy and Approach .................................... 80 Make ‘Em Understand ..................................................................................... 86 Creating Meaning ............................................................................................ 89 Moving Beyond Words .................................................................................... 92 Not Understanding as an Ethical Response .................................................. 104 CHAPTER 4: RESPONSIBILITY ...................................................................... 108 Student Responsibility ................................................................................... 109 A Levinasian Construct of Responsibility ....................................................... 112 Describing Responsibility .............................................................................. 115 Performing Responsibility .............................................................................. 123 ix Attempting Responsibility .............................................................................. 131 When Responsibility Gets in the Way of Responding ................................... 137 Opening Spaces for Responsive and Responsible Interaction ..................... 143 CHAPTER 5: OPENING SPACES FOR INTERACTION ................................. 145 Closing Gaps through Knowledge ................................................................. 145 Closing Gaps; Opening Spaces .................................................................... 148 Responsive Improvisation ............................................................................. 152 Summary and Implications ............................................................................ 153 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 157 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................ 168 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. List of Participants ............................................................................... 20 Table 2. Unique Emphases: “Closing Gaps" and “Opening Spaces” ................ 154 Table 3. Possible Responses: “Closing Gaps” and “Opening Spaces" ............. 157 xi CHAPTER 1 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE VIDEO PROJECT “T he problem that we have in America, there are a lot of boys and there are a lot of girls, but they don ’t want to teach another boy or girls from another country. That is the problem we have in America. ” - Landry, newcomer “I would definitely do anything to help somebody who ’3 just come to America . . . l was once in this position and I know how it feels, so I would . . . definitely do anything.” - Nadif, old-timer The seeds for my current research grew out of years of personal and professional experience involving both successful and failed attempts at facilitating cross-linguistic, and cross-cultural interaction among secondary students. A particularly salient experience took place when l was working as a high school ESL teacher several years ago. A dear colleague and I had observed the potentially rich opportunity that could be harnessed if we could get our students together. My students were primarily native Spanish speakers trying to learn English and hers were mostly native English speakers trying to learn Spanish. There was so much it seemed that our students could learn from each other. So we concocted a series of activities designed to enhance the language proficiency, cultural awareness, and social skills of both groups. Although our activities were carefully planned and carried out, the outcomes were not always what we had anticipated. Quite often the students simply stared at each other, quickly finishing the task, and then biding their time, appearing acutely uncomfortable despite our ongoing efforts to mediate the encounters. There were bright spots in the experiment, of course, but not the widespread, transformative results we had hoped for. And quite frankly, I’ve been perplexed ever since. The Case for Interaction “Interaction” is a broad term encompassing many different types of curricula with different people interacting varying contexts. There is interaction between students in a classroom for academic purposes or interaction that takes the form of socializing in the hallways. There’s interaction between teachers and students, between parents and teachers, and between two teachers. All of these types of interaction, whether formal or informal, planned or unplanned, academic or social, can have implications for English language learners (ELLs). For the purpose of this study, I am concerned, however, primarily with interaction between peers, specifically ELLs and non-ELLs. When I speak of interaction, I am thinking of interaction loosely defined as any type of social engagement with each other. ESL curricular research addressing interaction between ELLs and non- ELLs might be summarized in the following way. A case is made for interaction between ELLs and non-ELLs.2 Research-based strategies for facilitating the interaction are described.3 The occasional account of “successful” interaction4 is presented to supplement the plentiful stories of “failed” or avoided interaction.5 Explanations for the breakdowns or avoidance of interaction are offered and the benefits of “successful” interaction are announced. Since language has been cast as the defining characteristic for ELLs (although the term represents a very diverse group of students), the role of language in facilitating or hindering interaction is often emphasized. The perspective from second language acquisition (SLA) research tends to highlight how schooling experiences might support and/or impede ELLs’ opportunities to develop English language proficiency as efficiently and effectively as possible. Through the SLA lens, interaction with proficient English speakers plays an important role in the . . . . . . 6 language learning process In both cognrtrve and socrocultural perspectrves. Furthermore, sociocultural theories of learning foreground the role of language in the co-construction of ideas and knowledge.7 Thus, if school is to be a site for language learning, a curriculum of meaningful and extended opportunities for ELLs to interact with others in English is of paramount importance. In addition to English language acquisition, ELLs’ interaction with others at school has important content learning implications. Interaction with peers is necessary as English learners participate in cooperative learning, class discussions, projects, and other common educational activities. There are also plenty of informal opportunities for interaction that have learning consequences such as explaining concepts, clarifying directions, or providing encouragement to a peer. Several classroom-based studies of the enacted curriculum offer helpful descriptions of these types of interaction. For example, Patricia Duff investigated how ELLs interacted in two 10th grade social studies course in Canada.8 Based on observation, interview, and artifact data gleaned during a six-month period in each classroom, Duff observed peripheral engagement by the English learners. When engaged in cooperative learning tasks with non-ELLs, the ELLs were often limited in the degree to which they could participate due to language, background knowledge, and social constraints. They expressed to Duff feelings of anxiety about interacting with their fluent-English speaking peers. In particular, they were concerned that they would not understand or be understood or behave in socially stigmatizing ways. Because ELLs did not feel comfortable participating actively, Duff noticed that the rich diversity within the ESL group “went largely unnoticed . . ,,9 . . . . by therr local classmates, who saw them as a srlent mass. Srmrlar srtuatrons are described in Linda Harklau’s ethnographic study comparing ELLs’ experience in mainstream and ESL courses.10 In this American high school, Harklau found that ELLs tended to tune out in mainstream classes and associated only minimally with their non-ELL peers. In fact, Harklau noted that “perhaps the single most salient aspect of observations of ESL students in mainstream classes was their reticence and lack of interaction with native-speaking peers.”11 When ELLs didn’t participate with their peers, they often also didn’t fully participate in the instruction. Showing the potential for positive interaction, Bogum Yoon reported on classroom examples where ELLs and non-ELLs in an American middle school supported each other with class activities and developed friendships.” Noting exceptions to this type of interaction in other classrooms, Yoon attributed the difference to the teacher’s attitude and practices. Another example of successful classroom interaction is provided by George Bunch, who describes how carefully structured cooperative learning activities enabled ELLs to be full participants with their peers in a 7th grade history class.13 An important point made by these and other classroom-based curriculum studies is that interaction in which ELLs and non-ELLs work together, are friendly, and participate together in learning activities has positive educational consequences for both groups. On the other hand, where interaction doesn’t happen or is negative, valuable learning opportunities are missed, both in terms of language and content, especially on the part of English learners. In a more general sense, the degree to which ELLs are able to gain membership in the larger school community is significantly affected by the extent and quality of their interaction with non-ELLs. A number of studies exploring how secondary ELLs integrate into English-speaking schools suggest that ELLs often remain separate from the rest of the student body. Jennifer Miller’s study, for example, tracks the experience of a group of Chinese immigrants in an Australian high school.14 Her findings show that the English learners tended to be socially isolated, not interacting much with Australian-born students or longtime immigrants and in effect, losing many opportunities to use English. An interesting note here is that the Bosnian students in the same school seemed to be quite integrated in the school’s social fabric. Focusing on an urban middle school in the United States, Andrew Gitlin and colleagues studied how ELLs were marginalized due to institutional structures and policies and community influences that purported to be welcoming, but actually sidelined immigrants and their families.15 The ESL program served to isolate ELLs instructionally while official and unofficial social spaces, such as the cafeteria, gym, and busses, reinforced their separation. Similar findings from these two studies are reflected in other literature describing how ELLs not only remain separate from their non-ELL peers, but seem to be almost invisible to them.16 Thus, although ELLs and non-ELLs may be attending school together, the English learners often retain outsider status. Facilitating Interaction While a handful of curriculum studies depict positive interaction between ELLs and non-ELLs in secondary schools,17 the more common storyline highlights the persistent divide between English learners and their peers in all aspects of school life — in classrooms, hallways, cafeterias, gyms, and other social gathering places.18 Explanations for this include the human tendency to gravitate toward similarity,19 lack of opportunity often caused by institutional 20 . . . . . 21 . . . . 22 structures, racrsm/drscrrmrnatron, lrngurstrc difference, and teacher practices that don’t foster interaction?3 Of course, the contextual and personal factors influencing the extent and nature of this type of interaction involve a complex combination of multiple, situated elements not easily pinned down or generalized. What does seem apparent, however, is that asking ELLs and non- ELLs to interact with each other is asking them to engage in social border crossings that may feel risky and uncomfortable. That said, to better understand how the young people themselves perceive and manage these cross-linguistic and cross-cultural interactions, it seems especially important to consider student voices as constitutive of the enacted curriculum. Yet there is very little research that describes interaction from a student perspective. While existing research does give some voice to the frustration, anxiety, and marginalization ELLs experience, the perspectives of the non-ELLs who share the school with them are rarely documented in existing research — a significant gap, in my opinion, since they are the other half of the equation. Although the focus on ELLs is warranted as it is important to uncover and resist attitudes, structures, and practices that marginalize ELLs and stifle their full participation and academic achievement, this emphasis on what ELLs stand to lose or gain from opportunities to interact with the larger school community can also unwittingly frame interaction as largely therapeutic for ELLs - a one-way street, so to speak. Such framing obscures the important contributions ELLs might offer and what their peers could learn from them. There is more to be explored in relation to how these interactions might be beneficial and important for both groups of students. Nearly 30 years ago in a seminal study, Patricia Phelan et al. offered a useful characterization of the situation that is still relevant today.24 They articulated a model in terms of the multiple “worlds” young people have to navigate in order to manage the sometimes conflicting intersection of their lives at home, at school, and with their peers. This characterization of border crossing between worlds conveys the largeness and complexity of the task. Obviously, crossing the borders of these worlds is the smoothest for students for whom these arenas pose the least dissonance with each other — such as a White, middle class adolescent for whom home, school, and peer groups revolve around a similar set of values and shared understandings. It is more complicated for young people when these worlds clash, as could well be the case for English language learners who must operate under different expectations - and even different languages - at home, at school, and with their peers. It is also conceivable that non-ELLs would find it difficult to venture into unknown territories in order to interact with ELLs, whose native language, culture, and background might feel profoundly foreign. Despite the inherent challenges, the researchers identified students who managed to successfully traverse these various contexts, but they needed support in order to do so. As Phelan et al. observed, We need to identify institutional structures that operate to facilitate boundary crossing strategies and do not require students to give up or hide important features of their lives. This requires more than understanding other cultures. It means that students must acquire skills and strategies to work comfortably and successfully with different people in divergent social settings.25 Along these lines, a substantial body of literature has been devoted to discovering and describing helpful curricular and pedagogical strategies intended to facilitate interaction between ELLs and non-ELLs. For instance, research describes skills and strategies students can be taught to increase the likelihood of successful interaction, such as learning how to appropriately respond to cultural differences, communicate respectfully, and to interpret misunderstanding 26 . . generously. In therr classrooms, teachers are advrsed to carefully structure group activities to promote equal participation,27 to lead discussions that stimulate thinking without disenfranchising ELLs by assuming insider cultural knowledge,28 and to recognize and plan for language-based difficulties.29 It is also recommended that teachers and students learn about the cultural and personal backgrounds of immigrant students and be informed about misleading stereotypes. On an institutional level, the literature recommends that schools be organized to avoid policies and structures that keep ELLs and non-ELLs separated, especially curricular tracking that effectively segregates ELLs in remedial and ESL classes.30 Additionally, certain types of opportunities, both curricular and extracurricular, have been shown to be more effective contexts for interaction than others. For instance, curricular opportunities that involve participants working towards a common goal in a safe and supportive . . . . . . 31 envrronment are lrkely to be conducrve to rnteractron across difference. The common thread running through the research I've discussed so far is an attempt to close the gap between ELLs and non-ELLs through knowledge -- knowing about each other, knowing how to bring the groups together, and knowing what to do with each other once inside an interactional space. Evidence from the studies that form the basis for these approaches suggests that they can make a difference in fostering mutually satisfying and beneficial interaction across difference, which is encouraging news. Sharing this commitment to bridging the gap between ELLs and non-ELLs, l organized an after-school project with a curriculum that I hoped would foster opportunities for mutually satisfying and beneficial interaction among a culturally and linguistically diverse group of high school students. The project centered on the production of a student-created digital video to introduce and welcome new English learners to school. From a research perspective, the purpose of the project was to provide valuable insights into how the students themselves perceived, experienced, and negotiated their collaboration with each other. Once inside the project, however, I discovered that the terrain was quite a bit more complicated than I had imagined, but in provocative and instructive ways. The Video Project Curriculum The afterschool project that is the context for my dissertation grew out of questions raised through my experience as an ESL teacher and the research related to interaction across cultural and linguistic diversity. My goal in this research was to describe how a mixed group of ELLs and non-ELLs actually negotiated and talked about interaction with each other. Since most of the existing research takes place in the classroom and focuses on how students participate in classroom activities, I was interested in what could be learned by studying sustained interaction in an after-school curriculum. I wondered if one of the reasons the extant research finds less productive and superficial interaction might be due to existing social norms in high school and limited opportunities for 10 the teacher to intervene, given short class periods and large numbers of students. Also, typical in-class collaborations are often restricted to brief discussions and/or completion of short tasks in which task completion might take precedence over sincere engagement.32 Furthermore, since group work often involves frequent variation in the combination of students, there is less opportunity for group members to bond. What would happen, I wondered, if the same group of students worked together over time in a curriculum mediated by an interested adult? There is precedent for research on out-of-school curricula to inform school-based learning. As Hull and Schultz observed, In some ways the distinction between in-school and out-of—school sets up a false dichotomy. By emphasizing physical space (i.e. contexts outside the schoolhouse door) or time (i.e. after-school programs), we may ignore important conceptual dimensions that would more readily account for . . ,,33 successful learning or Its absence. By locating my study out of school, I hoped to uncover some of these “important conceptual dimensions” related to interaction among diverse high schoolers. Additionally, I wanted to do something that would respond to a real need in the community and would benefit the participants. While the focus of my study is not the product that emerges from the collaboration, I wanted to enact a task- based curriculum that would be both worthwhile and engaging. The task also needed to be one that positioned both groups of students as knowers (in contrast to group learning situations where the ELLs are positioned as novices). Additionally, there needed to be an authentic purpose and audience. Research suggests that friendships across diversity are more likely to occur in a context 11 where individuals are engaged in a common goal that necessitates cooperative interdependence.34 Thus, another objective of this curriculum was to create this type of environment. Based on these criteria and existing needs and after conversation with Gabriel Martinez, the director of youth programs for the community-based refugee center, a student—created video seemed like the most appropriate and compelling genre to introduce new students to Central High School.1 At the time, no student-generated orientation material existed. Creating a project such as this would require the two groups of students to learn about each other and combine their experiences and expertise. Additionally, a variety of technology-based options would help facilitate our work together. I was hopeful that the opportunity to use and expand computer skills would also be appealing to the students. As I explained my idea of working with a group of ESL and mainstream students to create a video to welcome new students to Central High School, I was surprised by Lisa Coyne’s response. The assistant principal of a large, diverse urban high school in Michigan, Lisa cared deeply about the students in her charge even though she was obviously overworked. With emotion in her voice and tears in her eyes, Lisa offered her enthusiastic support and expressed how this project helped her feel not so “alone on the battlefield.” Explaining the school’s ongoing struggle to integrate new immigrants, she described how often misunderstanding among the different cultural, ethnic, and linguistic groups 1 Pseudonyms have been used to replace the actual names of participants and the school. 12 created discord among the student body. I had heard a similar story from Gabriel Martinez, the director of youth programs for the community’s refugee center. He told me how the immigrant students in their program struggled at school and how it was an uphill battle for them to fit in with the rest of the kids. Like Lisa, Gabriel expressed full support of the video project. Both agreed that the product — a welcome video — and the project — an afterschool program where ELLs and non- ELLs would collaborate to create the video — were worthwhile and needed endeavors. Lisa and Gabriel said they would help me find student participants and offered space in their buildings to carry out the project. Finding Participants With their blessing and recommendations of potential participants, I began to solicit volunteers. In planning the project, I didn’t anticipate how difficult it would be! Gathering ELLs wasn’t the problem; the refugee center already ran an afterschool tutoring program and I was able to recruit from there. I distributed flyers and Gabriel personally invited several students to attend an informational meeting. Although only one or two students attended my first attempt at a meeting, a group of six or seven attended after receiving a little encouragement from Gabriel and from the technology. I quickly learned that my credibility with the students increased dramatically when I carried the camera! In fact, the boys swarmed around me when l enticed them with the chance of actually holding it. Since few of their parents spoke English, I had the consent form and a description of the project orally translated into Swahili. In most cases, I visited the 13 homes to meet the parents, and at that time played the recording before inviting them to permit their child’s participation. Finding non-ELLs to participate was another story entirely — a story that is itself a reflection of the problem I was responding to. It took nearly two months of trying before I managed to recruit four non-ELL participants. During this time I solicited student recommendations from faculty, distributed informational flyers, and spoke individually with students who had been recommended. Part of the problem, naturally, was that the students were already busy and involved in other activities. They didn’t know me and didn’t express knowledge of or interest in the recent immigrants at their school. Initially, I had targeted “U.S.-born” students, but my main criterion was simply “non-ELL.” Eventually, a student contact suggested that I invite members of a community service club to participate. This student group met weekly for a brief meeting in Mr. Madsen’s classroom. As my project was in keeping with the group’s mission, Mr. Madsen warmly welcomed my presentation. I quickly learned that most of the club members were first or second generation immigrants themselves and my description of the video project seemed to resonate with them. To my delight, I left the meeting with names of about eight interested students. In the end, Julia, Marisol, Nadif, and Victoria committed to participate, although Victoria was only able to attend the first two meetings. I now finally had a group of participants — ten ELLs and four non-ELLs. 14 Namlng the Participants: Newcomers and Old-timers The group of participants all turned out to be immigrants and non-native English speakers. Even the “non-ELLs” came from families that did not speak English as a first language. This characteristic adds a significant layer to my research since none of the participants represented the “typical” native English speaker often envisioned when juxtaposing ELLs with their peers in the “mainstream.” So I wanted a way to distinguish between the two groups that also recognized the immigrant ties they had in common. One option was to follow a common practice in the research and call them ELLs and mainstream students. While this terminology is descriptive and signals certain assumptions relevant to school, it also can suggest a sort of deficit thinking where “the ‘problem’ of English Learners . . . gets framed as some kind of comparison with a presumed ‘mainstream’ norm.”35 In the end, I decided to take my lead from the terminology introduced to me by one of the participants), Nadif. Talking about the Somali students at Central, he explained, “There’s the new Somalians and there’s the old — the ones that have been here for a while . . and the “new Somalis who have been here like five years or less. . Since members of the non-ELL group all happened to have close immigrant ties, I call them “old-timers” as they had been in the US. a minimum of eight years. Julia and Victoria were born to immigrant mothers from Vietnam and Nicaragua not long after they arrived in the United States. Marisol was born in Cuba, and Nadif in Somalia. I call the ELL group, “newcomers,” since they had been in the US. no more than two years. This group was comprised of seven males from Tanzania and the Congo and three 15 females from Somalia. Although I refer to the video project participants as newcomers and old-timers, I use the terms “ELLs" and “non-ELLs” when I am speaking generally as it relates to these groups of students in other contexts or from existing research. Our Group In some ways, the composition of the group was not what I had originally anticipated. For instance, I had hoped for an equal number of newcomers and old-timers, but since I didn’t want to turn away any of the newcomer group and time was scarce to recruit additional old-timers, I chose to move forward with the numbers we had. Since three of the participants only attended our meetings less than half of the time, most of our meetings were a ratio of one old-timer for every two newcomers. Gender was another factor that clearly influenced the dynamic of our group as it was predominantly male with only one actively participating female newcomer and two actively participating female old-timers. For the most part, the students didn’t know each other across groups, but within groups they were already friendly and acquainted. Even though the make-up of our group belied the neat demographic proportionality that might be central to a different kind of study, the unexpected collection of personalities, experiences, and backgrounds that defined our group presented its own rich possibilities. Although I didn’t plan it this way, the project offered an opportunity to explore ELLJnon-ELL interaction when the ELLs are in the majority, a situation rarely written about in the research, but one that does 16 occur in some schools. Our group also reflected certain realities of the Central High School community. For instance, the recent immigrant boys from Tanzania were a tight knit group who in some ways operated almost as a collective. It also happened to be the case that a large number of Central students had immigrant backgrounds and a core of these students (including the old-timers in the video project) were highly successful as students and leaders in the school. They were part of the group who were “involved in everything” and accustomed to saying yes to extracurricular opportunities. I ought to also add here that Marisol and Julia, the two old-timer females who stayed with the project for its duration, were particularly strong, self-directed young women who defied certain gender and cultural stereotypes. Even though they were in the clear minority in our group, they exercised a great deal of influence. Another unplanned, but salient aspect of our group involved the particular immigrant backgrounds of the participants. Each member of the newcomer group came from refugee families. They each had spent a good part of their lives in refugee camps, had interrupted schooling, and had family members who were scattered around the world. In a number of cases, their family stories involved tragedies of war and civil unrest. One of the participants, Hamisi, was the only member of his immediate family in the city where he lived. The other newcomers were here with their parents and siblings. Their families were large by US. standards — six to ten children — and lived in homes that were affordable, but often rundown and located in communities thought to be less desirable by the locals. If a parent spoke English it was the father, but typically, neither parent 17 spoke fluently. Their time in the United States ranged from ten months to two years, so the families were still very much adjusting to their new lives. While there is tremendous diversity within refugee populations, because of the traumatic circumstances that often lie behind a refugee’s resettlement, their psychosocial adjustment is of special concern.36 Lynn McBrien defined psychosocial well-being as “a sense of safety, a sense of self, and an adjustment to the cultural expectations of a new country while maintaining a connection to their heritage.”37 The newcomers in the project appeared to be fully engaged in this process as they strongly identified with their home cultures and languages and articulated specific ways they were adopting or rejecting what they viewed as “American” culture. They were proud of their native languages and also expressed a strong desire to learn English well. Through their faith traditions, ethnic communities, the refugee center, and social circles, they had support networks of other immigrants. At the same time, the economic, cultural, linguistic, and personal challenges faced by their families were very real and pressing. I hoped that participation in the video project would contribute to a sense of safety, a sense of self, and a sense of welcome. The old-timers were experiencing a different stage of immigration. Of the three old-timers who participated throughout the project, Julia was the only one born in the United States, although her mother had immigrated from Vietnam just shortly before Julia was born. Nadif had moved to the United States with his family from Somalia when he was five years old. Marisol came with her parents 18 from Cuba when she was nine. Each of old-timers was bilingual and spoke two languages at home. The research identifies two typical trends that did not appear to apply to Julia, Marisol, or Nadif. First, studies suggest that for immigrants, “length of residence is paradoxically associated with declining academic achievement and aspirations.”38 In other words, the longer immigrants are in the United States, the worse they do in school and their optimism and personal goals also decline. The second trend commonly reported in the research is that longtime immigrants don’t tend to associate with recent immigrants.39 There are a variety of reasons to account for this phenomenon, including curricular tracking, different levels of English and native language use, differences in economic status, perceptions that one group or the other is more “authentically”affiliated with the home culture, and differing perceptions of the school system. In contrast to these trends, Julia, Marisol, and Nadif were very successful students and highly involved in curricular and extracurricular opportunities at Central. They had ambitions to be the first in their families to attend college and were positioned to achieve that goal. While they acknowledged that they didn’t associate much with ELLs at Central, they framed this separation as a natural consequence of not being in the same classes or having opportunities to encounter them. They said, however, that they were willing and happy to interact with them. In fact, as I will discuss in another chapter, they expressed a kinship with the ELLs because of the shared immigrant backgrounds. These characteristics of Julia, Marisol, and Nadif — their academic achievement, full 19 social integration at Central, and their stated empathy and connection to the immigrant experience — offered an unexpected contribution to the project as examples of students who seem ideally positioned to work with the newcomers. They seemed well-suited to provide important insights rarely available in the literature. Table 1. List of Active Participants Name Age Gender Grade Country Time in Time at of Origin US. Central High Julia 17 F 11 Vietnam 17 years 3 years (born in US.) Nadif 18 M 11 Somalia 12 years 3 years Marisol 17 F 12 Cuba 8 years 2.5 years Landry 18 M 10 Tanzania 2 years 2 years Peter 14 M 9 Tanzania 2 years 1 year Juma 16 M 9 Tanzania 2 years 2 years Innocent 14 M 9 Tanzania 2 years 2 years Bosco 17 M to Tanzania 2 years 2 years Gilbert 16 M 9 Congo 1 year 1 year Hamisi 18 M 10 Tanzania 1 year 1 year Asha 19 F 11 Somalia 10 months 1 year Gathering Student Perspectives & Making the Video Prior to our first meeting, I interviewed as many of the participants as was logistically possible. (I interviewed those who couldn’t meet with me before our first session as soon as possible afterwards.) Since this is not an intervention study, the specific timing of the interviews was not crucial. The purpose of the 20 interview was to get acquainted and to get a sense of how the participants perceived the social landscape at school (particularly related to ELLs and non- ELLs), and what they hoped to accomplish with the video project, including their recommendations for how to go about the task. After we completed the project, I interviewed the students again to learn about their perceptions of their experience with the project, how they felt about the associated interaction and collaboration, and suggestions for future similar projects. To help with language-related issues, a translator came with me to the interviews with the newcomers who did not feel comfortable speaking entirely in English. With the participant’s permission, the interviews were audio-recorded and, if necessary, the translator interpreted for the participants and me during the interview. The interviews took place at a variety of public locations, such as the school, the refugee center, or the public library. A teacher at Central High School allowed us to meet in his classroom after school. In all, we had eight whole group meetings lasting approximately 1.5 — 2 hours. In addition, there were three more meetings with part of the group to complete specific tasks related to video production. The whole group meetings took place over a five and a half week period. To capture interaction, the group sessions were audio- and video-recorded. Another adult was present at all but one of the meetings to assist with the recording and to help me and the participants. The purpose for the group meetings was to collaboratively create the welcome video. For the first three sessions, we focused on planning the video and started filming and taking pictures. The last sessions involved actually putting 21 together the video. I directed the group sessions and provided specific activities for participants to do, although sometimes the tasks were fairly open-ended; on occasion, the group decided together how to spend our time. Most often, the participants worked in mixed newcomer/oId-timer groups or partnerships. After each meeting, I took notes to document what we did and to record my impressions, particularly as they related to the group’s interaction. I planned the sessions based on the previous meeting. I tried to provide the participants with hands-on opportunities to use technology (digital cameras and computers) during every meeting, which seemed to be appealing. Consequently, we had as many as nine cameras at a given meeting! In general, attendance was good. The Tanzanian boys came to nearly every meeting as did Julia and Marisol. Nadif had to miss a few meetings due to a family emergency and Victoria only participated in the first two meetings. Asha also missed several meetings. The video creation process was neither smooth nor predictable. We regularly had technical difficulties and encountered challenges trying to get the desired footage. We were always running out of time and found ourselves competing with other demands on the participants’ time, such as final exams, work schedules, and soccer practice. In the end, we had to discontinue our regular group meetings before the video was finalized because the school year was coming to an end. Over the summer, Julia completed the final editing of the video. Early in the following school year, the group convened one more time to officially present the finished video to school and refugee center officials. 22 My Role The project had two main purposes: 1) to create a welcome video, and 2) to study ELL/non-ELL interaction. As the teacher and the researcher, I was deeply involved and personally invested in both aspects. I didn't assume either role, however, in the way the title might suggest. While I clearly was the “teacher,” I deliberately tried to minimize the power differential that typically exists between teachers and students. For example, I chose to have the students address me as “Anny” instead of “Ms. Fritzen,” communicated with them by text-messaging as that was their preferred means of communication, regularly consulted with them for ideas about how to go about the project, and in general, tried to exercise minimum control over the process and product. As the “researcher,” l was aiming for scholarly integrity, but not objectivity. I did not try (nor was I able), for instance, to emotionally disengage from the project although I did make a concerted effort not to have my interpretations or my emotions be the only perspectives represented in the narrative. I worked to achieve this by writing, reflecting, discussing with others, and revisiting notes and artifacts from the project recursively and from multiple perspectives over a long period of time. Obviously, it was neither possible nor desirable for my teacher and researcher roles to be distinct, but occasionally I experienced moments when the roles seemed to collide uncomfortably. For instance, when Julia and Marisol confronted me with a problem they were having with some of the newcomers, I wrote how I felt torn between my role as “the researcher who wanted to get an 23 understanding of how the girls were perceiving the situation that was uninfluenced by me" and my role as “the teacher who wanted to influence their thinking.” This was a delicate dance and an ongoing struggle. My first priority, however, was to the students. Thus, I chose to intervene at times when I might have just observed as a researcher. For example, during one session I had partnered one of the newcomers with an old-timer to do some work on the computer. It quickly became apparent to me that one of the students was in a bad mood and unwilling to engage with her partner. While it would have been interesting from a research standpoint to see how the participants worked out the situation, I was concerned that the interaction might be too discouraging for one of them in particular, so I did what I would have done as a teacher and changed the partnership. There were also logistical difficulties in my role as teacher and researcher such as when I was trying to record, mediate, and observe interaction all at the same time! Wearing these many hats also presented benefits, however, as it provided me with different vantage points from which I could consider the interaction. As a teacher, I found myself most concerned with in-the-moment issues, participant enjoyment and occasions for learning, and how the interaction facilitated or hindered completion of the video. As a researcher, my eye was fine-tuned to observing the nuances of interaction, how the students worked together and what obstacles they faced in the process. In this way, the roles were complementary: the researcher perspective enhanced the teaching and the teacher perspective enhanced the research. 24 Making Sense of It All Throughout the life of the video project, I was continually surprised, discouraged, delighted, and perplexed. The students demonstrated remarkable patience, tenacity, and goodwill in the face of the technological, interpersonal, circumstantial, and linguistic challenges that cropped up. I expected our work together to be challenging and complex, but I did not anticipate a number of the most profound - and provocative - challenges we encountered. In particular, some of the facets of the project that were the most intriguing to me involved occasions when student interaction seemed to be stifled by the very things I would have expected to foster it. For instance, I thought the old-timers’ ability to relate to the immigrant experience and the challenge of learning English would have facilitated interaction positively as it offered a shared superordinate identity.40 Actually, in many ways this shared background did seem to serve as a bridge between the old-timers and the newcomers. However, there were also a number of times when a pre-conceived notion of language learning or what it’s like to attend Central as a recent immigrant seemed to cloud the old-timers” willingness to be open to other perspectives. Another paradoxical element in our interaction was the role of the project itself. Creating the video was intended to provide a common cause for students to rally around.41 The significance of the video-making project in the group dynamics is indisputable. As Julia explained, “if we don’t work with them, we can’t get the video done and if we do work with them, then we’ll become friends.” Her sentiments were echoed by most of the 25 students. Nonetheless, there were moments when the video got in the way of interaction as students’ visions for the movie or styles of participation clashed in ways that threatened collaboration rather than facilitated it. The common thread between these examples and others where interaction broke down seemed to be occasions when concern for the other person was trumped by preconceived notions of how things ought to be. And in these unpredictable moments, my careful orchestration of the project, the participants’ and my prior knowledge and experience, and implementation of recommended strategies to solve problems fell short. This is not to say these things weren't helpful, but they weren’t adequate. Rather, this type of knowledge- based paradigm — knowing what to do, knowing what something feels like, knowing how, to solve problems - had the tendency on occasion to overshadow the specificity of the moment, and more importantly, the individuality of the other person. Moreover, each of these encounters has ethical overtones that are not fully accounted for. To give me language to talk about these observances, in my analysis I draw on the work of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas’s Philosophy of Relational Ethics Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) was a Lithuanian-born, French philosopher. His philosophical work is concerned with describing subjectivity (the self in the world) as constituted in relation to the Other. Writing against modern western philosophy that assumes the Other is “provisionally separate from the Same (or the self), but ultimately reconcilable with it,”42 Levinasian philosophy 26 hinges on the supposition that the Other is absolutely separate from the self and beyond the self’s comprehension. Continuing from this assumption, Levinas’s writing describes and explicates the nature of the relationship of self to Other in ethical terms. He calls this ethical relationship, responsibility. His use of the term is distinct from typical uses that foreground duty and accountability to established criteria. Rather, responsibility in a Levinasian sense implies responding to an Other, answering a call. Moreover, responsibility, Levinas says, “is the primary and fundamental structure of subjectivity.” He continues: For I describe subjectivity in ethical terms. Ethics, here, does not supplement a preceding existential base; the very node of the subjective is knotted in ethics understood as responsibility. I understand responsibility as responsibility for the Other, thus as responsibility for what is not my deed, or for what does not even matter to me; or which precisely does matter to me, is met by me as face.43 In other words, what Levinas offers is a way of thinking about being in the world as being for, not just with an Other. The responsibility Levinas describes is not rooted in a rule-based system of ethics or an “existential base,” nor can it be predicted or understood through knowledge. "T he most audacious and remote knowledge does not put us in communion with the truly other,”44 he writes. This is because the Other is always beyond my reach. My response springs from face- to-face encounters in which I answer the call of the Other, not through imposition of my agenda, understanding, or desire, but through listening and learning from him/her. Describing this relationship, Levinas says, The first word of the face is the “Thou shalt not kill." It is an order. There is a commandment in the appearance of the face, as if a master spoke to 27 me. However, at the same time, the face of the Other is destitute; it is the poor for whom I can do all and to whom I owe all. And me, whoever I may be, but as a "first person," I am he who finds the resources to respond to the call.45 In this way, my relationship with the Other is one in which “the Other (Autrur), in the face, challenges us from the greatest depth and the highest height.”46 Although Levinas calls his philosophy “ethics,” he was not writing ethics in the traditional sense and, consequently, his work is not meant to be imposed as a normalizing force. Levinasian ethics do not find recourse to an external system of rules or principles. He explains, My task does not consist in constructing ethics; I only try to find its meaning. In fact I do not believe that all philosophy should be programmatic. . . One can without doubt construct an ethics in function of what I have just said, but this is not my own theme.47 Therefore, even though relationships might be considered at the heart of education, Levinas’s work is not easily applied to education in the same way one might seek to uncover best practices or gain sure understanding of what goes on in schools. What he does offer is a new way to read and question “how educational practices are implicated in ethical response.”48 Just as Levinas invites us to learn from not just about the Other, reading educational practice with Levinasian theory offers a similar choice. Gert Biesta explains it this way: Learning about Levinas assumes that Levinas has a truth to tell and that it is our task, as readers, as educationalists, and as educators, to apply this truth in the domain of education. Learning from Levinas, on the other hand, suggests the opening of a dialogical space where pedagogy can become and remain an event, something which is open to the future. Learning, in 28 this view, is not about the acquisition of knowledge and truth. It is rather about responding, about formulating a response.49 Along these lines, in my work I attempt to learn from Levinas in responding to the social interactions that sprang from the video project. Levinasian philosophy gives me language to consider the ethical spaces that emerged in our collaboration, not as the definitive explanation of what happened or what should have happened, but as a way of reconsidering and expanding on commonplace assumptions about cross-cultural and cross-linguistic interaction. In particular, I mobilize Levinas’s concepts of proximity, the saying and the said, and responsibility to think in a new way about the video project. Humanities-Oriented Research Further theorization of interaction across linguistic and cultural diversity is important as we seek to deepen and complexify our understanding of how ELLs and non-ELLs experience interaction with each other. Because my project is a conceptual inquiry into how interaction was perceived, experienced, and negotiated, including ethical considerations illuminated by Levinasian philosophy, this study falls under the broad category of humanities-oriented curriculum research. While this type of research encompasses many possibilities and incorporates a variety of academic disciplines (e.g. history, philosophy, ethics), humanities-oriented studies commonly present Various forms of criticism intended to problematize unrecognized assumptions, implications, and consequences of various kinds of educational practice, policy, and research, as well as to challenge what 29 these approaches take for granted as beyond questioning. In this way, humanities-oriented research in education is often intended to foster dissonance and discomfort with conventional practice . . . 50 Consistent with this tradition, my use of Levinasian philosophy helps me question commonplace assumptions about interaction across diversity and to consider ethical implications of these interactions and the way they are organized and mediated. Not a truth-seeking project, my work is intended to raise questions rather than to definitively answer them. In discussing the affordances of various types of research, Elliot Eisner explains, “What we come to see depends upon what we seek, and what we seek depends upon what we know how to say.”51 In my work, a careful reading of Levinasian philosophy gave me language to both see and say, that is, to interpret the interactions among newcomers and old- timers in a way that opens up new possibilities for orchestrating, engaging in, and mediating interaction by reframing some prevalent concepts related to curricula for ELUnon-ELL interaction. For instance, a Levinasian framework shifts our concern from “learning about the Other” to “learning from the Other," from preventing vulnerability to embracing it, and from teaching to listening.2 2 The language of “othering” and “the other” is pervasive in certain strands of literature, notably multicultural education and critical pedagogy. In those fields, “the Other” is often used to denote historically marginalized groups; however, in a Levinasian tradition everyone is an “other” regardless of social status or privilege. Thus, all participants in the video project, including me, are considered “others” to each other. However, in this dissertation I tend to concentrate on how the old-timers respond to the newcomers, thereby more often positioning the newcomers as the Other. This was a decision I made in response to two key considerations: 1) the lack of literature that considers “mainstream” students' perspectives, and 2) the amount of data contributed by the old-timers due to their fluency in English. In future projects, I plan to more fully explore the other side of the relationship. 30 Closing Gaps and Opening Spaces As I discussed earlier, much of the existing diversity and ESL education research related to interaction across difference focuses on closing the gaps (linguistic, cultural, social, and academic) that tend to separate groups of students on clear and predictable boundary lines. This “closing gaps” perspective is an ethical project framed in terms of securing opportunities for ELLs to interact with non-ELL peers for the purpose of facilitating English language acquisition, access to curriculum, and social mobility. It aims to help teachers and students negotiate this tricky border crossing by offering strategies, knowledge, and carefully scaffolded, safe opportunities for interaction. In this dissertation, I propose another way of conceptualizing how we might structure, mediate, and think about interaction across linguistic and cultural diversity. I call this framework “opening spaces.” Inspired by Levinasian philosophy, opening spaces has a similar goal of facilitating interaction across difference, but this opening-spaces approach foregrounds the human element and the ethical responsibility we have to and for the Other. lt places the Other in the spotlight and invites an Other-centered orientation towards the fundamentally uncertain encounters that characterize interaction. Rather than teaching what ought to be done, it invites us to position ourselves as responsive in relation to the Other. While opening spaces emphasizes different aspects than closing gaps, I do not view the two paradigms as oppositional or mutually exclusive. Both can be ethical frameworks and support cross-linguistic and cross-cultural interaction. 31 Rather than articulating a best or better approach, my goal is to present possible generative revisions and expansions of commonplace assumptions related to interaction across difference. It is my hope that opening spaces can be added to a growing repertoire of possible ethical perspectives in the context of curricula designed to support meaningful interaction of ELLs and their peers. Dissertation Overview In the following chapters, I consider three salient elements related to interaction across difference: proximity, understanding, and responsibility. In Chapter 2, I discuss conventional and Levinasian notions of proximity to reflect on what happens when ELLs and non-ELLs share the same space. I also consider approaches to mediating this proximity. In Chapter 3, I take up the issue of language and interaction within the video project. Drawing on Levinas’s concept of “the saying” and “the said,” I problematize familiar notions of the “language barrier” and frame the ethical approach to an Other as a way of “saying” that is not dependent on language proficiency. Chapter 4 is a discussion of how participants’ internalization of school-based responsibility influenced their ability to respond to each other in a Levinasian sense. In the final chapter, Chapter 5, I bring together key ideas from the previous three chapters to propose “opening spaces,” a new conceptualization for imagining, supporting, and preparing for the interaction of ELLs and their non-ELL peers. 32 CHAPTER 2 PROXIMITY “Most of the immigrants, for my own information, the y’re feeling too much nervous and so most of the time, I find them hanging by themselves. " - Gilbert, newcomer “I wanted to help [this African student] before, but I don 't know how she ’d respond. So then I don ’t cuz I don ’t want to be in the awkward situation. . . I have a thing about being in awkward situations. I try really hard not to be.” — Victoria, old-timer "T he y just feel comfortable with their kind — that’s their kind. I don ’t know why people, it takes them so much for them to get out of it. But it’s a comfort zone — you know, it’s my people, they speak my same language, we know like the same music, the culture is there, you know. ” - Marisol, old-timer “It’s very hard for me to sense what is going on. I feel like I’m living so in the moment that I don ’t have perspective to see things as they are. This is a complicated business and a surprising emotional roller coaster. ” - Anny, researcher Like Victoria, most people, including me, “have a thing about being in awkward situations.” This is one reason interaction with those who do not share linguistic and cultural backgrounds is often avoided at school. Not knowing what to say, how to act, or how to understand and be understood can create uncomfortable uncertainty. In addition to the natural proclivity towards sticking to “your own kind,” as Marisol put it, institutional structures reinforce this separation as English language learners often wind up segregated from the rest of the 33 student body due to curricular tracking and other school-based arrangements. Yet at the same time, ELLs and non-ELLs have much to gain from learning to interact with each other, such as linguistic development and awareness, cross- cultural understanding, and friendship. In response to the interest in fostering this interaction, education researchers have considered ways to lessen the literal and figurative distance between the groups. This literature suggests that an important step is to bring them into physical proximity with each other through shared spaces, especially classes. Additionally, a substantial body of research has been devoted to diminishing and eliminating the awkwardness of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural encounters through teacher-led preparation and mediation. The curriculum is implicated in each of these approaches as they invite and, sometimes, demand instructional and curricular modifications. While there is merit to these approaches, they tend to assume that obstacles to interaction can be solved and prevented if the appropriate skills, knowledge, and circumstances are in place. In this chapter, I draw on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas to consider these interactional challenges not as something to be overcome, thereby unintentionally reducing and objectifying others, but as something that is inevitable. This Levinasian perspective instead views interaction as an encounter inherently fraught with unpredictability and vulnerability, allowing us to purposefully reframe these challenges as opportunities for ethical response. I begin this chapter with a discussion of the traditional and Levinasian framings of proximity as it relates to interaction. Next, I describe how the curriculum of the video project was designed to alleviate the 34 challenges of proximity. I then provide several examples from the video project to illustrate how the old-timers’ perceived similarities with the newcomers influenced their interaction. In the final section of this chapter, I discuss my attempts to mediate issues of proximity. The Proximity Problem The problem of proximity — a concern that ELLs are kept separate from their non-ELL peers through institutionalized social and curricular boundaries — has been well-documented in existing literature. Separated from the rest of the student body by language, culture, and social distinctions, ELLs are often segregated de facto by curricular tracking that limits their participation to mostly ESL classes.52 However, even when the ELLs do have opportunities to intermingle with mainstream students in classes or other venues, both groups of students seem reticent to mix, which is a typical situation at many schools.53 Conventional responses to this problem call for changes in institutional structures that reinforce this separation and marginalization of ELLs along with improved instructional, curricular, and administrative practices to make schools more accommodating for English learners.54 The goal of proximity in this case is to bring ELLs and non-ELLs into contact with each other by providing opportunities for sharing the same space. In short, although ELLs and non-ELLs may be attending the same school, it is not safe to “simply assume that proximity would ensure interaction.”55 35 Recognizing that proximity alone is insufficient, other research focuses on how to carefully create and mediate opportunities for interaction in ways that are most likely to be equitable and successful.56 Obviously, the “proximity problem” is complex and multi-faceted and warrants a variety of responses. Three main approaches to the problem characterize much of the literature. First, there is an emphasis on structural aspects - institutional, instructional, and social. For . . . 57 . example, researchers have consrdered how curricular tracking and certarn pedagogical approaches and social boundaries within mainstream classes58 effectively isolate ELLs from natural opportunities to interact with their English- speaking peers. The initial step is to get the students into the same classes, extracurricular activities, and social spaces (eg. the cafeteria). The next step is to facilitate interaction once conducive opportunities are in place. To close expected interactional gaps, the literature proposes solutions that are primarily knowledge-based. In other words, the interventions are based on curriculum that includes imparting new knowledge, skills, and understanding — e.g. knowing about cultural and linguistic difference, getting to know each other, being able to deploy specific strategies for communication and problem solving, and recognizing discriminatory power structures.59 Finally, there is a concern for diminishing the discomfort that so often characterizes interactions across difference since the awkwardness is frequently what causes individuals to avoid them, such as when ELLs and their tluent-English-speaking peers avoid talking to each other during class or in the school hallways.60 These three approaches to 36 the proximity problem — bringing ELLs into contact with their peers, preparing students for interaction through knowledge-based curriculum, and attempting to alleviate the discomfort inherent in this type of interaction — offer valuable and practical lenses for considering this issue. Each of these approaches helps to close some of the gaps that frequently divide ELLs and non-ELLs. However, the assumption that negotiating intricate social interaction can be reduced to a function of the right knowledge, skills, and circumstances does not fully account for the unique specificity of each encounter and the limitless complexity of individuals. Furthermore, it may not sufficiently address the ethical questions raised by knowledge-based positioning. Levinasian Concept of Proximity Offering an alternative to the knowledge-based assumptions underlying much of the existing literature, I now describe the Levinasian concept of proximity. Characteristically, Levinas imbues the term proximity with a meaning other than what we’re accustomed to. The proximity he speaks of is not about spatial nearness as in neighbors whose homes are side by side. Rather, “proximity appears as the relationship with the other, who cannot be resolved into "images" or be exposed in a theme."61 According to Levinas, we enter into proximity when we have a face-to-face encounter and are summoned to respond to the Other. A face-to-face encounter, however, is not simply a matter of visually perceiving another person. And it is more than being present in a shared space, as implied by conventional definitions of proximity. Rather, Levinas explains: 37 The face is . . . signification without context. I mean that the Other, in the rectitude of his face, is not a character within a context. Ordinarily one is a ”character": a professor at the Sorbonne, a Supreme Court justice, son of so-and-so, everything that is in one's passport, the manner of dressing, of presenting oneself. And all signification in the usual sense of the term is relative to such a context: the meaning of something is in its relation to another thing. Here, to the contrary, the face is meaning all by itself. You are you. In this sense one can say that the face is not "seen." It is what cannot become a content, which your thought would embrace; it is uncontainable, it leads you to beyond. This immediate experience of nearness does not contain the security of knowing what to do when encountering the Other. In fact, Levinas uses disconcerting language to describe being in proximity - “a restlessness. . . [that] ”’64 or “its trauma.”65 The overwhelms the calm,”63 “the ‘never enough, precariousness of proximity arises from the absolute difference and mystery of the Other. Although another person and I may share characteristics or experiences - we may, in effect, be quite alike — but, we will never be able to fully comprehend, let alone apprehend, each other.66 Instead, we find ourselves under an immutable mandate to respond humbly and generously to another without knowing beforehand what we should do. This is how “ethics occurs. . . across the hiatus of dialogue, not in the content of discourse, in the continuities or discontinuities of what is said, but in the demand for response . . In other words, proximity provides an occasion for ethical relations, but is not located in the discourse that can be distilled and materialized, extracted from the moment of encounter. 38 Indeed, Levinas’s concept of proximity pulls the rug out from under our feet in that our interactions with others can no longer be grounded in predictability, knowledge, or self-centered desire. Ann Chinnery offers an apt description: "Responsibility is about surrender and openness to the other; about saying "yes" to the otherness of the other; and about suffering through anxious situations not of our own making, but to which we are nonetheless called to respond.”67 In educational contexts where, for instance, we bring together ELLs and non—ELLs, the Levinasian construct of proximity seems particularly relevant given the “anxious situation” that often emerges as the students struggle to communicate without a shared language or culture. A common response involves an attempt to circumvent the discomfort by carefully orchestrating “safe” interactions or to avoid such associations altogether. In other words, the uneasiness that naturally springs from interaction across difference is viewed as a problem to be solved or evaded. Levinas’s philosophy, on the other hand, challenges us to accept the vulnerability that naturally springs from proximity as inevitable and as an invitation to ethically respond in a non-self-centered way. Orchestrating a Curriculum of Interaction: Beginning the Video Project Central High School seemed to follow the patterns established in the literature in light of traditional definitions of proximity. Prior to the video project, the old-timers and newcomers had only rarely, if ever, crossed paths. Julia explained, “I don’t really talk to them ‘cuz I don’t see them much ‘cuz they’re like in a different part of the building practically. . Nadif and Marisol who, like Julia, 39 had a schedule of rigorous, academic classes deemed inappropriate for ELLs, expressed similar stories. In fact, Marisol admitted that her initial thought when she walked into our first video project meeting was, “I don’t know none of these people. Where [did] they come from? Are they even Central kids?” The newcomers also offered accounts of minimal association with the old-timers prior to the project, although several of the boys reported having met Nadif before. Gilbert reported, “At school I used to see them, but I didn’t even talk to them. But when I come to video project that’s when I get a chance to get to know them and to talk to them.” When we started the project, the students within each group were acquainted, even friends, but not so across the groups. Julia characterized our group this way: “At first, we were strangers.” For the most part, this was true even though the students had co-existed in the same general proximity for months. I designed the video project curriculum, at least in part, to ameliorate the proximity problem. Consistent with research recommendations, I thought it would be helpful to have the students interact around a common goal requiring intergroup cooperation.68 Additionally, the curriculum included plans to explicitly address interactional norms and concerns in our group meetings; in other words, I would teach social skills for collaboration across social, cultural, and linguistic difference.69 Since the project was a voluntary after-school project, I hoped making the video would be relatively low-stakes, but sufficiently structured to . 7 . ensure a successful experience for everyone. 0 Cognrzant of the knowledge 40 advantage the old-timers would bring to the project due to their command of English, technology skills and insider knowledge about the school, I wanted a project that would also highlight and require the knowledge of the newcomers. My idea was that creating a welcome video could tap into the expertise of both groups since the newcomer experience offered an invaluable perspective regarding the content of the video. I imagined a situation where both groups of students made important contributions to accomplishing our task by filling in each other’s knowledge gaps. Julia, for instance, could show Asha how to use a video camera, while Asha could help Julia understand what aspect of being a Central High School student was most challenging for new immigrants. For my part, I expected to harness the pedagogical knowledge I had gleaned from both study and experience in order to effectively mediate the students’ collaboration. In multiple ways, the video project curriculum was planned to attend to structure (providing a safe context and purpose for interaction), knowledge (offering opportunities to learn with, for, and about each other and the task), and comfort (incorporating team-building activities and teaching strategies and norms for interaction). In effect, the video project was set up to bring a group of newcomers in proximity with their old-timer peers in a manner that had the potential to ameliorate existing institutional, cultural, linguistic, and social boundaries between them. However, my thinking about the project did not account for proximity in a Levinasian sense. Considering proximity not as temporal or spatial, but as Levinas does, as “the far more complex and fluid positioning one assumes in 41 response to the other — a position in which one realizes that anything is possible,”71 invites us to consider in new ways the awkwardness and discomfiture of social interaction. Consider, for instance, Marisol’s recollection of the first meeting she attended. She said her initial impression upon walking into the room and seeing the newcomers was, I don’t know none of these people. Where [did] they come from? Are they even Central kids? I'm like what is she getting me into? What did I get myself into? I’m like, what am I doin’ here? I’m like, I’m so serious . . . what am I doing here? It’s unfortunate that the cadence and drama in her voice can’t be captured by the words on the page. The sensation of proximity expressed by Marisol (if it can be labeled as such) seems to resonate with Levinas’s description of its feeling like “the expulsion outside of its being at home with itself.”72 Marisol, who prior to the first meeting, expressed confidence and knowledge in her ability to engage with the other participants, found herself caught off guard. This moment of encounter required more than knowing what to do. In contrast, it was a profound moment of not knowing and fundamentally, not being able to predict beforehand what to do. These are the interactional spaces that Levinas’s work brings to light. To illustrate the unforeseen tensions between safety and vulnerability and between preparing for the future and navigating the moment which we experienced repeatedly throughout the video project, I consider two interactions from the first official meeting of the video project. Since the project itself provided an opportunity for the newcomers and old-timers to be in proximity, my main concern for the first meeting was to break down barriers to interaction. Just as 42 students might be seated side by side in the same classroom and rarely, if ever, interact, I knew the same phenomenon could happen in our meetings. Thus, the first item on the agenda was for the group to get acquainted. My plans were also consistent with the widespread educational discourse emphasizing the . ' “ ' ' ”73 . Importance of creating a learnrng community. These assumptions were also reflected in Nadif’s recommendation prior to our first meeting that “everybody should introduce themselves and talk about how long they’ve been here” to set the stage for effectively “working together” in order to “make a good project.” With some apprehension mingled with excitement, I conducted our first meeting. The arrangement of desks in a circle was a symbol of the group unity l was hoping to cultivate. The way the participants had arranged themselves reflected the natural divisions l was trying to overcome: the newcomer boys sat next to each other, the old-timer girls together, the newcomer girls together, and Nadif in the middle. One of the first questions I asked the group was, “Does everybody know everybody?” As expected, the individuals “knew” other members of their group, but weren’t acquainted across groups. In addition to wearing nametags, I invited everyone to participate in an ice-breaker activity in which they shared their name, where they were from, how long they’d been at Central, and what they would do if given a thousand dollars. Looking back, I wonder why I chose this particular prompt. I think I was hoping that this was a safe question and one that would reveal something about what each person valued. However, rather than sharing 43 something unique with the group, most of the participants followed the lead of the first individuals to answer the question. One by one, each person announced that they would use the money to help his/her family. Assuming the participants were simply mimicking each other, I encouraged them to offer a different answer — after all, my purpose was to help the group get to know each other through freely sharing individual preferences. They followed my suggestion and offered some different responses. Peter said he’d buy some new shoes and Landry talked of starting a business. The activity was interspersed with good natured laughter and apparent interest in each other’s responses. This simple task, although relatively inconsequential, reflected a knowledge-based approach to facilitating cooperation among the participants. It was based on several premises: first, that getting acquainted, “knowing about” each other is a prerequisite for effective interaction; second, that sharing information about each other provides a window of understanding; and third, that the individuals will choose to share. Furthermore, the very structured nature of the task did seem to provide a level of comfort to an otherwise uncomfortable interaction - the rules of engagement were clear and certain. Yet once we had gone around the circle answering the “getting to know you” question, the students returned to an awkward silence. In part, I assume this was because they were waiting for a cue from me to signal what they ought to do next and part was likely a response to the ambiguity of proximity. When I provided a task, they could respond to it — a fairly safe and predictable target — but without external 44 scaffolding, they were simply left to respond to each other - a much more uncertain and vulnerable space. After our getting acquainted activity, I instigated a discussion intended to set the stage for effective interaction in the future. I said to the group, I want to talk about how . . . we want to plan together and work together. How are we going to make sure we get to know new people? . . . What can we do to make our meetings really effective and build friendships so we can make this movie? The desire to plan ahead and strategize for effective meetings and friendly interaction reflected the hope that such preparation would facilitate smoother interactions. My query also included three goals for the project: having effective meetings, building friendships, and making the movie. This is not an unusual package for curricular projects. We desire efficiency, positive relationships, and an end product. Yet while each of these goals is warranted, I didn’t seem to recognize at the time the degree to which they could become competing agendas. What I did not fully appreciate or consider was the messiness of the process and how focus on the task itself could ironically impede the development of the hoped-for meaningful relationships among the participants. While my concern was to position our group for future interaction, the participants' response to my question seemed more rooted in the moment. In fact, nobody said anything for what seemed like a very long time and after seven seconds of silence, the group spontaneously started to laugh. At this point, I reframed the question, “What can we do to make sure that everybody gets a chance to share their ideas and talk?" Newcomer Gilbert approached the 45 question with a recommendation that reflected the anticipated language barrier. Perhaps people could agree to raise their hands when they didn’t understand what was going on, he suggested. Nadif, an old-timer, gave an answer that hearkened back to the effectiveness priority. “I think we should work as partners and let the person help their partner and make sure they’re both sharing ideas. And that’ll be more effective,” he said. Julia added that they ought to work with a different partner each time. The participants’ suggestions, along with my question, were located comfortably in the imaginable future. However, in this encounter as we toggled back and forth between the present moment and the conceivable future, the concept of proximity seemed to take on two different meanings. Living in the moment, such as the silent awkwardness following my initial question, seemed to reflect the uncomfortable and risky proximity Levinas talks about. But when we were talking about the future, our interactions seemed safe. Everyone could agree on general approaches to a hypothetical future and we could comfortably rest on generalities detached from our current face-to-face encounter. The structure provided by the way I led the conversation allowed the participants to engage without having to really respond to each other. In addition to these two conversations, the introductory portion of our first group session also included watching and commenting on several sample videos made by other schools to welcome new students. A spontaneous conversation also ensued in which we discovered that nine languages were spoken by the members of our group. Everyone appeared genuinely proud and pleased to make this discovery. In general, our first meeting included conventional components - 46 we got acquainted, established some norms for interaction, and started brainstorming ideas for our welcome video. And, in general, the participants played along good-naturedly. Overall, it seemed like we were reasonably well- positioned for successful collaboration. We had begun to get to know each other (personal introductions and the thousand dollar question), we knew what to do (work together with individuals across groups and be forthcoming with your ideas and when you don’t understand), and we knew our task (to make a compelling welcome video). While none of this was necessarily problematic and was probably even helpful, we took false security in the small knowledge base we now shared. While the event of the video project created an opportunity for newcomers and old-timers to come together, the proximity afforded by our task and the group meetings simply opened the door for interaction, but it did not alleviate the uneasiness of being together. We were under the illusion of feeling prepared for the future, but struggled to respond to each other in the present. The activities I used as part of our curriculum to lay the groundwork for our collaboration did serve the purpose of providing a safe context for beginning our work together. However, this idea of contextualizing — framing our interaction within a conceivable structure — in another way undermines encounters with the Other, limitations that are illuminated by Levinasian ideas. For instance, the introductory prompt (telling how long you’ve been at Central and what you would do with a thousand dollars) artificially contextualized the participants within the boundaries of the question and within the confines of the task. It required a response to a question, but not a response to an Other. As Levinas reminds us, 47 “the Other, in the rectitude of his face, is not a character within a context . . . You are you . . . what cannot become a content which your thought would embrace; it is uncontainable. . 3’74 “Getting to know you” activities such as this one are purposeful since they bring people into proximity with each other. However, they can also create a facade of understanding insofar as they prop up the idea that I now know you because I know something about you, thereby possibly diminishing the humility and curiosity required to be truly open to an Other. Similarly, my efforts to establish norms and procedures for interaction, while useful, could also prevent an individual from being responsive and flexible in a given situation. Finally, having a clearly identified purpose for being together — in this case, to make the video — can interfere with a person’s willingness to answer the call of an Other, particularly if the Other appears to get in the way of completing the task. In each of these examples, the chance for ethical relations -- being present for not just with an Other in the moment, however unpredictable and precarious it may be -- is unwittingly compromised. In the following sections, I discuss illustrative incidents where this happened. The Comfort of Knowing and the Discomfort of Proximity Before our group came together, I spent considerable time recruiting mainstream participants. Finding ELLs who wanted to participate was a much easier task. The major draw for them was the technology. I wrote, “T heir eyes lit up lustfully” once I put a camera in their hands. The project was a harder sell for the mainstream students. Initially, I had specified to the administrator and the 48 teachers who were my contacts at the school that l was looking for U.S.-born students, but one after another of the students they referred to me were uninterested. They didn’t know me and they didn’t seem to know the ESL students. Moreover, the concept of the video didn’t seem to click with them and they were busy in their own worlds. What I was asking them to do seemed to be entirely outside of their knowledge and experience. Eventually, however, I was led to a meeting of a student club where l was invited to ask for volunteer participants from among the club members. Here, I finally found some genuine interest. Significantly, it turned out that all of the serious volunteers were immigrants themselves or had parents who were immigrants. This firsthand knowledge of the immigrant experience seemed to be the impetus for their participation because they “knew what it feels like.” This knowledge appeared to endow them with both expertise and empathy that oriented them towards the newcomers and inclined them to take up the cause of the video project. In fact, each of the old-timers talked about how their participation in the project had been motivated by their sensitivity to the challenges new immigrants face. Marisol remarked, “My motivation was to help people cuz I know what it feels like to go into a school that you have no idea about, even to a country that you have no idea about.” Similarly, Nadif said, “I would definitely do anything to help somebody who’s just came to America and you know, I once was in this position and I know how it feels.” Echoing this idea, Julia commented, “I’m the first generation that was born here, so like my grandma and my mom and stuff, 49 when they first came here, they had trouble. It makes me feel like this is what I should do you know, because it was once like this for my family.” This sense of “knowing what it feels Iike” seemed to provoke a sincerely empathetic stance towards the newcomers and provided a basis for relating with them. Furthermore, this “shared” experience seemed to provide a buffer against obstacles such as anti-immigrant sentiment, intolerance for multilingualism, and ignorance of cultural difference that commonly interfere with social interaction among ELLs and their fluent English-speaking peers. As Nadif articulated, “each one of us had our own story, but like each person’s own story was kinda like . . . all my stories.” Granted, the old-timers were only superficially aware of the actual stories of the newcomers, but the concept of immigration resonated. Now substantially farther along the path to adapting and thriving in the United States, the old-timers seemed to feel qualified to teach the newcomers whose journeys were still in the beginning stages. Julia, Marisol, and Nadif each seemed very willing to do, in Nadif’s words “anything to help somebody who’s just come to America.” An invaluable aspect of the old-timers’ prior knowledge and experience was that their personal understanding of and empathy towards recent immigrants caused them to be open to the newcomers in the first place. This knowledge conceivably imbued them with confidence to even attempt collaboration with “strangers,” and in this way, their knowledge was comforting, helping to allay the distress of being in proximity with the newcomers. Another consequence of this 50 prior knowledge was that it positioned the old-timers as “knowers” and the newcomers as “not-knowers.” As a result, Julia, Marisol, and Nadif, tended to perform the role of teachers, a performance sanctioned by the literature arguing for mainstream students to share their linguistic, academic, and cultural knowledge with ELLs.75 In many ways, the old-timers’ willingness to teach was a generous, even benevolent stance and to some extent, was responding to what the newcomers wanted from them. Newcomer Juma, for example, explained how he gets help from other students -- “If I don’t understand, I ask them what the meaning and they told me what is that meaning. That’s why they teach me.” Likewise, Peter recalled how mainstream students listened to him read and corrected his pronunciation. He said they “taught me a lot of things.” All of the other newcomers expressed similar sentiments about their desire and expectation that other students would act as teachers. Despite the potentially positive aspects stemming from the old-timers assuming a teaching role, there are also complications. For instance, this sort of teacher-student relationship easily morphs into a hierarchical structure where, instead of responding to the newcomers, the peer teacher expects them to respond to her since she is positioned as the one who knows. As a result, it can become difficult to embrace other agendas, understandings, or needs that fall outside of pre-conceived “learning objectives.” 51 Teaching the Other More so than Nadif or Marisol, Julia used the language of teaching to describe her involvement with the newcomers. Furthermore, she tended to enact a teacherly persona in her interactions with them. She was able to articulate and deliberately deploy instructional strategies such as using examples to communicate meaning, differentiating between reading and comprehension, and modifying her speech to facilitate understanding. This awareness — reminiscent of desired outcomes of ESL teacher preparation — seemed likely to ideally position Julia for collaboration with the newcomers. However, enacting the complex role of being both a teacher and a peer proved to be more complicated than Julia had anticipated. About halfway through the project, she explained, ‘Well at first, I didn’t think it would be that hard. I still don’t think it’s like so difficult that I’m gonna stress out over it, but it’s just that their cooperation is kind of frustrating.” Julia’s use of the word “cooperation” suggests a certain expectation and role for the newcomers that is somewhat different from collaboration. Her expectation that they ought to cooperate seems to signal an established agenda requiring compliance. The stance is reminiscent of a teacher who has organized an activity and expects the students to cooperate. Like a teacher, Julia attempted to assess the situation. Although the trouble was intertwined with language, she’didn’t locate the problem solely in language . . it was difficult at first not just because of the language. The language is an important part of it, but I think it was also difficult at first because we didn’t really know each other and it was kind of an awkward situation.” Here Julia appears poised between a Levinasian sense of 52 proximity, “an awkward situation,” and the knower/not-knower dichotomy created by her position as “expert.” Overlaying the situation are also two aspects of knowing: knowing each other and the newcomers not “knowing” what to do, or at least having a different knowledge set than Julia. One incident in particular that Julia talked about on two separate occasions illustrates the nature of her frustration. The beginning stages of the video project curriculum included a number of structured brainstorming sessions. During one of these, Julia had been working with Bosco and Hamisi to come up with an idea for a short scene for the video. They were discussing what key concepts new students need to know. Julia had been attempting to solicit ideas from the boys and the boys seemed fixed on the idea that learning English was the most important thing new students needed to know. No matter how Julia rephrased the question, their answer always came back to English. The following excerpt represents the exchange: Julia: How do you think that we could make it better? Like o.k. You couldn’t speak English, but now you can, right? You don’t get lost . anymore. How — like how many years have you been here? One? Bosco: Yeah one Julia: So in that one year, like how did you guys cope? Like what did you do to understand English or to find a place around the building? Bosco: Yeah - because you just say - how to talk In English — or you ask the other for English. Julia: You listen to it everyday so you understand it? Bosco: Yeah . . . . (pause) Julia to Hamisi: Do you have anything to say? (pause) 53 Julia: If you can’t say it in English you can tell him. (Bosco and Hamisi converse in their native language) Bosco: Yeah — he just say if you need to go to bathroom and you don’t know the way - you don’t ask anybody because you not speak English . . . (pause) Julia: O.k. What do you want to tell new students? . . . Bosco: Yeah - don’t be scared to talking in English because . . . Julia: Uh huh. What about you? Hamisi: If you are a new student. If you have some friend from some country that speak the same language, if you go to some class — you are allowed to sit together, you can ask him. Julia: So you’re saying to sit with the person you know that’s from the other country so that you guys can stick together? Bosco: Um hum - you gotta sit together in classes Julla: But don’t you think it’s important to sit with other people so you can get to know other people? Bosco: No — I don’t know. In this excerpt, Julia played the role of teacher by asking leading questions (“In that one year, how did you cope?) and encouraging participation (“If you can’t say it in English, you can tell him”). Although she asked about the boys’ experience, she responded to it not so much by learning from it, but by using it to verbalize her own understanding (“But don’t you think it’s important to sit with other people so you can get to know other people?”) Despite her efforts to lead the conversation in a particular direction, this pattern of the boys emphasizing how important English is — eg. “you ask the other for English” and “don’t be scared to talking in English” - continued as a strained conversation for several 54 minutes until Julia reluctantly conceded, “So basically our focus is on speaking English.” Julia’s performance and commentary related to this interaction highlight the complexity of figuring out how to navigate these interactions with the newcomers. While this conversation demonstrated the ideas the group agreed upon in our first meeting — newcomers and old-timers working together and sharing ideas — sharing ideas was not enough to make the conversation satisfying to Julia. She described the situation this way: I don’t want to make them seem like they’re stupid, so I don’t know what to say like when they give me an answer that’s not like right. . . . we had that one meeting where you gave us charts and we split into groups and . . . I kept trying to — o.k. I asked them what they thought would be most important to be in the video and they said English. And learning English to come to an American school is important, but I kept asking them what else and all they said was learning English and I kept saying that I know, but what other things could we do to, could we put in the video to help them and I guess they were - they just kept saying English and I didn’t know what to say. I was like, o.k., well, repeating the question, but they didn’t say any other answer. Julia’s comment, “I don't want to make them seem like they’re stupid, so I don’t know what to say when they give me an answer that’s not . . . right,” suggests the tension between teaching and responding. Her position as the expert seemed to qualify her to determine what answers were right and which ones were not. Furthermore, it was difficult for her to accept a point of view that diverged from what she knew. At the same time, her concern for not making “them seem like they’re stupid” indicates that on some level, she was aware of the boys and trying to be sensitive to them. When I asked Julia to explain why she thought “they just 55 kept saying English,” she replied, “Probably because that’s what they had the most trouble with and so maybe that’s why they think it’s extremely important and they kept mentioning it.” This response recognizes that learning English was personally very important for Hamisi and Bosco, but her assertion that “they think it’s extremely important” suggests that this idea does not have the status of a “right" answer because it conflicted with her personal understanding. Julia explained: I kind of think when they first began that they just thought about the video as like a “welcome to America video” more than “welcome to Central” video cuz they kept talking about how you need to know English to come to Central. But like you learn English here - you don’t - I mean you should — it’s good if you like know some of it — But like if you don’t know, it’s like o.k. Influenced by her own interpretation of the role of English for newcomers, Julia’s words suggest that it was difficult for her to fully see or appreciate Hamisi’s and Bosco’s point of view. Her prior knowledge seemed to hinder her ability to respond and learn in the moment when she was also performing a teacher role. For Julia, school was much more than learning English although she recognized the challenge and importance of doing so. She was involved in multiple extracurricular activities, earned good grades in rigorous classes, was known and respected by teachers and administrators, and a part of various social networks. Having positioned herself to become the first generation in her family to attend college, Julia expressed confidence in her perception of what was required to be successful at Central High School. Indeed, the way she crafted her life as a student represents a story many people would like for all students. 56 Yet, herein lies the dilemma. Most teachers, researchers, parents, and the students themselves desire similar academic success for immigrants. Because of this, Julia’s expertise carried particular credibility. Yet her experience/knowledge seemed to make it harder for her to accept that while it was “o.k. if you don’t know English,” Bosco’s and Hamisi’s lived experience at school suggested otherwise. For them, it really wasn’t okay. As Julia, Bosco, and Hamisi were brought into proximity through the video project, they were afforded the opportunity to learn from each other - indeed, this was a central purpose of the curriculum. However, it seemed difficult for Julia to consider Bosco’s and Hamisi’s experience and knowledge to be as relevant as her own. Julia’s role as teacher and advocate for newcomers - a role we want her to play - seemed to interfere with her ability to respond and listen to the boys’ perception of their lived experience. The Levinasian notion of proximity highlights this tension by helping us to expect and accept Julia’s distress upon realizing she “didn’t know what to say.” Additionally, it leads us to probe more carefully ethical implications of the knower/not-knower roles that almost naturally seem to fall upon ELLs and mainstream students when they work together. Mediating Proximity The example with Julia, Bosco, and Hamisi that I just discussed illustrates a situation where the participants were on their own to negotiate their relationships, language, and a particular encounter. I now consider a time when I attempted to mediate the challenge of proximity. Midway through the project, 57 Julia and Marisol spoke privately with me about some concerns they had with the newcomers. Their primary complaint was that the newcomers, a few boys in particular, were not taking the project “seriously” and were making the process of video creation very inefficient. As a teacher, I felt honored that Julia and Marisol wanted to talk to me. As a researcher, I felt the anticipation of a rich source of data. In both my roles, talking is a gift from the participants. The teacher role seemed to invite me to listen for teaching opportunities while the researcher role invited me to listen in order to learn from the girls. I wrote, “I felt torn between the researcher who wanted to get an understanding of how the girls were perceiving the situation that was uninfluenced by me and the teacher who wanted to influence their thinking.” However, in the moment, I found myself genuinely stumped as to how I should respond, writing in my notes that “I honestly didn't know what the best thing to say was.” I suspect that the girls felt similarly. As I listened to Marisol and Julia voice their concerns, I responded in three main ways: asking questions to clarity or push their thinking, expressing my own lack of clarity, or attempting to rationalize the boys’ behavior. Mostly, I had no idea what to say or do. As they exposed their concerns, I recognized the complexity they confronted each time they attempted to collaborate with the newcomers. The conversation reminded me that in some ways, this interaction was as vulnerable for them as it was for the newcomers. Even though the girls had a distinct knowledge “advantage” due to their command of English, technological expertise, insider knowledge of the school, and adeptness at 58 completing school-based projects, none of these competencies provided a clear roadmap for how to navigate the complex and vulnerable interactions with the newcomers. Even their empathetic stance towards immigrants and their related personal experience was insufficient, although this was the point of reference Marisol especially relied on to make sense of the situation, claiming the root of the problem lay in the fact that the newcomers didn’t understand what was going on. Just as the girls turned to what they thought they understood (characteristics of a “good” student and what it’s like to be an immigrant) to interpret their experience with the ESL students, I also reached into the repository of my professional experience and the discourse I had internalized around teaching and mediating student interaction. I wanted to teach by listening rather than by talking and hoped that by asking the right questions, Marisol and Julia might arrive at helpful insights themselves. The following excerpt illustrates my approach: Anny: So would you guys feel comfortable bringing up these things? Marisol: Yeah — I’m not shy. Anny: . . . Do you think that part of the issue is that like you’ve had this experience with them, right? But you don’t really know them. Marisol: No. Anny: You don’t really know where they’re coming from . . . Julia: Which is why I wasn’t like — I don’t have a solid reason to feel that way, but I feel . . . Marisol: ‘Cuz I like ‘em - they’re like real cool, but when it comes to getting serious, it’s a no-no. Anny: Urn — and something else that | find interesting is that I think that you guys like — when I say you guys, I’m including Victoria and Nadif — You guys tend to sort of be the leaders, right. And I think there are reasons for that, right. Lots of reasons that I’m sure you guys can think of — you have 59 the language, you have the video experience, you’ve been at Central longer, you’ve figured out how to do the school thing and be super responsible. . . . I wonder if they feel like, well, there’s not a space for us to really jump in here and get serious and take control because these guys have it covered. Like ljust wonder if . . . I just wonder. . . My thinking in this excerpt seems to hinge on the idea that the crux of the problem centers on Marisol and Julia not really knowing the ESL students, “You’ve had this experience with them, right? But you don’t really know them.” I make the distinction between interaction, “having an experience” with someone, and “really knowing them.” This logic might also extend to a distinction between “having a similar experience” - such as shared immigrant background — and “really knowing someone.” I seem to be uncovering the specificity of this particular interaction with these particular individuals. However, my underlying assumption also includes the notion that “really knowing someone” is both possible and desirable. My next assertion that the girls didn’t “really know where they’re coming from” — hinting that if they did have this knowledge, their concerns would be mitigated - further intimates the possibility of understanding another to the point that you can make sense of them. Considering in hindsight the girls’ responses to my claim, I recognize two important lessons. First, Julia's response, “I don’t have a solid reason to feel that way, but I feel . . . “ suggests that she is already intuitively aware that her perception and response to the boys might be more about her and within her than it is actually about them. Her words hint at the restlessness of proximity Levinas talks about. Perhaps just as Julia can’t identify a “solid reason” for her discomfort, our yearning for solid ground in the form of 60 knowledge and understanding is equally elusive. Marisol’s clarification that she “likes ‘em" and thinks they’re “real cool” despite her perception that they aren’t being “serious” about the project, reminds me that the issue is not just the interaction per se, but the task and context that is shaping the interaction. My idea that greater knowledge about the newcomers would smooth over the interactional rough spots may not have been completely off-base; however, it seems insufficient. Knowing more about the boys and better understanding where they were coming from neither alleviated the discomfort of proximity Julia seemed to be articulating, nor did it eliminate the tangible demands of the task at the forefront of Marisol’s stated concerns. In addition to rationalizing the issue as a knowledge problem, I also considered it in light of power relations by suggesting that the old-timers were taking control of the project. Instead of framing the situation as a case of marginalization per se, however, I pointed out practical reasons for this, suggesting that it is a natural outgrowth of their knowledge advantage. They naturally take charge since they know more. But once again, I rationalized the interaction, placing knowledge, rather than face-to-face responsibility, at the center. In this interpretation, I also substantiated the traditional depiction of a “good student” and a fully contributing member of a group. Yet in a way, instead of responding to the newcomers, the girls and I seemed preoccupied with figuring out how to make them responsible. 61 Although I sympathized with the frustrations Marisol and Julia expressed and wanted to mediate the situation in such a way that they would feel comfortable working with the newcomers, I also wanted them not just to be better understood, but also to better understand. “And so I wonder what you guys could learn from them,” I added, “Like we’re talking about a lot of things that they can learn from you. I wonder what you guys could learn from them so that we could sort of try to balance the dynamic a little bit, you know.” While this question was well-intended and worth asking, it still reflects assumptions emerging from a view of interaction in which quid pro quo applies. This assumption, though commonplace, is brought into question by Levinas who maintains the non- symmetrical nature of human relations. “I am responsible for the Other without waiting for reciprocity.” Yet while my question was one of reciprocity, the girls seemed to view this not as a question of pay back or “balancing the dynamic,” but simply as a moot point because the knowledge that they perceived to be relevant and possible to learn from the newcomers, they already knew. Marisol responded, I guess how it feels to be new to something, you know like, it takes me back to what it felt like a little bit. ‘Cuz I was the type that I just wouldn’t say anything, believe it or not. I would just sit there and just be angry at the world. But they take it differently. They just clown by. I guess I could learn to deal with people who are like that, kind of like teach them a little bit. I don’t know what I could learn from them ‘cuz I already know. Marisol’s reply conveyed a view of the newcomers that highlights their status as newcomers both as a fundamental characteristic of who they are and as the key point of connection between them and Marisol. In recognizing “they take [their 62 newness] differently,” she seemed to acknowledge that although they have shared experience, they are not entirely alike. Yet, the power of the perceived similarity appeared to cloud her openness, “I don’t know what I could learn from them ‘cuz I already know.” Julia offered a similar response: ldon’t know. I mean I understand because my family. . . it wasn’t that long ago that they just came here, you know. It was only 16 or 17 years ago and I don’t think that’s a long time. And um, so I think that from what they’ve told me, like their experience and stuff, like I still don’t understand where these kids are coming from . . . I just think that . . . I really don’t know what I could learn from them cuz I already understand. In similar fashion, Julia seemed to relate to the boys based on the shared immigrant experience. However, she also appeared aware of the specific nature of their experience and accepted that she still didn’t “understand where these kids are coming from." Nonetheless, she maintained, “I really don’t know what I could learn from them ‘cuz I already understand.” I wonder why the perceived options for learning from the newcomers were limited to their experience as immigrants, the context which the girls’ had painted in bold relief around the newcomers. And I wonder how much of this stemmed from the nature of the video project curriculum, which, although I intended otherwise, effectually situated the newcomers as not-knowers and the mainstream students as the experts. After Marisol and Julia responded to my question about what they might learn from the newcomers, Marisol abruptly announced that she had to go and our conversation winded down. Due to the lack of time, I didn’t have a chance to help the girls think beyond their initial reactions to my question about what they might learn from the newcomers. 63 Although the girls didn’t specifically ask me to resolve the concerns they had communicated, I felt I ought to offer a possible solution. “So do you think it would help if we had a conversation?” I asked. Both girls agreed, but Marisol was skeptical. “I’m not trying to be like negative or anything, but how I picture it in my mind, they’re going to be like jokin’ and laughin’ about it. Like they’re not going to take it serious. . . ‘Cuz that’s what they have proved to me for three weeks, you know . . . We could talk about it and see if they can see where we’re coming from.” Her final comment, “we could talk about it and see if they see where we’re coming from,” reflected her agenda for the meeting. Her words suggested that she hoped to have the newcomers understand them. I had a slightly different vision for the conversation, hoping it could be a productive exchange between all the students, resulting in greater mutual understanding. “But in that conversation,” I added, “I think that you ought to ask them what they’re thinking in addition to just saying this is how we’re feeling. Yeah?” Julia seemed more optimistic about the conversation: “I don’t think anything’s really going to go anywhere unless we do have that talk with them, so I think we should just see aftenrvards what’s gonna happen or how they feel.” In our next meeting, Julia and Marisol had “the talk” with the other participants, the details of which will be discussed in later chapters. For now, I simply offer this brief foreshadowing that symbolizes my role as mediator. As the participants were filtering in for our meeting, there was an unusual silence. Although there were snacks and a casual atmosphere intended to encourage 64 socializing, for some reason, nobody was talking. Instead, they were seated in a circle facing each other in silence. Due to several absences, the make-up of the group was different from normal and perhaps this had changed the group chemistry. After several minutes of awkward silence, I finally said to the group, “You can talk!” and attempted to spark a conversation about the weekend. Nadif followed my cue and started to small talk with other participants. After a brief period of chatting and some housekeeping items, I said nonchalantly, “Marisol and Julia, do you want to bring something up with the group?” This was their signal to begin “the talk.” Once the girls opened the conversation, I deliberately moved to the outside of the circle, perhaps as a symbol that this was their affair. I sat on the sidelines saying nothing during the discussion, but observing the conversation fall flat and take unexpected turns, certainly not playing out as I had perhaps unrealistically expected. Nine minutes later Julia said with intonation suggesting resignation, “Anny, you take it from here.” Again, there was a palpable silence and discomfort in the room. Feeling at a loss as to what to say and sensing that “the talk” had not turned out how the girls and I had hoped or imagined, I offered an awkward attempt to restore a relaxed and comfortable feeling to the group. I tried to clarify the situation in a way that conveyed my interpretation of the problem: a division between the newcomer and old-timer groups. There was some concern that maybe we just need to continue to have fun — we want to have fun — but we also have a lot of work to do. And so, I think that one thing we want to do is help it so it’s not so much like groups 65 - two groups — we want it to be more mixed. So everybody doesn’t always stay exactly with their friends. . . I ended my little speech with a strange analogy describing our group as traveling in two different cars going down the same road. “We want to get everybody in the same car,” I explained. Wanting everyone to travel in the same car reflected a desire for unity and cooperation that is central to the idea of a “community of learners.” When considered from a Levinasian perspective, however, the car analogy suggested a desire for group unity that is neither possible nor desirable. What would have happened, I wonder, if I had instead acknowledged the divide that inevitably separated us and presented that as an opportunity rather than a problem? Overall, I felt dissatisfied with how I handled the situation. I wrote, “It was a weak response to what might have been a very teachable moment, except I had no idea what or how to teach it.” The awkwardness and uncertainty I felt as I experienced the proximity of the Others was indeed, as Levinas said, “in its trauma.”76 The participants didn’t have much to say about my explanation. Nadif, still playing the role as diplomat, was the only one to comment on my spiel. “Makes sense,” he simply said. The discussion then turned to our timeline for finishing the movie followed by the group dispersing to go to the refugee center’s computer lab to work on video editing. The manner in which I strategically stepped in and out of the circle of participants might be considered embodiment of my role as mediator throughout 66 the project. I wanted to allow the group members plenty of space to work out their own interaction and deliberately tried to minimize my intervention. Nadif noticed this and mentioned that “you kinda like just overlooked us, but kinda left us to work together and kinda answer our own questions and I think that was pretty good.” Marisol, however, maintained that “personally, to me, you didn’t affect me if you were there or not, for me to act the way I acted. Yeah I pretty much acted how I felt that day.” Yet at the same time, I also seemed to play an influential role in starting and shaping the nature of the participants’ interaction with each other. On this particular occasion, for instance, they began socializing only after I encouraged them to talk with each other. Having “the talk” had been my idea to begin with and I was the one who signaled Marisol and Julia to begin it. And when the discussion petered out in disappointing fashion, Julia asked me to “take over.” In other words, for better or for worse, it seemed like my mediation mattered. When I asked him to describe my role in the project, for example, Landry explained, “You teach us how we can know each other from the people from another country that we don’t know. . . You teach us how to make friends.” Julia said my presence helped group members take the project “seriously” and Gilbert said I gave them “encouragement.” On first glance, my role as mediator appears fairly consistent with research and traditional expectations for a teacher to facilitate appropriate and productive student interaction.77 I tried to seek a balance between direct intervention and allowing participants to negotiate their own relationships. I tried to provide 67 frequent, varied, and appropriately scaffolded opportunities for interaction across groups. I attempted to help participants gain and practice social skills useful for navigating tricky relations across difference. Each of these interventions was intended to promote successful and beneficial interaction after the participants were in proximity, thus answering the second part of the proximity problem. Inherent in this approach to mediation is a knowledge-based foundation: the assumption that I had the necessary knowledge, perspective, and authority to mediate the group’s interactions and that the needful understanding could be taught to and implemented by the participants. For example, Julia’s request that I provide a resolution to “the talk” demonstrates her trust or hope that l was capable of working out a difficult interaction. Sometimes, this did seem to be the case, but frequently, I found myself as perplexed as the participants. This is an aspect of the teacher’s role as mediator not fully considered in much of the research and discourse circulating around this issue. The Levinasian concept of proximity provides language to recognize and talk in a new way about teacher mediation of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural interaction. While I expected the newcomers and old-timers to have occasional uncomfortable and challenging encounters with each other, I was admittedly surprised at the way I, too, experienced the discomfort of proximity. On multiple occasions, I felt entirely at a loss as to what to say or do, such as when Marisol and Julia were complaining about the newcomers or when Julia asked me to wrap up “the talk.” Just as I tried to impart helpful knowledge to the participants to facilitate their interactions — knowledge which sometimes helped and sometimes 68 got in the way - I drew upon my repository of teacherly knowledge with the same unpredictable outcome. Furthermore, I found myself surprisingly personally implicated in our encounters. Not only was I trying to mediate the discomfort of proximity experienced by the participants, but I was also experiencing it myself. The following excerpt from my fieldnotes near the end of the project represent the ongoing insecurity I felt. I wrote, “It’s very hard for me to sense what is going on. I feel like I’m living so in the moment that I don’t have perspective to see things as they are. This is a complicated business and a surprising emotional roller coaster.” I found myself attempting to discern my responsibility for the participants just as they were struggling to relate to the Other themselves. This challenge was further complicated as I felt the ethical demand to respond to more than one individual, such as when l was trying to support Marisol and Julia and the newcomers when their needs and perspectives were in uneasy relationship with each other. Often, it seems, the teacher is conveniently placed outside the interaction as an objective, omniscient observer. In reality, though, the teacher is also encountering the Other even as she tries to facilitate interaction across difference among her students. Resonances for Future Interaction The interactions described in this chapter generate additional questions when planning for and mediating curriculum to promote interaction between ELLs and their peers. As discussed in this chapter, the discomfort of proximity might prevail, even when diverse students are brought into proximity under conditions 69 deliberately designed to enhance interaction. Moreover, carefully structured curricular activities created to facilitate interaction have the potential to elicit the intended response to a task without generating genuine response to a person. Given these possibilities, in preparing students for cross-linguistic, cross-cultural interaction we might want to frame the approach as improvisation rather than implementing pre-packaged strategies. For instance, although the video project curriculum included carefully preparing the participants for interaction through collaboratively generating norms for interaction (sharing opinions, asking for clarification, working with different partners, etc.) and through “getting to know you” activities did serve a purpose, this was inadequate preparation for confronting real-time, unpredictable situations. Prior knowledge proved to have a similar effect as in the cases where the old-timers assumed they already understood the newcomer experience. In both of these instances, supposed preparation — knowledge and strategies — created a facade of understanding that obscured possibilities for response. A Levinasian perspective offers an additional dimension that might be added to explicit preparation: accepting the possibility of not knowing what to do and viewing that as an opportunity to respond to an Other. Additionally, this chapter invites us to question the balance between preparing for an unknown future (such as teaching strategies for communication and interaction) and navigating an unknown present. Could in-the-moment mediation be just as important or even more important than forward-looking preparation? Related to this is the question of how to think and talk about the discomfort inherent in our encounters with the Other. As Julia said of her 70 association with the newcomers, “I didn’t think it would be that hard.” While strategic intervention is often based on the goal of reducing or eliminating discomfort, another option is to engage in explicit discussion about the inevitability of ambiguity and anxiety as we interact with others. Rather than viewing that discomfort as something negative or something to be avoided, we might teach our students and remember ourselves that such vulnerability is unavoidable if we choose to truly open ourselves to an Other. Experiencing Proximity As I look back on the project, multiple moments come to the surface where the students and I seemed to be confronting the discomfort of proximity— the feeling of not being at home. I can see, for example, Innocent wriggling in his desk like a fish flailing against the confines of the net. He rubs his face and eyes and, looking the other direction, mumbles “yeah” in response to the question Marisol asks him. I recall Julia attempting to describe the “weird” feeling when she simply didn’t “know what to do” when “they don’t get it and I get it and I get frustrated.” I picture Juma in the demeanor of an old man leaning back in his desk thoughtfully stroking his chin, saying nothing. “I don’t know why I was just quiet,” he recalled, remembering his silence but unable to interpret it. I remember myself feeling entirely perplexed when Julia asked me to handle a difficult moment. Reflecting on this experience I wrote, “I really didn’t know what to say. I wanted to smooth things over without invalidating anyone — I also wanted to somehow make some sense out of what had happened, but I didn’t know how to do it.” These 71 moments of not-knowing could not be sidestepped or resolved through recourse to an established knowledge base or by wise implementation of a communication strategy. They could not, it seems, even be avoided through genuine caring for one another. According to Levinas, the “restlessness of this peace”78 that occurs when we encounter the Other is both inevitable and unpredictable. But it is also meaningful because it indicates that we are not alone in the world. In the context of cross-linguistic, cross-cultural interaction among adolescents, where so much is going on and so much is individually and collectively at stake, Levinas offers a way to read this complexity with perhaps greater acceptance, humility, and generosity than what we might otherwise do. He invites us, for instance, to interpret our discomfort in proximity as an invitation to respond to the Other rather than as a problem to be solved. 72 CHAPTER 3 SAYING AND UNDERSTANDING “It was confusing when I came to school, [didn't know anybody. . . A lot of people, like Somali girls . . . a lot of people they were my classmate, like Spanish people, Burmese, we were talking like, we didn’t know English, so we are best friends. ” - Asha, newcomer “I think it’s more difficult for immigrants just because they don 't know what to expect a lot of times, like you just lost. That’s how I felt, I felt lost and nobody ever came up to me and said, “Hi. How ya doin’?” Nobody. So, how can I come up to you without even knowing anything around me? So now if you come up to me, it’s kind of like, I’m in your world. I! — Marisol, old-timer “Can we say in our group, it’s o.k. to say ‘I don 't understand ’”? — Anny, researcher One obvious explanation for the lack of interaction and friendship among ELLs and non-ELLs is the language barrier. Marisol, an old-timer, described it this way: “Why would an American even come in a situation . . . where he doesn’t even understand what they’re talkin’ about?” This rationale points to a commonplace idea of language that focuses on what language transmits an emphasis on understanding what words mean and the way that meaning draws us to “come into a situation” or not. When talking about her own experience as a new immigrant, however, Marisol complicated the issue. Describing how she “felt lost and nobody ever came up to me,” Marisol wished that someone would have approached her because “if you come up to me, it’s kind of like, I’m in your 73 world.” Here, the crucial aspect is not what is said or whether or not it’s understood, but that someone comes to you, the approach signifying that “I’m in your world.” Along these lines, in newcomer Asha’s case, the coming to each other was facilitated primarily by shared ESL classes which resulted in friendships despite unshared native languages and limited English proficiency. As Asha said about her group of friends made up of Somali, Spanish, and Burmese speakers, “we didn’t know English so we are best friends.” In contrast to the situation Marisol described, the “language barrier” here wasn’t perceived as an obstacle; in fact, it almost seemed to facilitate friendship. Much of the existing literature about schooling for ELLs focuses on ways to break down the language barrier. Foregrounding the role of language, the literature emphasizes interaction between ELLs and non-ELLs as a means for helping ELLs acquire English and is heavily concerned with strategies for making English comprehensible to them. Reflecting the logic of Marisol’s explanation as to why Americans avoid situations where they can’t understand what is going on, much of the literature portrays English language proficiency as access -- access to the curriculum, to social circles, and to future opportunities. In effect, lack of English language proficiency becomes almost a scapegoat to explain why ELLs so often are not full participants at school. It is clear that English language proficiency matters a great deal. At the same time, I wonder what this conceptualization of language as a barrier might obscure. What if, for instance, we were not just seeking to understand words, but to understand people? Another generative reframing would be to move ELLs from the subject to the 74 object position when talking about understanding. Instead of “they don’t understand us,” Levinas invites us to say, “we don’t understand them.” These are some of the questions I ask in this chapter. In particular, I consider the role of linguistic difference in our interaction during the video project and the ways the newcomers, old-timers, and I attempted to come to each other through and despite language. To do so, I invoke Levinasian philosophy, specifically his concept of “the saying and the said,” to reflect on both linguistic and ethical dimensions of our collaboration. I begin this chapter with an overview of how the “language barrier” is commonly presented in education research. Next, I present the Levinasian concept of “the saying” and “the said” as a way to push on familiar representations of the language barrier. With these concepts as the theoretical lens, I then describe how the newcomers and old-timers talked about and negotiated language-based challenges and opportunities within their interaction. I close the chapter with an account of a particularly complex communication event in which talk was marked by silence and uncomfortable exposure that transcended issues of English proficiency. Overcoming the “Language Barrier” The term “English language learners” represents a very diverse group encompassing scores of native languages, cultures, socioeconomic levels, and educational backgrounds, not to mention a kaleidoscope of personalities, proclivities, and personal experiences. Consequently, it is both peculiar and understandable that this wide swath of students tends to be characterized by the 75 one thing they all lack: full proficiency in English.3 Regardless of the label, hardly anyone, least of all ELLs and their parents, denies that learning English is vitally important for a new immigrant hoping to succeed in English-speaking schools.79 Thus, the emphasis on supporting English language acquisition through instructional interventions and opportunities for social interaction with fluent- English-speaking peers is clearly warranted. Landry, a recent immigrant from Tanzania attending high school in the United States, explained it to me this way, “If you have a friend that is born here, that is the chance that you have. He can teach you speak English. If [you don’t] have the friend who born here, [it] is difficult to know English.” Landry’s words are supported by second language acquisition theory which emphasizes the crucial role of social interaction in learning a new language. In short, research suggests that English language proficiency is likely to be achieved over time as learners hear and comprehend English, negotiate meaning with others, and produce English utterances.80 None of this happens in isolation, which is one reason why we think it’s a good idea for ELLs to interact with their English-speaking peers in the schools. In addition to language, we hope that ELLs and non-ELLs can share other types of knowledge such as academic content, cultural understanding, and social norms. Language learning is a desirable outcome of interaction between ELLs and their fluent English-speaking peers, and language is also the vehicle for such interaction. This dual function of language in the curriculum makes interaction 3 The trend away from the term “limited English proficient" toward “English language learner” was an attempt to spin the knowledge deficit positively -they’re not limited, they’re learning. 76 especially complicated to study. We typically talk our way into, out of, and through our encounters with each other. Words are also considered to be the primary carriers of the knowledge we share, construct, and acquire in educational settings. In many ways, language (specifically, English) is both the end and the means of interaction between linguistically diverse students in American schools. To ameliorate the predictable linguistic challenges inherent in such interaction, the literature suggests a variety of communication, instructional, and social strategies to be implemented in the curriculum by teachers and students.81 These approaches include fostering supportive relationships, recognizing potential language difficulties, and implementing strategies to make language comprehensible, such as modifying the rate of speech, attending to word choice, and restating ideas.82 In general, the curricular interventions are targeted at ELLs and involve something done therapeutically for them to help them understand and communicate in English. Within this curricular frame, understanding becomes about making it possible for ELLs to comprehend and use discrete chunks of language. Because understanding is central to participation, the consequences of not understanding can be quite serious since, without a sufficient command of English, ELLs are effectively sidelined from being full participants at school. I do not argue with this logic because, clearly, language is central to interaction and learning; moreover, it is well documented that the vast majority of ELLs and their families recognize the value of learning English and desire to do so. My concern with this framing, 77 however, is that it tends to foreground English as a prerequisite for full participation, which could lend itself to an unintended interpretation that effectively reduces non-English-speaking students to a language problem. It also rather arbitrarily places the onus of understanding on ELLs while the “problem" could just as easily be reversed. Instead of “they don’t understand us,” we could say, “we don’t understand them.” Finally, this framing underestimates the ethical possibilities for negotiating interaction and meaning between ELLs and non-ELLs in mutually responsive ways that are not solely dependent on a narrow view of the language barrier. The Saying and the Said Speech, as a fundamental mode of how we relate to one another, is uniquely construed in Levinas’s philosophy of ethical responsibility. However, in a departure from traditional ways of thinking about language, Levinas draws a distinction between “the saying,” and “the said.” In a Levinasian view of language, speaking does not consist in “translating thoughts into words;”83 rather, the saying is the approach towards another and an exposure of self that signifies “Here I am.” It is an approach with ethical significance as it “uncovers the one that speaks, not as an object disclosed by theory, but in the sense that one discloses oneself by neglecting one’s defenses.”84 In this way, understanding an Other’s words does not ensure that I understand him/her. The assumption is that Others are ultimately unknowable by me. However, while I can’t fully understand an Other, my ethical obligation is to learn from the Other85 — making an attempt, we 78 might say, to understand, realizing that our understanding will always be incomplete. Just as the Other is ultimately beyond my grasp, beyond my knowing, so too the full meaning of “the said” is also incompletely represented by language. "T he said” — what we hear and remember as words — absorbs part but not all of the significance of “the saying.” “In language qua said,” Levinas asserts, “everything is translated before us, be it at the price of a betrayal.”86 In this way, language is invocational, not just representational.87 As I approach another through saying, the possibility of responding to the Other is initiated. Thus, “Saying is communication, to be sure, but as a condition for all communication, as .88 exposure. This concept of “the saying” and “the said” offers new possibilities for viewing and thinking about interaction between ELLs and their peers. For instance, it opens the possibility for ethical interaction that is not dependent on words or language proficiency. It also reminds us that in any given interaction there is more to say than what is said. This assumption invites us to think of ELLs as much more than language learners; lack of English proficiency can no longer be viewed as a deficit or defining characteristic. (In fact, the term “English language learner” becomes a questionable reduction.) Moreover, Levinas’s philosophy foregrounds the significance of approaching each other and recognizes the vulnerability that exposure engenders. Our responsibility, then, is 79 “to approach a neighbor,” to come to an Other possibly “without words, but not with empty hands.”89 Finding a Way to Understand: Strategy and Approach Learning English was a prominent aspect of the immigrant experience that the old-timers could relate to and anticipated would also be a major issue for the newcomers in our project. Nadif, Julia, and Marisol were bilingual, although, interestingly, they each indicated that they felt the most comfortable in English and didn’t feel as proficient with reading or writing in their home language. But since they lived with parents who didn’t speak English well, they interacted daily in Somali, Vietnamese, or Spanish and could speak their respective home languages fluently. Consequently, they were very aware of the challenge of learning English and in favor of multilingualism. Language “plays a big role," Marisol explained, “if you don’t know the language, what are you gonna do? You’re pretty much lost. Language is everything.” On the topic of learning English, she spoke with authority, “Can’t nobody tell me it’s easy, cuz I’ve been through it.” Nadif recalled similar feelings from his early days in America when he’d come home from school to his mother asking him to translate, “And I’m like, uh, I don’t know — I’m just as lost as you.” Although Julia was born in the United States, she was raised bilingual and has spent most of her life living with her grandmother who speaks only Vietnamese. She drew a connection between her experience with her grandmother and what she anticipated it might be like working with the newcomers. “And since I live with my grandma,” Julia observed, 80 “I know that they would probably be shy to say stuff, to talk to us, to do things with us, and they would probably be not as comfortable cuz they don’t know us that well.” Their personal experiences learning English themselves and helping family members negotiate life in an English-dominant society sensitized the old-timers to the way limited proficiency in English complicated the lives of the newcomers. While they were keenly aware that not knowing English can make a person feel “lost,” generating anxiety and hindering daily life, they also seemed to sense that for a non-native speaker, English proficiency was a circumstantial, not an essential element of who a person really is. Julia knew, for example, that the persona her grandmother displayed in English-dominant environments was different from the woman she knew at home. In contrast to familiar stories of native-English speakers who consciously or sub-consciously interpret immigrants’ lack of English proficiency as an intellectual or character deficiency, the old— timers expressed openness to the possibility that a person is much more than he or she can say. The recognition of this concept combined with their awareness of the importance and difficulty of learning English resonates with both traditional and Levinasian approaches to language. Furthermore, their related personal experiences seemed to provide Julia, Nadif, and Marisol with confidence and strategies to overcome what Marisol called “the language barrier.” Not only did they “know what it feels like,” but they also felt confident that they would know what to do to as they interacted with the 81 newcomers. For example, before beginning the project, Julia imagined the language difficulties that could occur and had a repertoire of strategies at her disposal to facilitate communication. Well, communication-wise, I sort of think if we speak a little bit more slowly that they would understand. . . . if they don’t understand then we could probably show them somehow or something, show them examples or give them an example. We could always listen to their opinions and stuff, but some of them have really strong accents, so maybe they could like write it out or show us or something like that. Here, Julia expressed her cognizance of four strategies for communicating with language learners: slowing down the rate of speech, providing examples to communicate intended meaning, using gestures or other non-verbal means to demonstrate meaning, and asking the speaker to write something down when pronunciation renders the word incomprehensible to the listener. These strategies are not necessarily obvious to someone without experience or training in cross- linguistic interactions, though they are commonly embedded in ESL curricula. It seems likely, for example, that many of the monolingual English speakers at the high school would not be similarly equipped to manage these types of interactions. For his part, Nadif volunteered to translate for any of the newcomers and expressed confidence that “I’m pretty sure they’ve picked up a little bit of English and I'm pretty sure we could work with them.” Rather than referencing a particular skill set, he simply said “you kinda find a way . . . there’s always a way for people 82 to understand each other without speaking.” Marisol was similarly confident that they would figure out how to communicate one way or another: We just gonna have to work at it and if there’s another guy that speaks their language and if it’s better for them to communicate, there’s somebody else who gets the point across, that’s fine. We just have to be patient, I guess. That’s cool with me. . . If they use two hours to get their point across, then so be it. In reality, of course, most people aren’t “cool” with taking two hours to get a point across (including Marisol as it turned out), but the good-will and confidence conveyed by her and the other old-timers concerning potential linguistic obstacles was admirable and bode well for our project. When viewed through the lens of conventional ESL-education research, the old-timers seemed to have the advantage of possessing requisite skills and dispositions to interact well with the newcomers. They articulated communication strategies and a willingness to take the time to figure out a way to create understanding with the newcomers. The intentions expressed by the old-timers also resonate with Levinas’s concept of “saying” as approach imbued with ethical implications. That they were willing to engage with the newcomers, “language barrier” notwithstanding, is reminiscent of Levinas’s words: “"To say is to approach a neighbor, "dealing him signifyingness.” This is not exhausted in "ascriptions of meaning," which are inscribed, as tales, in the said.”90 In other words, the very act of acknowledging an Other in the spirit of humility and generosity carries significance beyond the content of the words that are spoken. 83 The unblocking of communication, irreducible to the circulation of information which presupposes it, is accomplished in saying. It is not due to the contents that are inscribed in the said and transmitted to the interpretation and decoding done by the other. It is the risky uncovering of oneself, in sincerity, the breaking up of inwardness. . .91 Nadif’s assertion that “there’s always a way for people to understand each other without speaking,” Marisol’s stated willingness to be patient, and Julia’s elaboration of speech modifications to facilitate communication with the newcomers suggest to me an unusual openness to interacting with the newcomers. It is also significant that their expressions indicate their taking on, in part at least, responsibility for meaningful communication rather than relegating the full burden of achieving understanding to the newcomers. My interviews with the newcomers suggested that they, too, found important meaning in the approach of an Other, a significance that trumps fluency in a shared language. Asha, for instance, explained that most of her friends came from her ESL classes and spoke Somali, Spanish, and Burmese. "We were talking like, we didn’t know English, so we are best friends.” Here again, a command of English — the specific words used in conversation — seems less important than the fact that they choose to relate to each other. The other newcomers’ talk about their friends also emphasized the overture of friendship over what is said. Bosco said that he knows “this American wants to be your friend” if the potential friend reaches out consistently by introducing himself, saying hi, extending invitations. Similarly, Peter told how he became friends with some mainstream students who on the first day of school, “just saw me and they 84 said ‘who is this guy?’ And then they kept on saying ‘hi” and then rest is history." Being interested enough to ask “who is this guy?” and to engage with him signaled friendship even though Peter was unable to freely communicate with these students in English. Talking is still central to friendship, but there is more latitude in the substance and fluency of the language used than we might expect. Juma noted that “white pe0ple and black people” became his friends “’cuz we was talking each other. . . l was trying to talk to them, but it was not perfect English. I was just say, but they will understand a little bit, but not too much.” Noteworthy here are Juma’s attempts to interact despite his English not being “perfect” and his friends understanding just “a little bit.” The common thread running through each of these excerpts is the significance of saying something, the “saying” apparently carrying as much or more meaning than “the said.” Although it seems hard to imagine satisfying conversation with a prominent language barrier, the need and desire for rewarding associations with peers can’t wait for English proficiency. This is not to minimize the role of mutually intelligible speech, and the students themselves are very clear about that, too. Rather, the newcomers’ commentary on friendship with peers reminds us of the possibility for congenial interaction with English-speaking peers before English language skills are fully developed. Levinas frames this possibility as an ethical obligation to respond to one another and reminds us that this obligation is not annulled because speaking is inconvenient. The risk of 85 approach, the work required by me in a face-to-face encounter, the unpredictability of the outcome — all this is inherent in ethical co-existence. Nonetheless, the stance advocated by Levinas and the video project participants is not easily enacted. While we are more than our words, language remains a crucial medium for interaction and even with the skills and goodwill expressed by the old-timers and newcomers to “kinda find a way” to communicate, our actual experience collaborating with each other brings some language-based complications to the surface. Make ‘Em Understand Although Marisol and Julia drew upon a number of strategies to teach and support the newcomers, they were not always able to successfully mediate every situation. Midway through the project, Julia mused, Like I don’t know what to do - like when they don’t understand, I try to think of some way to show them or like give some way to help them understand, but it just — they don’t get it. And I get it and I get frustrated. Julia’s comment points to several salient issues related to language and interaction. First, even though, prior to the project Julia identified a number of options for negotiating comprehension challenges with the newcomers, in her actual interactions she discovered that her repertoire of strategies fell short and she found herself not knowing what to do. Second, the burden of understanding is placed on the newcomers (“like when they don’t understand”) although she takes on the role of trying to “help them understand.” Finally, Julia’s expression of the frustration she experienced when “they don’t get it and I get it” suggests the 86 unease caused by these moments where the language barrier is particularly pronounced. To illustrate the type of situation Julia talked about, I turn now to an incident described by Marisol, who experienced a similar challenge with conveying meaning to the newcomers. Gaining experience with technology was a central piece of the video project curriculum. Consequently, I built in multiple opportunities for the participants to use the video cameras. During our second session, I divided them into three groups and invited them to make a commercial about one of the topics they had discussed in small groups related to the first week of school. The participants played along good-humoredly. However, Marisol’s group encountered a snag right away. She recounted, We were doing commercials or something like that and they didn’t understand one thing I was saying! I was like, “Nadif, help me!” And then we just did it together and they understood it. It’s kinda like I had to bring Nadif it to see what he could say to ‘em to make them understand “cuz with me, they were lost. Expressing sentiments comparable to Julia’s, Marisol’s emphatic statement, “they didn’t understand one thing I was saying!” conveys her assumption that the newcomers were the ones needing to understand. Yet at the same time, she also assumes the responsibility for the lack of comprehension -- “with me, they were lost.” When Nadif was recruited to solve the problem, Marisol explained that “she tried to get them to have a commercial about sports. They still don’t understand. I tried to explain it.” Soliciting help and acknowledging the limits of her knowledge and ability to respond to the newcomer boys in her group was Marisol’s attempt 87 at responding to them. She could have simply forged ahead dictating the task, but instead, she sought assistance. The main problem seemed to be that the newcomers didn’t understand the word “commercial.” Abandoning the specifics of the assigned task, Nadif started a conversation with the boys about soccer, something they all knew and cared about. The resulting “commercial” filmed by Marisol featured Juma, Bosco, Innocent, Hamisi, and Nadif smiling as they make the “thumbs up” sign and proclaim, “Soccer is the best in the world!” Marisol remembered how Nadif got the boys talking about soccer, “T hat was real smart - I wouldn’t think about that, but that was smart.” For Nadif’s part, he recalled that Marisol “couldn’t get the guys to kinda understand and she was having a hard time getting them involved . . . I really didn’t think about it, I just went up there and we kinda like understood each other.” It seemed to be a moment of responsivity, where Nadif focused on the other boys instead of the task or words. Whereas the term “commercial” had derailed Marisol’s attempts to work with the newcomers in her group, Nadif seemed to intuitively see beyond the language barrier and engaged the newcomers in a way that acknowledged them as individuals with interests and talents of greater relevance than their developing English language proficiency. Innocent recalled this episode of making the soccer video and explained how he liked working with Nadif “because if you don’t understand anything, he explains it to you.” The way Innocent personalizes the understanding - “if you don’t understand” and explaining it “to you" — suggests an interaction that is focused on “you” in relation to the language rather than simply words carrying objective, absolute meanings. The “saying" — 88 the other-focused approach demonstrated by Nadif — enabled collaboration despite lack of linguistic understanding. Significantly, he framed the language barrier as a two-way concern with understanding “each other” as a desirable outcome. Creating Meaning The assumption commonly held in the literature and, incidentally, expressed by both the newcomers and the old-timers, is that a role of the fluent- English-speaker was to help the newcomers comprehend English, to “make ‘em understand,” as Marisol said. As the teacher, my job was to create activities within the video project curriculum that minimized chances of not understanding. However, in reflecting on our project, I recognize my tendency to work with a narrow definition of “understand” that referenced comprehending discrete chunks of language. Although this definition is useful, it is also limiting. As Levinas explains, “Saying opens me to the other (autrur) before saying what is said, before the said uttered in this sincerity forms a screen between me and the other.”92 If our chief concern for understanding is words, what is said can become a screen preventing direct response to the Other to whom we are attempting to respond. The following example illustrates my thinking. The task I assigned the participants was to divide a piece of paper into four boxes with one adjective in each box: nervous, confused, embarrassed, excited. I asked them to draw a picture illustrating a time when they had experienced two of those feelings during 89 their early days at Central High. My purpose was to activate memories of emotions and experiences that might be generative in brainstorming content for the welcome video. I demonstrated the task and circulated around the room to assist as necessary. I quickly realized that the newcomers were confused. In my notes I wrote that the newcomers “acted like they understood, but they really didn’t.” The possibility never occurred to me that l was the one who was acting like I understood, but really didn’t. Despite my assistance, after observing the newcomers struggle to get through the activity, I noted that they (most of them) “never really comprehended the task. I think they thought they were supposed to draw a picture illustrating the word, not depicting an experience.” And why shouldn’t they assume this? Their experience has been about knowing words, not being known. Meanwhile, the old-timers dutifully completed the task as directed. In the middle of the activity, Landry asked what the word “embarrassed” meant. I responded by inviting the old-timers to respond, “Can you guys help him?” The following conversation ensued: Nadif: Like are you embarrassed to talk to a girl? Kind of scared. Marisol: Kind of scared. No, it’s not even scared. It’s kind of like when you talk in public. That’s embarrassing. Nadif: Do you ever talk to a girl? Landry: Yeah Nadif: How do you feel? Landry: I feel good. (Everyone laughs) Marisol: Like if your pants fall down or they break. That’s embarrassing. 90 (Bosco speaks to Landry in Kirundi.) Bosco: I know embarrassed. If your zipper is down. Bosco to Nadif: If you’re walking down the hallway and your zipper’s down. Nadif: How do you say it in Swahili? In this brief incident we see a more complex interaction to convey understanding than a knower (a fluent English-speaker) providing a definition to a not-knower (an ELL). Although on the surface this interaction appeared to be about conveying the meaning of a word, the actual encounter was marked by an interplay of individual understandings and life experiences that involved much more than a simple definition. In responding to Landry, the other group members, Nadif, Marisol, and Bosco offered examples of embarrassment based on what would be embarrassing to them. For instance, Nadif’s first point of reference for explaining the word was presumably himself. Apparently, he considered it embarrassing to talk to girls, but this example didn’t work for Landry who “‘feeljs] good” talking to a girl. Next Marisol offered an example, again presuming that Landry felt the same way she did about speaking in public. When this illustration didn’t work either, she offered another one: when your pants fall down. This example registered with Bosco, who wound up being the one to explain “embarrassing” first to Landry in Kirundi, then verifying his understanding with Nadif. Bringing the interaction full circle, Nadif then asked how to say “embarrassing” in Swahili, thus taking on the role of the one who didn’t understand. 91 The way the participants negotiated understanding points to a much more complex process than simply providing the meaning of a word, in this case, “embarrassed.” Instead, the word was implicated in a social encounter with several principles of Levinasian responsibility at play. Of greater significance, it seems, than Landry’s eventual comprehension of the word was the way Nadif, Marisol, Landry, and Bosco attempted to respond to each other. First was the willingness to respond to Landry’s request. In this approach, the participants were also exposing themselves by offering examples of embarrassing moments. At the same time, they were attempting to harness shared experience to communicate meaning. In the process, they were reminded that the Other’s knowledge and experience is not necessarily the same as their own. Nonetheless, their persistence in trying something else until understanding was finally achieved seems to be a case of responding. It is also significant that in the end, Bosco was the one to explain the definition to Landry and he did so in Kirundi, thus disrupting the assumed structure of the old-timers as knowers and newcomers as non- knowers (especially regarding language). The most significant piece, however, is that the center of this interaction was not really the word or the curricular task, but Landry. Moving Beyond Words In the previous chapter about proximity, I described “the talk,” a memorable encounter mid-way through the video project in which Marisol and Julia raised several concerns with the group. The girls had spoken with me earlier 92 about their frustration that the newcomers weren’t taking the project “seriously” and consequently, were impeding the efficiency and quality of our task to make a “good” movie. The boys’ joking with the girls and each other fueled the girls’ perception that they weren’t willing to settle down to work. Additionally, the girls talked about how the newcomers’ apparent lack of understanding of English and about the technology, the school, and the project itself was slowing down completion of the video. In response to their concerns, I suggested that they raise these issues with the group. “T he talk,” our awkward, but well-intended attempt to negotiate understanding, lasted only nine minutes, but had a sufficiently profound effect on the participants that each one of them remembered and talked about the experience in the post-project interviews. While in the previous chapter, I concentrated on my role mediating “the talk” and the pivotal conversation with Marisol and Julia that preceded it, in this chapter I focus on the participants’ interactions and their perceptions during and after “the talk.” In my conversation with the girls prior to this meeting, Marisol had insisted that the root of the problem was that the newcomers didn’t fully comprehend what was going on with the video project. Even though you do think that they know what they’re doin,’ I don’t . . . I don’t know if they get that . . . you think they get it, but I, to me, I don’t think they actually know what the focus is - who are we actually helping. While Julia had also cited examples to demonstrate that the newcomers didn’t understand, her overall assessment of her discontent with the way the project was going was less dogmatic, “They don’t try to do it, like well. Like I don’t know. I 93 can’t really explain it.” Still, Julia followed Marisol’s line of thinking when she initiated “the talk.” She opened with a question voicing Marisol’s explanation for the interactional challenges, “Do you guys understand what we're doing?” Her question was met with profound silence. Julia: Like this whole project? Do you understand? Do you know why we’re doing it? Peter: No Soft laughter Marisol (to Anny): I told you. Julia: How come you come to the meetings and stuff if you don’t understand what we’re doing? Silence Nadif: He just doesn’t know how to explain it. Marisol: O.k. Say something. We won’t hurt you. Julia: You can say whatever. . . Silence Nadif (to newcomers): Just tell her you’re having fun. Julia (to Nadif): Keep your mouth shut. Marisol: Say something. We’re not going to hurt you. Julia: You can say whatever. Marisol (speaking softer than usual): So what’s this project about in your opinion? Silence Marisol: I know you have something in mind. What is this project about? (The four newcomer boys avoid making eye contact.) 94 The entire conversation was marked by subdued voices and body language that suggested discomfort (fidgeting, arms folded, gazing at the floor), but mostly, it was marked by silence. Although the discussion was an attempt to resolve what seemed to me to be interactional tensions (coming to a mutually agreeable working relationship), the newcomers’ limited English proficiency seemed to be at the center of the conversation, almost as a scapegoat, but not entirely since elements of the difficulty of interaction truly were language-based. The old-timers’ cognizance of the language barrier is a clear thread running through the discussion. Yet, their conceptualization of language bears traces of both a traditional and Levinasian view. Julia’s question asking why the newcomers attended “if you don’t understand what we’re doing” seems to reflect the idea of language as a prerequisite for participation. What is missing in this assumption is the possibility that the newcomers could find purpose in and make contributions to the project without full linguistic comprehension. Additionally, it seems to assume that understanding can be articulated. However, Julia’s question can also be interpreted as an honest inquiry, one fraught with implications for educators working with ELLs. Why would someone participate in an activity dominated by a language he/she does not understand? Julia knew from her personal experience that language matters a lot; she had watched her family be disenfranchised in American society because they couldn’t speak English well. I can imagine why she might be perplexed that the newcomers would choose to spend their time working on a project after school that is not required. 95 Pushing against this notion and likely responding to the obvious awkwardness that the newcomers were experiencing, Nadif added, “He just doesn’t know how to explain it.” Nadif’s assertion suggests awareness that the essence of the newcomers, including their thoughts and feelings, were beyond what they could express in English. He seemed to sense, as Levinas explained, that “in language qua said, everything is translated before us, be it at the price of a betrayal.”93 Nadif observed the betrayal from the other angle — what the newcomers couldn’t say doesn’t fully signify who they are any more than what they might say. In response to Nadif’s comment, Marisol and Julia appealed to the newcomers to “say something.” Their attempt to reassure the boys that they can say “whatever” and their almost pleading for them join the conversation reminds me of “the saying.” What the girls seem to need is indication the newcomers are hearing them, that they are willing to expose themselves through words, any words, their attempt to join the conversation being more important than what is said. “T he talk” continued in a similar fashion with Marisol and Julia asking questions that were met with silence and Nadif attempting to mediate the awkwardness. Eventually, Julia ended the discussion by turning it over to me, saying, “Anny, you take it from here.” Although the entire conversation was less than ten minutes, it seemed to leave a memorable impression as each individual who had been there remembered it and commented on it during the post-project interviews. Marisol called it, “the most uncomfortable thing ever,” and said she would “never do that again.” Julia also referred to it as “one of the most awkward 96 conversations that I had with them.” I had a similar reaction. My immediate reflection following this group session was that it had been “a disaster on multiple levels.” I had naively envisioned the discussion as a forum for sharing ideas and feelings, negotiating concerns, and uniting our group. Instead, “the talk” came and went with very little apparent evidence of communication or problem solving. A striking aspect of “the talk” was the lack of talking altogether and the silence was obvious, memorable, and confusing to the students. Marisol worried that the boys didn’t like them since they “became serious all of a sudden” and “wouldn’t talk to each other” and were “so very quiet.” Julia remembered that when she “said something and asked them questions, then . . . nobody said anything for like five minutes.” The newcomers who were quiet weren’t able to articulate why they acted “like we don’t know how to speak,” but they, too, noticed the silence. Levinas offers insight into the discomfort caused by the silence; “It is difficult to be silent in someone’s presence . . . It is necessary to speak of something, of the rain and fine weather, no matter what, but to speak, to respond to him and already to answer for him.”94 Comments by the participants suggest that it is, indeed, "difficult to be silent in someone’s presence.” One of the difficulties of the silence was interpreting what it all meant. As the students tried to explain how they made sense of the experience, understanding and misunderstanding stood out as themes. Although the language barrier figured in their explanations, understanding and misunderstanding seemed to include, but also go beyond, comprehending what 97 was said. Nadif explained that he thought the discussion was prompted by a “misunderstanding.” He said he thought Marisol had been “frustrated ‘cuz they were probably talking in Swahili more than English and . . . they stayed among themselves and I think she kinda thought that they weren’t serious.” Nadif’s concern about “the talk” was that it was aimed to “take the fun out of the project.” In the end, though, he felt the situation was resolved. We got right back to work and I mean, Marisol kind of understood that it wasn’t all about work — it was about having fun, too. And I think the other guys kinda understood to be more serious, so I think both points . . . [got] across. The understanding Nadif talked about was not primarily linguistic; rather, it involved coming to a shared understanding as to the style of the group’s collaboration. In his typical diplomatic way, Nadif spoke of newcomers and old- timers understanding each other. If the newcomer boys did indeed get their point across, it wasn’t through verbosity since according to my transcription, they spoke only 45 out of the 858 words spoken during “the talk.” However, Nadif’s role seemed to be to speak for them as he attempted to provide a counterpoint to the girls’ complaints that was both conciliatory and balancing. For instance, in the middle of the talk, Nadif interjected the following: I feel like you’re taking the creativity out of the project — like oh, just get down to work. I mean, it should, they should be able to show that they’re having fun and show that they’re enjoying school, not just all serious work. 98 When I asked him why he started advocating for the newcomers, he replied, . . I think it wasn’t kind of fair that she came at them like that. So I think that I wanted just to kind of help them out.” Julia and Marisol offered interpretations that were more nuanced. While they brought up the possibility of language-based misunderstanding, they also interpreted the newcomers’ silence as evidence that they were upset. Marisol said she thought they were mad and felt bad “’cuz we caused it.” She “felt bad ‘cuz we didn’t want them to think like we hated them ‘cuz we didn’t, you know. I actually liked them.” Julia reported that she didn’t intend to sound like they “didn’t appreciate what they have done for us and [that] they have to be serious and follow our directions the whole time.” Furthermore, she “wasn’t sure if they were gonna understand” and she thought “they were probably thinking they were in trouble or something.” Both girls were also concerned that the conversation lacked a discernable context to the boys. “They were just like this . . . What are they talking about?” Marisol surmised. Julia observed that “we did put them on the spot . . and it was kind of like out of the blue. ‘Cuz I don’t think they knew they were doing that and that we felt that way.” Not only did the conversation not go as they had imagined, but the outcome was also disappointing. “They weren’t even like laughing no more,” Marisol remembered, “and I didn’t want that either. . . I want you to have fun, but when we record, be serious, but then have fun again.” She said that she “did tell a few of them, just loosen up . . .but after that, they were just serious that day. l was uncomfortable.” Julia had a more optimistic assessment of the consequences of “the talk.” “After that, I felt like it was better, 99 like they were getting things done. They were understanding and they were taking it a bit more seriously than they had before.” The newcomers, Peter, Hamisi, Innocent, Juma, all seemed to have vivid recollections of “the talk.” The boys expressed that, as Marisol and Julia suspected, they didn’t entirely understand what was going on. Hamisi and Innocent laughed when I showed them a clip from “the talk.” Hamisi said that he kept quiet because people were talking about things he didn’t understand. Juma also acknowledged “that’s why sometime I wasn’t answer because I wasn’t understand something.” When I asked them if they remembered the feeling that day, they laughed and said they were feeling bad “because they were asking many questions and they couldn’t even talk and respond to the questions.” Peter said he didn’t know why they were asking those questions and felt “not much better” as a result of the talk. Juma said that for some reason he was already feeling bad before he came to the meeting. “You remember that day was asking us questions? We just quiet. I was not feeling good. I don’t know why.” Juma said he wasn’t sure why the girls were asking them questions, but he thought “they want us to know about our project. I think. I don’t know.” He stressed that he didn’t feel bad because of the conversation, but felt bad before. As for the other newcomer boys, “they were quiet like me, but I don’t know if they was mad." Juma recalled how after the talk, the newcomer boys were laughing and said to each other, “I don’t know why I was quiet. They was trying to talk to us and we just quiet, like we don’t know how to speak.” About Marisol and Julia he said, “I 100 don’t know if they were mad, but they were laughing. I think they were happy . . . ‘cuz if you’re mad, you cannot laugh.” From a conventional standpoint, “the talk” might appear as a failed attempt at communication. As Marisol described it, “Everyone was pretty much quiet, you know, just like staring at each other. There was like not a lot of communication between us.” The “lack” of communication could be attributed to inadequate mediation on my part or to the language barrier. In fact, Julia’s deference to me as the conversation petered out suggests that she was looking for help, and several of the newcomers acknowledged that they didn’t understand all that was being said. However, considering “the talk” through a Levinasian lens sheds light on this encounter in ways that go beyond how the talk might have been made more comprehensible and how the newcomers might have been encouraged to speak more. Rather, Levinas’s work complicates this episode and helps me see it as an encounter rich with human spirit and attempted response. First, the newcomers’ silence in part did seem to be due to lack of understanding English, although I am not convinced that the main problem was that they didn’t comprehend the words since I have observed them comprehend and use more complex English than what took place during “the talk.” While Hamisi, the newcomer who appeared to have the least English proficiency, acknowledged that he didn’t understand, Juma and Peter suggested that what they didn’t understand was why “they were asking so many questions.” In other words, as Julia pointed out, the conversation was “out of the blue.” What was more difficult to discern were the intentions and feelings of the other participants. 101 Peter said he didn’t know why the girls had the talk. Juma mentioned that the other newcomers were “quiet like me,” but he didn’t know if they were “mad.” He .also didn’t know for sure how the girls felt, but he thought they were “happy” because “if you’re mad, you cannot Iaugh” and he remembered that they had been laughing. Marisol, on the other hand, thought the newcomers were mad because “they weren’t even laughing no more.” The silences and extra-linguistic communication such as laughter and body language were communicating messages, but they were not rooted in words. The participants, it seemed, were very engaged in trying to understand, but in this case, the exposure of “the saying” seemed to be conveyed to a large degree without speaking. Obviously, the storyline was much more complex than what was communicated through words. Echoing Levinas’s observation, "The plot of the saying that is absorbed in the said is not exhausted in this manifestation."95 Moreover, the silence was not just a display of limited English proficiency. It was powerful communication, a “saying” of exposure that had the effect of exposing the vulnerability of nearly all the participants. As the participants struggled to discern what the others were trying to communicate and why, they attempted to respond. The newcomers, though unable or unwilling to reply in anything but brief responses, still provided answers in response to what they perceived the old-timers wanted to hear. For instance, the reply to “Do you come just to come here?” was “no.” The answer to “Do you like coming here?” was “yes.” When Julia and Marisol sensed discomfort, they reassured the newcomers, “we won’t hurt you" or “say whatever.” Nadif 102 responded to the awkwardness of the situation and tried to advocate for the newcomers. “You’re putting him under pressure,” he interjected in the midst of an uncomfortable exchange. As I watched from the sidelines as the participants tried to read each other and respond accordingly, I was struck by their resilience and willingness to engage with each other, on whatever level they could manage at the time. Participating in this conversation required them to “disclose oneself,” “leaving a shelter"96 in the process. As a “saying,” this discussion “disturb[ed] the still waters”97 as it required me and the participants to truly confront each other on the terms of the Other. (I discussed my role in greater detail in the previous chapter.) After “the talk” our work together continued without any further attempts to “get on the same page,” as Marisol described the diversity of approaches, interests, and preferences that were stitched (but not in straight lines) across the life of the project. Julia had hoped that “as the next week or so continues, we’ll all build an understanding for each other,” but mostly, I think we moved to a phase where the unspoken “understanding” was to not understand and to accept the mystery. But the mystery and misunderstanding was not so much rooted in linguistic difference, but in acknowledging the Other as separate and worthwhile and out of my control. We also learned that there is truth in the old adage, “silence speaks louder than words.” Furthermore, with the option of silence, the newcomers displayed that they were not, in the end, at the mercy of English. 103 Not Understanding as an Ethical Response At our very first meeting I posed this question to the participants, “Can we say in our group it’s o.k. to say, ‘I don’t understand’?” The intention behind this question was to establish a group culture where the newcomers especially could feel free to ask for clarification when they didn’t understand the language. Consistent with much of the discourse around ELLs in school, I was focusing on linguistic difference as an expected obstacle to our interaction. The newcomers reminded me, however, as Nadif said, that “there’s always a way for people to understand each other without speaking.” While language really can be a barrier to interaction and strategies for making English comprehensible to ELLs are useful and important, responding to each other in ethical ways is not entirely dependentonlanguage. The newcomers and old-timers taught me through their words and actions that approaching an Other with kindness and sincere interest is a form of communication that matters a great deal. Peter’s description of the other students who noticed him on his first day at school is illustrative. Upon seeing Peter, these boys simply asked themselves, “who is this guy?” and then “kept on saying ‘hi’ until a meaningful friendship developed, not after, but before and while Peter learned English. Levinasian philosophy of “the saying” as approach and exposure being separate and even more important than “the said” helps explain what the video project participants seemed to know intuitively: we are more than our words. While language-sensitive curriculum should include deliberate scaffolding 104 to attend to language learning and anticipated linguistic barriers, it also seems important to build in adequate flexibility for learners to organically negotiate meaning and to explicitly remind them that worthwhile interaction need not be completely contingent on shared linguistic understanding. Another revision I would now make to my suggestion that it be okay to say “I don’t understand” involves including myself as the person who does not understand. Taking responsibility for an Other requires the humility to recognize that “I don’t understand you” rather than always expecting to be understood. Marisol, for instance, recognized that “with me, [the newcomers] were lost” and Nadif talked about consulting newcomer Landry “when I didn’t understand other guys. And he kind of helped me understand, too.” In both of these examples, old- timers (fluent English speakers) accepted responsibility for language-based misunderstanding and recognized that understanding flows or is obstructed in both directions. “You don’t understand me” might be restated as “I don’t understand you.” Yet, the typical objective in research and curriculum is helping ELLs understand English speakers, not the other way around. The understanding, however, goes beyond decoding and comprehending words. As a teacher, I worked hard to carefully scaffold learning activities and interaction in order to facilitate understanding for the ELLs. While these efforts were well- intended and probably helpful in some ways, they too oversimplified the role of language. As exemplified by the incident where the participants worked to convey the meaning of “embarrassing” to Landry, negotiating linguistic misunderstanding can be a complex, social project. Because meaning is always rooted in individual 105 experience and interpretation, bridging a language gap requires more than knowledge of a simple definition. Rather, it can be an opportunity for responding to an Other that requires offering yourself and being willing to learn and respond in the moment. Finally, I learned from the participants that saying “I don’t understand” might mean patiently engaging in awkward and ambiguous situations such as “the talk.” Experiencing “the talk” reminded all of us, I think, that communication involves much more than words. It is listening to what an Other says and also what she doesn’t say. Silence can be a type of “saying” that may be, in part, a product of not having the words, but it might also be a “saying” in its own right. Most often, if an ELL doesn’t speak it is assumed that she doesn’t have the necessary language. But as Juma explained, sometimes people are quiet, “like we don’t know how to speak,” not because they don’t know how to speak, but as if. The silence that drenched the interactional space during “the talk” provided plentiful opportunities for the newcomers and old-timers to attempt to respond to each other. But they could not rely on words. During this encounter, the newcomers acknowledged and the old-timers suspected some misunderstanding due to the language barrier. However, language-based obstacles to communication were intertwined with denser and more complicated human elements. What might have appeared on the surface to be a case of not understanding words was more likely a case of struggling — and never quite succeeding - to understand each other. Yet to their credit, the 106 newcomers and old-timers did not abandon interaction because of the vulnerability and ambiguity that surrounded this situation. 107 CHAPTER 4 RESPONSIBILITY Juma’s advice to a new student: . . do his homework and to study. Yeah. And to keep watching teacher when teacher teaching. Yeah and to not talk in classroom. Some people have problem — they keep talking in classroom. They not following teacher when teacher teaching.” - Juma, newcomer “T here’s stuff that l have to do and I can 't be here all the time and wait on them to get their act together when they should already understand that it's their responsibility. “ - Julia, old-timer Although the video project took place after school, the participants brought with them expectations for “appropriate,” “responsible” behavior that had been instilled in them through years of school experience. Similarly, I sought to enact my role according to my understanding of professional responsibility. Just as the newcomers and old-timers performed the “good student” role, I deliberately tried to be the “good" teacher. Lurking behind these expectations was the sense that any other way was, as Juma said, a “problem.” In fact, a particular vision of what it looks like to be responsible was expected by Julia who drew on a familiar discourse of individual responsibility to implied or explicit expectations. Claiming that the newcomers needed “to get their act together,” she voiced concern that they didn’t fully understand “their responsibility.” In the eyes of Julia and Marisol, the newcomers had the very problem Juma identified, a nuance that escaped the 108 newcomers. In Levinas’s vision, this language of “problem” is the problem, for ironically, the participants’ embracing of this received notion of school-based responsibility got in the way of their ethical responsibility to and for one another. In this chapter, I first establish theoretical groundwork for school-based and Levinasian concepts of responsibility. Next, I offer examples of old-timers,’ newcomers’, and my own enactment of this familiar sense of responsibility. I then bring the Levinasian concept of responsibility as response into relationship with the responsibility discourse prevalent in schools. Specifically, I consider how the participants’ conceptions of school-based responsibility interacted with and sometimes interfered with their interaction with each other and the project. I also use the Levinasian concept of responsibility, which I will refer to as “responsiveness” or “response,” to reflect on moments when participants displayed an Other-centered orientation in their interactions. Implicit in this type of responding is listening, learning from the Other, and following his/her lead. Considering the project in light of these two notions of responsibility brings to the surface the tension that exists as participants attempted to fulfill their school- based responsibility — in this case, completing assigned tasks and creating the welcome video — while also responding to their peers, especially when responding may have seemed to compromise the project. Student Responsibility The discourse of personal responsibility is prevalent in American school curriculum literature. School and/or classroom policies are commonly prefaced by 109 “it is the student’s responsibility to . . followed by admonitions to come to class on time, notify the school if you’re absent, or ask questions when you don’t understand. Beyond the responsibility rhetoric easily found in school and classroom management approaches, larger curricular aims of schooling are often tied to cultivating personal responsibility as an essential component of democratic citizenship. As stated in a prominent handbook for teachers, “ample evidence indicates that teaching responsibility is a high priority in US. education.”98 It is not surprising, then, that dominant, if stereotypical, notions of the “good student” are closely connected with the “responsible student” — a student who is aware of school rules and behavioral norms, completes tasks as directed, communicates respectfully, and participates in school-sponsored opportunities for academic and extra-curricular learning and service. Rules, standards, policies, and core values often form the structure within which one exercises responsibility at school and also frequently serve as the measuring stick for discerning whether or not someone is a responsible student. Since these assumptions are culturally based, however, as aspects of the implicit curriculum, they are as much absorbed as taught, forming a more or less easy relationship with the other cultures learners operate within at home and at school.99 For English language learners and their peers whose home language is English, multiple factors contribute to the nature of the student identities learners assume and these rdentrtres are nerther stable nor srngular. 00 For some, frgurrng out these expectations for student behavior and choosing whether or not to 110 conform can be particularly perplexing and problematic. For others, embracing the role of “responsible student” appears quite easy and natural although there is a distinction between “doing school” and genuinely engaging with learning.101 Given the pervasive emphasis on teaching and learning “responsibility" in school curricula, consideration is warranted of how ELLs, as newcomers to the system, perceive and take on student responsibilities within an unfamiliar school culture and community. Research has considered this issue from multiple angles. One strand of literature considers how to support ELLs in learning to adapt to cultural and behavioral norms within a school.102 The ease and nature of adaptation depends on the student’s background and the local culture of the school, among other factors. Some studies document how many immigrant students, especially those who have recently arrived, comport themselves in ways that conform to the “responsible student” paradigm.103 They appear respectful and responsible — the kind of student many teachers hope for. Yet, adapting to school norms as conveyed in both the explicit and implicit curricula can have both positive and negative consequences for immigrant students. On the one hand, they might be perceived favorably by their teachers and position themselves to receive needed academic, linguistic, and social support; at the same time, they avoid problems at home and at school stemming from behavioral infractions. On the other hand, it is easy for these “model minority” students to become essentially invisible and unknown104 — the downside of not being a squeaky wheel. ELLs, who for whatever reason don’t 111 adopt the “responsible student” persona (or who aren’t granted that status), may be subject to negative labeling and lose access to important academic and human resources.105 Furthermore, actions and attitudes attributed to lack of responsibility may in reality be indicators of other complex issues such as misunderstanding of expectations or language, cultural clashes, or individual circumstances, such as trauma, competing out-of—school responsibilities, or gaps in prior schooling. The way ELLs approach school and identify as students not only affects their relationships with teachers, but also with their peers. Behaving “responsibly” creates an image for peers that can facilitate or hinder access into certain social circles. Ironically, ELLs who act in accordance with school- sanctioned norms for “good students,” may find themselves ignored by other good students in the mainstream and ostracized by peers who reject these norms.106 As a consequence, students check-out, drop-out, or otherwise fall through the cracks, not necessarily because they are opposed to education, but because they are opposed to schooling.107 A Le vinasian Construct of Responsibility Conversations about responsibility in curriculum studies tend to focus on personal or community responsibility — that is, how curricula might foster community and personal accountability. Levinas, in contrast, offers an alternative definition that constitutes responsibility as an Other-centered rather than a self- centered or community-centered orientation. Responsibility in a Levinasian 112 sense is somewhat different from the way the word is often used to denote responsible behavior. Instead, Levinasian responsibility implies responding, answering the call of the Other. Responsibility in more traditional usage often implies answering to authority or answering for yourself, such as when students listen respectfully to their teacher’s instructions or when they choose to put extra effort into studying for an upcoming exam. In contrast, a Levinasian notion of responsibility does not find recourse to an established set of rules or ethical standards. For Levinas, the self is subject to the Other, not “as if it were a matter of an obligation or a duty about which a decision could be made.”108 In fact, at the heart of Levinas’s philosophy of relational ethics is a pre- rational and incontrovertible responsibility for the Other. “I am I,” Levinas . . . 1 . explains, “tn the sole measure that I am responsrble.” 09 He locates thrs responsibility in the face-to-face encounter with another person. The tie with the Other is knotted only as responsibility, this moreover, whether accepted or refused, whether knowing or not knowing how to assume it, whether able or unable to do something concrete for the Other. To say: here I am [me voicr]. To do something for the Other. To give. To be human spirit, that's it. . . . I analyze the inter-human relationship as if, in proximity with the Other - beyond the image I myself make of the other man - his face, the expressive in the Other (and the whole human body is . . . . 110 In thrs sense more or less face), were what ordarns me to serve hrm. Although Levinas calls attention to serving others, he is not talking about charity from a position of privilege — helping in a patronizing sense. Rather, he emphasizes that the Other is “beyond the image I myself make of the other man.” Since I cannot fully know the Other, I must learn from him/her what to do and how 113 to serve. Thus, Levinas does not prescribe the nature of the response that should be freely given to the Other. The appropriate response can’t be predicted beforehand, but is discerned in the moment through generously and humbly listening and learning from the Other. We can think of Levinasian ethical responsibility as being similar to a jazz . . . . . . . , . 111 musrcran who rmprovrses rn response to another musrcran s musrc. As Ann Chinnery explains, this improvisation is not a free-for-all. Jazz musicians acquire a repertoire of musical possibilities through extended study and practice, and “at the moment of performance, they must suspend deliberation and abandon the known in order to embrace risk and vulnerability.”1 12 Similarly, in educational or other contexts, our responses naturally emerge from our knowledge and experience, but ought not to be limited by what we know, with our “repertoire [having] more to do with the capacity for vulnerability and exposure to the other, to the pains and pleasures of a human life.”1 13 Levinasian responsibility is distinguished by two other features. First, the ethical relation is non-symmetrical and devoid of an assumption of reciprocity.114 Second, it is borne of the assumption that the self and other are infinitely separate and unique. Thus, I can’t assume to fully comprehend the Other no matter our perceived similarities. Responsibility, then, is “difference which is non-indifference.”1 15 In other words, responsibility is embedded with the understanding that the Other is completely separate - different - from me, but at the same time responsibility stems from not 114 being indifferent to him/her. Levinasian responsibility, then, might be characterized as responsiveness. Describing Responsibility Since the purpose of the video was to provide a helpful and welcoming orientation to Central High School, we spent considerable time discussing what a new student might need to know in order to be successful. Participant responses pointed towards a perception of school that reflects traditional discourse around responsibility, although the newcomers and old-timers focused their comments on slightly different types of performances. The newcomers seemed to be well- versed in behaviors that created the appearance of being “the good student.” For instance, during our second session I asked the participants to brainstorm a list of “what international students need to know.” For this activity, they were not in mixed groups — the old-timers worked together and there were two groups of newcomers. The newcomer lists included speaking English, being “nice to people,” and learning how to get around the school. The majority of the items were traditional markers of good student behavior: paying attention to the teacher, bringing necessary supplies, reading and writing quietly, not being late, respecting teachers and other students. It seems that the newcomers had learned the rules for playing the school game, or at least the outward, observable manifestations of “responsible” behavior. The old-timers’ list included mention of logistics like the newcomers — how to get around the building, how lockers work, when you need to provide your 115 student number. But the rest of their list focused not on following rules, but on school participation beyond the rudimentary requirements of being a student in a class. Rather than enumerating a list of classroom rules like the newcomers did (being prompt, quiet, and attentive), the old-timers recommended “getting to know the teachers.” For example, Nadif talked about how his “freshman year, I had no guidance and nobody put me back on the right track.” As Marisol put it, it was necessary for new students to know about “clubs and sports, dance, you know like any other stuff,” and Julia expressed the need to know “how to get involved” beyond classes in order to “participate and know more people.” These suggestions imply a more self-directed vision of school, where students forge relationships, take advantage of interesting opportunities, and secure a place in the school community. Whereas the newcomers seemed to portray student responsibility as following rules, the old-timers portrayed successful students as those who took responsibility for themselves by choosing to get involved in extracurricular activities and reaching out to teachers. Similar views also came up in the interviews when the participants talked about what advice they would give to other students. The newcomers emphasized compliance to rules and a responsible student persona. Landry, for instance, said, “You know that to be quiet in school is good because you can not bother the school and the teacher.” Likewise, Juma explained that new students should “keep watching teacher when teacher teaching . . . and to not talk in classroom.” Several of the newcomer boys contrasted desirable student behavior with what they observed Americans do. Gilbert said that it was important to 116 . . . teach [new students] how to behave at school, like not chewing gum or sag [your pants] because most of the American boys . . . they sag, they smoke, and drugs. Just tell them that in America most people do like this, but you try to be different. Emphasizing the contrast between himself and other students, Bosco told about how he responded to being bullied in the cafeteria not by fighting as other students do, but “no matter what they do to him, he doesn’t fight back.” For his part, Landry decried the immddest dress of American boys and girls saying that “when you’re from Africa, you cannot.” He spoke of their values to “not hate each other, to obey each other.” Certainly, the perspectives of these students reflect culturally-laden assumptions as they draw a distinction between “American” and “African.” But in this case, the cultural norms and values they carried with them from their places of origin happened to coincide with the culturally-based vision of “the responsible student” that prevails in many US. school contexts. It also seems likely that the newcomers have experienced the advantage of “good” behavior. Students who are quiet in class, come on time, bring their supplies, and pay attention tend to stay in the good graces of their teachers and avoid problems. As Juma said, “I never get in trouble.” Additionally, Landry explained that this compliance enabled them to not “bother the school and the teacher.” The newcomers’ descriptions of how they imagined school and conducted themselves at school does not seem to be simply surrendering to authority, however. The clear and deliberate difference they articulate between themselves and the “American” students suggests that their compliance to school 117 authority is also a manifestation of their African identities. However, while this responsible behavior was advantageous in certain ways, it did not necessarily guarantee meaningful interaction with peers or teachers or rich engagement with learning. Although the old-timers had also mastered the school game, their approach to being good students went beyond abiding by the rules identified by the newcomers. The newcomer approach to some degree seemed to be about not “bothering” or making waves; in contrast, the old-timers described a desirable student performance that was calculated to exert influence. Their vision for the successful student involved students assuming responsibility for their school experience not just by following the rules, but by getting to know their teachers, exercising leadership in group settings, and expressing their talents and interests through involvement in extra-curricular activities. Nonetheless, while the old- timers notion of responsibility was perhaps more sawy than the newcomers’, it was still a very school-based conceptualization of responsibility. Consistent with their recommendations, the old-timers were very active participants in school life. Julia was active in several clubs, had once been a cheerleader, and took a challenging load of college-prep classes. At the time of the video project, Marisol said she was “just trying to get out of high school” and had recently limited her participation in extra-curricular activities although she, too, was involved in clubs and an organization to mentor other students. Nadif was junior class president and taking classes to earn an international 118 baccalaureate. They seemed to be well-known in the school by teachers, administrators, and their peers. In class settings, the old-timers described how they took a very active role in group work. Marisol explained that “What happens a lot of times is I be doin’ the work — the majority of the work. They literally just sit there and talk or don’t talk at all. And you only have one person doin’ the work. And I’m usually that person . . Nadif expressed a similar opinion, “I think it’s really the students’ responsibility to make sure that work is being done and if a student knows that they will not be able to work with another person in the group, they should voluntarily . . . get out of the group.” Julia criticized students (she wasn’t speaking about ELLs) who “say that they don’t understand, but really they don’t listen in class or they don’t participate . . . they just blame it on the teacher for not being able to teach well, but that’s not the truth.” Each of these comments expresses a sense of self-reliance, of getting the job done, of being responsible for your own learning. It suggests responsibility understood as answering for yourself, which is a version of responsibility that is quite different from the Levinasian concept of responsibility that is characterized by responding to and for the Other. The difference between the types of student responsibility described by the newcomers and the old-timers is not a clear contrast. All the participants demonstrated general compliance with what was expected for student behavior. Moreover, all of the old-timers and most of the newcomers presented themselves confidently, and their talk suggested a marked deliberateness about the way they acted at school, although most of the newcomers were confronting academic 119 challenges that seemed beyond their control. Juma, for example, explained that one of his classes “was too hard. . . she [the teacher] was try to teach but I was not understand.” In the same vein, Peter talked about a class that was also “too hard, I don’t know how to do experiment. I don’t know what to do there.” These instances, however, were perceived primarily as a language problem — an obstacle that the newcomers seemed to accept as a temporary reality. Although they had to resign themselves to inaccessible curriculum, they did not overtly question the system, at least to me. Rather, it seemed that they had learned to live within it by following rules for student behavior that might only create a facade of learning (the appearance of a responsible student), but prevented problems. They expressed awareness that their behavior was a choice that put them outside the norm of behavior they observed by some of the other students. The way they acted at school was not passive conformity -- as Gilbert said, “you try to be different.” A similar attitude was expressed by the old-timers, who also set themselves apart from peers who were “lazy” or didn’t accept personal responsibility. There was nothing in the old-timers’ speech or actions that led me to think they didn’t also conform to traditional standards for student behavior and participation — paying attention, following directions, deferring to adult authority. Yet, probably in large part because they had the advantage of English language proficiency, years of prior schooling in English, and social capital at school, they were able — and had chosen — to take proactive responsibility for their school experience beyond simply fulfilling tasks and carrying out instructions. This type 120 of responsibility, although conducive to success in school, reflects a discourse of individualism that lies in marked contrast to the relational ethic or responsiveness proposed by Levinas. From the participants’ talk and behavior during the project, it was clear to me that they had imbibed the traditional discourse of school-based responsibility. Although the newcomers had spent far less time in American schools than the old-timers, they seemed to have brought with them expectations of deference to school and adult authority that easily fit into their current school context. Furthermore, their talk about appropriate student behavior seemed a likely recitation of classroom rules they were currently subject to in their classes — “pay attention to the teacher, don’t be late, sit quietly, come prepared.” I did nothing to trouble these assumptions, accepting them as obediently as the students had inscribed them. And in many ways, internalizing it had served them well. Furthermore, my point is not to suggest that this type of responsibility is necessarily a bad thing. Clearly, for schools to function, there is need for order, self-discipline, and behavioral norms that facilitate safety and mutual respect. That said, there is also room to complicate this traditional construct of student responsibility; indeed, a substantial body of literature has already leveled a variety of criticisms against these assumptions.116 My focus, however, concerns the “responsible student” performance as it influenced contexts requiring interaction and collaboration with others, such as the video project. In particular, I consider a Levinasian notion of responsiveness to bring to light possible ways 121 “educational practices are implicated in ethical response.”1 17 For instance, while a “responsible student” might focus on task completion in partner work, an ethical response in a Levinasian sense might require a concern for the partner above the task. A Levinasian critique of school-based responsibility might also question the unthinking recourse to established rules, norms, and systems that could relieve a person of carefully considering the specificity of the moment. In reflecting on the characteristics of good students described by the newcomers and old-timers, it is apparent that most of these items are behaviors or information. Each group implies something relational (getting to know the teachers, how to get involved, how to be nice to people, respect teacher and students), but the emphasis is on knowledge and performances that a person can know or do quite independent of an Other (coming to class on time, bringing needed materials, understanding school procedures, paying attention to the teacher). Moreover, the complexity and risk of the recommendations that require relating (responding) to an Other are disguised behind the veil of knowledge. Ultimately, enacting the role of the responsible student and teacher can be a solo performance rather than an improvisational one where the players respond to each other. This phenomenon played out in the video project, and although the central goal of the video project was to create rich interaction among the students, the project itself - and the pre-conceived ideas we brought to the task - actually thwarted our interaction. We encountered this paradox on multiple occasions during the video project as task-completion, prior knowledge, 122 entrenched perceptions of responsible behavior, and carefully constructed pedagogy competed with opportunities for responsive interaction. Performing Responsibility As the newcomers and old-timers collaborated on the video project, their sense of responsibility seemed to influence their participation and interaction in significant ways. In this section, I offer three examples to illustrate this form of participation. As I noted earlier, in general all the participants were careful to follow instructions and were adept at recognizable school tasks. For instance, during the third session I asked them to think about and share an experience from their first weeks at Central High and generate a list of five items they thought new students would need to know. (At this point, we had largely abdicated language specifying that the new students targeted for the welcome video were immigrants; this seemed to be understood.) I had set up the task so that they first discussed within their groups and later in mixed groups. Thus, the old-timers were working in a group without any newcomers. Throughout their conversation, the participants made comments suggesting they were deferring to my directions. When Nadif told an experience, Marisol replied, “You only shared one . . .” Hearkening back to the instructions, Nadif countered, “It says ‘share only one.” In another example of caring about her performance as a student, Julia noted at one point that her writing was getting “sloppy” and expressed concern about categorizing their ideas under the “right” headings. Still keeping the discussion firmly within the confines of the stated task, Nadif said to Marisol, “You’re pretty 123 good, Marisol. You got like three out of five of our ideas.” Yet while they were “responsibly” completing the task as assigned, they also engaged in friendly banter with each other. Marisol: I know — how lockers work ‘ cuz you know . . . Nadif: Oh, for real! Good thinking, Marisol . . . (slightly sarcastically) Marisol: You know how like some people don’t know. . . if you’ve never opened a locker before, it’s hard, okl Nadif: We’re not very good thinkers, are we? Julla: I’m just tired, it’s Friday. Nadif: It’s Friday — you can’t blame me . . . Julla: O.k. o.k. Let’s think of something. While the assigned task did feel somewhat perfunctory, Marisol kept focused on the larger goal, making the video. ‘We’re gonna rock this video, dudel” she declared as they finished the task. While Julia, Marisol, and Nadif’s interaction was certainly shaped by the assignment, they demonstrated layers to their participation: doing the task, socially interacting, and keeping the big picture in mind. Throughout their interaction, the old-timers mildly pushed each other by joking, questioning, and nudging the task forward. For example, Nadif’s sarcastic response to Marisol’s idea about lockers, “Oh, for reall” communicated that he wasn’t certain this was a necessary addition to their list. And Julia regularly inserted comments intended to keep them focused on the task - “Anyway, moving on . . or “Let’s think of something.” At the same time, they seemed to play off of each other in responsive ways by acknowledging they were tired, negotiating responses, and teasing. 124 The newcomers’ rendition of the same task also demonstrates concern for following directions and completing the assigned task, but the nature of their interaction seemed even more controlled by the task. At first, they were unsure what to do, but after I clarified the task, they began offering ideas and writing them down. They were concerned with spelling words correctly and writing on the poster in an acceptable fashion. Juma kept the group on task, “Excuse me, number four,” he said to solicit the next answer. Juma: Excuse me, number four. Bosco: They need to know anything about school. Anny: What do they need to know about school? Juma: If you are new, you need to know how you can get into the school. Innocent: Class — where it is Juma writes. “How to get in school.” Peter comments in Kirundi. Before they had identified five items, the other groups were finished and l was anxious to move on to the next task. Anny to boys: Are you done or you wanna do one more? Juma: You say five? Anny: Yeah, but it’s o.k if you have four. Peter: No, one more. In reality, I didn’t particularly care how many ideas the participants generated, neither was I concerned with how they categorized their items or whether or not the handwriting was neat. My purpose was simply to invite the participants to brainstorm possible concepts to include in the video. In contrast to the old-timers where a layer of socializing was evident as they fulfilled the assignment, the 125 newcomers seemed focused on the immediacy of this particular task, rarely deviating from it. In general, their interaction included less socializing while they were engaged in a schoolish task, such as the group assignment I just described. Granted, it’s hard to discern how much of their performance was shaped by their awareness that they were on camera and being watched by me and other participants. Additionally, the fact that they were doing the task in English likely contributed to their interaction, probably limiting it. Regardless, the boys were clearly focused on getting the job done in a responsible manner with the required number of answers neatly written and spelled correctly. The example I offer here is illustrative of other tasks I assigned in the process of creating the welcome video. Brainstorming in small groups was a regular activity in my effort to encourage the participants to share ideas and think creatively about possible content for the video. In most every case, I provided very specific questions to answer, a set number of responses, and a procedure for accomplishing the assignment. Additionally, I usually modeled the task and provided a form/format for recording responses. For instance, to elicit memories from the first week of school, one activity involved dividing a sheet of paper into four squares, writing a preselected cue word in each square, drawing a picture to represent a memory, and then sharing one experience with other participants. All this as an invitation to reminisce! Looking back, it seems clear to me how the structure I imposed hijacked the kind of organic, social interaction l was trying to encourage. But as an ESL 126 teacher, I was also aware that instructional activities ought to be carefully scaffolded to facilitate understanding and participation by the learners.118 To some degree, the structured interaction did serve a purpose to mediate the language barrier and provided “permission” to interact without requiring participants to initiate uncomfortable encounters with unfamiliar people. In other words, it could be argued that my scaffolding helped make the interaction “safe” and accomplished to a certain extent the goal to “reduce uncertainty and anxiety concerning interaction with outgroup members.”1 19 However, the process of reducing ambiguity and discomfort inadvertently contributed to our turning our gaze not to each other, but to the task. It took us away from responding to each other, protecting us from what Levinas considers an unavoidable element of uncertainty in our encounters with each other, “an exposure to others, a vulnerability and a responsibility in the proximity of others, the—one-for-the- other.”120 Yet my efforts were an enactment of teacher responsibility similar to the students. Just as l responsibly structured tasks, they responsibly carried them OUt. In addition to the structured activities, there were also a number of moments when the activity was far less regimented or was initiated by the participants. Significantly, these were times that seemed more conducive to responding to one another. Although part of the purpose behind scaffolding activities was to decrease uneasiness, when I asked the participants to recall a time when they felt most comfortable, their answers often involved times when l 127 had given them a more open-ended, less school-like assignment. As an example, when he felt very comfortable, Hamisi identified when “they’re walking around and talking to the teachers and going to the field, talking and asking people questions.” Innocent concurred and said our structured work in the classroom wasn’t comfortable “because we were sitting in a chair.” Marisol answered the question similarly, “When we were like taking pictures. You know we were all together, just taking random pictures, you know? It wasn’t like structure.” When I asked her to explain, she said Because we were just free, we weren’t like structured, sit down and talk about something specific, we just went around and took pictures. And you give us like our space — we didn’t have to be like all with each other in the same table, no, like if you wanted to walk over there, you know, I felt good. I’m like ‘hey you guys! Look over there!” and then we’d all go and it was like ‘hey let’s take pictures of that’ and we‘d all go with him. So we just kind of went our different ways, but still together kind of thing. I didn’t feel pressure or anything, just take pictures. Marisol’s explanation highlights several salient points and suggests that the unstructured nature of the task gave them freedom to respond to each other. As she observed an opportune photo, “then we’d all go," and when someone else had an idea, “we’d all go with him.” Her description of going “our different ways, but still together” seems to suggest improvisation, responding to each other without subsuming each other. Her final statement, “I didn’t feel pressure or anything, just take pictures” reminds me of the weight of fulfilling a mandated task in a particular way; yet, a purpose - taking pictures — was the point around which 128 interaction coalesced. When I asked Nadif if it would have been better had I intervened more, he said, For positive — we would’ve got more work done. More people would’ve been . . . just trying to get everything done. . . The negative part would’ve been that more people are not thinking, they’re not being creative, and they’re not working together. It’s just straight work. Nadif’s answer encapsulates how school-based responsibility and Levinasian responsiveness might appear differently in practice — “just trying to get everything done” and “straight work” versus “thinking,” “being creative,” and “working together.” Significantly, Nadif tied my intervention as the teacher to the school- based responsibility track, implying that leaving students alone might result in the type of interaction l was actually seeking. Reading these comments through a Levinasian framework highlights several aspects that are less obvious when read through a school-based responsibility lens. While the familiar discourse of responsibility often emphasizes staying dutifully focused on the task — getting “work done” — a Levinasian lens shifts the focus to the relational aspects of the task. It does not necessarily suggest that completing the task is irrelevant or unimportant; rather, a Levinasian perspective emphasizes the “passivity of the ‘for-another,”’121 which implies the suspension of my agenda in order to respond to the Other. In a situation of ethical response, “being creative” and “working together” naturally follow as the involved parties listen and learn from the Other in order to figure out a response that cannot be entirely predicted or pre-planned. The end result of such an approach may be the same as in a highly structured 129 task, but the process of accomplishing this end may look quite different, and for different reasons. Naturally, on other occasions, the participants initiated their own interaction. For instance, frequently after our official meetings ended, the newcomer boys stuck around and played with the technology. One day, the boys announced to me, “We can sing” and wanted to be filmed. Two of the boys started a fabulous rendition of a gospel hymn, clapping and swaying to the beat. By the time the song ended, two more boys had joined them. Another time, Gilbert grabbed the small audio recorder l was using to record our sessions and launched into a mock radio or talk-show interview. An excerpt from this episode follows. Notice how the boys seem to intuitively respond to each other. Gilbert: Central High School is a very grateful school . . . Hey Juma! Juma: Hey - What’s going on? Gilbert: I like it. I like my teachers. I like my friends. I play soccer at Central High School. My teachers are very thoughtful to me — they give me everything I want. (Boys laugh.) They give me — urn - reasonable explanation. But sometimes they are tough, huh? Very tough sometimes. . Gilbert: . . . I’m Gilbert. Don’t forget my name. Gilbert. What's your name, dude? Peter: Yeah - My name is Peter. . . Peter: This is Peter. Don’t forget my name. Central is good. Last year I played soccer. . . You see these shoes? From Central. You see that pictures right there, the high school right there, the television? This school is good. I like it. You want to talk some? o.k. (He hands recorder to Juma) Juma: Hey — you know — I’m Juma. Don’t forget me. I like Central High school. That’s why I come here every day. This is my friend, Bosco. He from Congo, you know. Yeah. He’s my African brother. 130 I’ve only provided a brief extract of their conversation, but particularly striking was the way the boys seamlessly played off each other and did so in English. This was improvisation, fluid and organic. It was also a striking contrast to the way they tended to act during structured activities with the old-timers. It seemed that as they tossed off the cloak of school-based responsibility, they became freer to engage with each other on their own terms, and interestingly, also seemed to become freer to speak English. I would be tempted to attribute this to the absence of old-timers in the mix - and certainly, this was an important factor - but the fact that their interaction seemed similarly stifled when they were doing a structured task with each other leads me to wonder if the imposition of an assignment also played a role. It is also interesting how in this moment, the newcomers are still being “responsible” to the task of the video project as their discussion provides an introduction to Central High School. Attempting Responsibility I do not mean to imply that the internalization of traditional expectations for student and teacher responsibility only thwarted responsive interaction. Rather, it seems more accurate to say that moments of genuinely responsive interaction happened both because of and in spite of existing mental and pedagogical structures that triggered a performance of school-based responsibility. As Julia explained, “because I think that as we worked together that we became friends. If we didn’t work together, we wouldn’t have become friends at all.” The sense of 131 responsibility that seemed at least to some degree to motivate the “work” kept the participants in the game, so to speak. In addition, highly structured tasks did not necessarily prevent responsive interaction. However, the performance of school- based responsibility which roughly took the form of “getting the job done” for the old-timers and deference to “authority” for the newcomers often seemed to prevail, thus shaping the interaction in ways that tended to prioritize the project over the person. In general, when there was a mixed group, the newcomers deferred to the old-timers. After our third meeting, I wrote, “The [old-timers] continue to take charge of everything. It doesn’t feel like power-grabbing and the [newcomers] seem to defer. It feels like the unwritten order of things.” In fact, the newcomers often retained their student-like personas with the old-timers, dutifully complying with the direction the old-timers set for the interaction. The old-timers also maintained their way of assuming responsibility for the task. Nonetheless as expected, each of the participants had his/her own style of interaction. Nadif, in particular, seemed to be more inclined towards responding in a Levinasian sense to those around him. While he typically took a leadership role, he also regularly attempted to engage the newcomers in substantive ways. For instance, in the following example the participants were preparing to film a brief excerpt offering advice to new students. 132 Nadif: How do you guys wanna do this? How do you guys wanna do this? Juma: What? Nadif to Juma: How do you want to do this? (slowly and enunciates) Nadif: Do you wanna stand there and explain? Nadif to Bosco: Alright. How do you want to do this? Nadif: Do you want to talk about how to do your work on time? How to be respectful? Juma: Yes. Nadif: your teacher, your peers, and all the staff in the building Bosco: I’ll just say how to be nice to the teacher. . . . Nadif: O.k. come on, let’s start. We’ll put you first. Here, Nadif was facilitating the task by trying to elicit opinions from the others. For whatever reason, however, the newcomers didn’t readily respond. It’s hard to know if this was a language issue or something else. While Nadif acknowledged that “it was kind of difficult” because of the language barrier, “we kind of found ways to understand each other and kind of get the points across.” In this example, Nadif first repeated the question, then adjusted the rate of speech. When the other boys still didn’t answer, he changed the question to a yes/no question and supplied examples. At this point, Bosco offered a suggestion. Although Nadif’s approach wasn’t the most direct or efficient way, he persisted in his attempt to engage the others, reading them to discern if they understood. His statement, “We’ll put you first,” referred to Bosco taking the first turn at being filmed, but Nadif’s words also are reminiscent of Levinasian responsiveness — putting the Other first. At the same time, Bosco and Juma were simultaneously responding to Nadif, following his lead for accomplishing the task, and in a way, putting him first. This incident illustrates how a responsive stance is not necessarily a one-way street. Moreover, responding to the Other does not 133 preclude task completion. Rather, an Other-centered orientation has the possibility of opening a space for both ethical interaction and task completion. In contrast, as I will discuss in greater detail later, a fixation on the task and a particular way of doing it can sabotage the very interaction the task was intended to engender. Nadif, however, seemed to be able to retain sufficient openness to the newcomers that they were able to be similarly open to him. In the post-project interviews, the newcomers spoke favorably about Nadif and described various things he did to respond to them. For instance, Innocent - a young man who seemed rather timid and shy throughout the project — said he liked Nadif because “if you don’t understand anything, he explains it to you” and he doesn’t talk “very fast so you [can] get what [he]’s saying.” Referring to Nadif’s interest in learning some Swahili, Bosco said, “He spoke to me in my language.” Juma explained that “When I didn’t understand — I just ask Nadif, | just say ‘What did she say?’ And he translated for me.” Bosco and Juma’s reference to speaking “my language” and “translat[ing] for me” are interesting because Nadif didn’t actually speak Kirundi or Swahili and when I questioned Juma about translating, he clarified that what he meant was Nadif explained the meaning of something. Yet, Juma’s and Bosco’s words - speaking another’s language and” translating for another - seem to describe the spirit of Levinasian responsiveness. What mattered most was Nadif’s reaching out and attempting to meet the newcomers on their own terms in ways they could understand. 134 Julia’s and Landry’s interaction while choosing music for the video illustrates another attempt at responding. After our group sessions were officially over, I met with Julia and Landry to do some work to finalize the video. (Due to some technical problems, we had to end the project before the video was entirely finished.) Fairly early on in the project, Julia had assumed responsibility for the video and seemed to have a particular vision for how she wanted it to turn out. At the same time, she expressed a desire for input from the other group members. This desire to listen to the others, however, was still task—focused. Seeking their opinions served an instrumental purpose of getting the job done and also remained within the school-based responsibility paradigm as it was her way of helping them pull their weight, thus fulfilling their individual responsibility to the cause. In the following example, I describe how Julia’s attempts at soliciting Landry’s perspective began as an attempt at responsiveness but ended up reinforcing a school-based responsibility stance. The three of us sat around the computer table with the goal of weaving together various video segments and selecting background music. Julia took the lead although she tried to solicit Landry’s opinion especially about the music. Landry indicated that she could choose whatever music she liked because he didn’t listen to the kind of American pop music that Julia had suggested. Julia pulled up some songs on Youtube and asked us if we liked them. Sometimes Landry nodded in agreement or indicated with facial expressions that he didn’t like a particular song, but he didn’t say much. At one point, Julia said something to the effect of, “Give me your opinion — that's why you’re here!” When Landry 135 wasn’t giving her any suggestions for songs, she tried another approach, “Just name a letter and I’ll look at those songs,” referring to her vast collection of music on her computer. Landry understood and said, D.’ Eventually, Landry suggested the name of a particular singer whom Julia knew. While Julia was open to this possibility, she didn’t think the lyrics fit with the video. (They were love songs.) But to accommodate Landry’s preference, she found the same song in an instrumental version without lyrics. Expressing his disappointment, Landry asked why we were using instrumental instead of “songs.” Overall, the interaction felt stifled and awkward. Landry, who was a leader among the newcomers and could understand and communicate quite well in English, remained silent much of the time. As I observed this interaction and reflected on it later, I saw both Landry and Julia trying to collaborate, but finding it difficult. I wondered if Landry was deferring to Julia as a teacher or if his silence was a way of holding his ground. I wondered how much of the interaction was shaped by linguistic obstacles, except Landry could understand and communicate quite well in English. It was also curious that Landry who generally seemed willing to voice his opinion, chose to remain silent. In a later interview, Julia brought up this experience remembering that Landry “didn’t really say a lot and I just didn’t know what to do.” She surmised that he might have felt “uncomfortable” since “he doesn’t really know me.” This was a case where even the task was insufficient to promote desired interaction. Yet, Julia and Landry did make overtures to the other person such as 136 Julia saying, “Give me your opinion — that’s why you’re here!” or Landry expressing an opinion through body language. At the same time, something about their encounter seemed to position the Other in instrumental ways. Julia’s declaration, “that’s why you’re here!” implies that Landry’s role is functional and a role that she has assigned. I believe that her desire to hear other people’s opinions was sincere. In fact, she said she’d prefer to work with someone who was “not afraid to give his opinions.” However, Julia’s stance is demanding of an Other rather than responding to him. Her stance is also consistent with a traditional notion of responsibility that mandates sharing and soliciting opinions to further the task. When Responsibility Gets in the Way of Responding While I had hoped the project would serve as a catalyst for extended interaction among the students, the section above illustrates how the project itself would also get in the way of the interaction, an eventuality I had not fully anticipated. In the following section, I consider how Marisol and Julia attempted to impose a particular view of responsible behavior on the newcomers. In contrast to a Levinasian view of responsibility that maintains, “I am responsible for the other without waiting for reciprocity . . . Reciprocity is his affair,”122 the girls seemed to feel entitled to demand that the newcomers return to them investment in the project that was recognizable to them as responsible behavior. This came to the fore unexpectedly after our fifth meeting when Marisol and Julia stayed after and asked to talk to me. During our conversation, I suggested to the girls that they 137 address these issues directly with the other members of our group, which they did in our next group meeting. In this chapter, however, I focus only on the concerns they levied against the newcomers prior to “the talk.” With the three of us seated in desks, Julia and Marisol candidly expressed their desire to make a really good video and their concern that the newcomer boys “mess around too much and they don’t take it seriously.” In addition, they talked about the challenge of communicating with each other. However, of greater concern than the language barrier — which Marisol said “was understandable” and which Julia said she “was patient with” — was the sense that the boys were playing around too much and wasting their time. Due to the time and effort Marisol and Julia were devoting to the project, they talked as though they deserved similar effort from the newcomers. Marisol explained, I have things to do — I’m graduating, you know. There’s a lot of stuff on my plate . . . And if you’re wasting my time, that’s not cool. . . I’m not saying this is a waste of time — but as long as we get something done, something accomplished, and actually doing it right, I’m o.k. with it. Take as long as he needs - but if we be just like wasting time playing around, that’s not cool. Cuz you know. . . I could be doing something else. Julia agreed, “Right. Cuz I honestly sometimes, I — I’ll be honest. Sometimes, I don’t wanna come at all to the meetings cuz I don’t feel that they’re putting in 100% or even 50.” The girls’ words reflect typical constructions of student responsibility, not “wasting time playing around,” getting “something accomplished,” and “putting in 100%.” It seems to hearken to an unspoken agreement that each group member will do his/her part for the good of the group. 138 At the heart of the girls’ complaints seems to be an expectation for “responsible” behavior that involves being a wise steward of time and staying focused on the goal. To illustrate their point, the girls mentioned several specific encounters that bothered them. They were particularly upset that one of the boys had “recorded them off guard” and Marisol was suspicious that Peter was “filming my butt.” Admittedly, there was no video evidence to substantiate this accusation and they reported that he denied it “and kept saying, ‘l’m not filming you!’” But the girls were convinced otherwise and emphasized that what he had done was “really, really disrespectful.” They also recounted a time when Bosco appeared to be sleeping during a meeting. When Marisol questioned this, Julia responded, “That’s what I saw. Well, he had his head down. I don’t know if he was sleeping or if he just had a headache or something. He took his sweet time to come out.” Additionally, they criticized some of the newcomers for not asking for clarification and “stay[ing] quiet” when they didn’t understand something even though “we had that conversation at the beginning that if they don’t understand to say something.” Again, each of these complaints hints at the perceived responsibility Julia and Marisol seemed to think the participants owed to the group. Each of these grievances illustrates a divergence from the “responsible student” model — goofing around with the camera (made worse by the disrespectful overtones), sleeping when you should be on task, and not following the group’s agreement to ask for help. Significantly, in the instances cited by 139 Marisol and Julia, the participants were working on their own without my direct oversight. It could be that the newcomers did not feel the same responsibility to answer to authority as they did when l was around or when they were doing a recognizable school-like task. It seems that Julia and Marisol, however, felt and expected everyone to feel personal responsibility for the task and for the group. Not “taking it seriously” was an affront to both. Julia implied that the newcomers should have displayed a similar sense of responsibility. “T here’s stuff that l have to do,” she explained, “and I can’t be here all the time and wait on them to get their act together when they should already understand that it’s their responsibility.” Instead of responding to the newcomers, Julia seemed to be demanding a particular response, something she felt entitled to from the familiar discourse of individual responsibility which includes your responsibility to the group. Reciprocity was not simply “his affair;”123 rather, it was a required part of the deal and something “they should already understand.” While the complaints leveled against the boys were quite specific and unapologetically delivered, the girls also made a point of clarifying that this wasn’t meant to be a personal attack. “I mean, I have nothing against them - like racially or anything — and I don’t know them personally, so I can’t judge them or anything. It’s just how they act everyday,” Julia said. Marisol commented, “Cuz I like ‘em — they’re like real cool, but when it comes to getting serious, it’s a no-no.”Julia, in particular, seemed to feel somewhat perplexed and conflicted in her critique about the boys. “I don’t want to say that they’re not doing anything cuz there’s no 140 logical reason or anything to show that they don’t. It’s just how they act sometimes that makes me feel badly.” Later, she reiterated, “I can’t really put it into words. I don’t know how to explain it. ljust see it . . . “ In response to the girls’ concerns, I suggested that part of the problem might be that they had taken over responsibility of the project, thereby relieving the newcomers of their responsibility. “I wonder if they feel like, well, there’s not a space for us to really jump in here and get serious and take control because these guys have it covered. Like I just wonder if - I just wonder,” I said. Marisol and Julia didn’t contend with my suggestion that perhaps they (the newcomers) did tend to dominate the activities. However, they did explain that the reasons they so often took charge was because they didn’t feel confident in the newcomers’ ability to lead. Julia said, “And then we’ll be in the same position that they’re in now, supposedly. I don’t know. I feel like if I give them the responsibility or let them have the lead, they’re gonna be too unorganized to do anything. They’ll be all over the place.” Marisol concurred, “If they prove to me they can do it, it’ll be like o.k. But they haven’t.” Throughout our conversation, the tenor and content of the girls’ speech was reminiscent of teacher talk as though years of the discourse of responsibility they had heard at school had seeped into their consciousness. Comments such as these remind me of a teacher’s reprimand: . . when it’s time to do serious stuff, stop joking around;” or “prove to me [you] can do it,” or “[you] should understand that it’s [your] responsibility.” The behavior they desire from the newcomers is consistent with behavior that is valued by adults at school. The way the girls verbalized their concern also positions them as the 141 arbiters of responsible behavior, an evaluative rather than a responsive orientation. These comments hearken back to the original concern about the boys threatening the quality and efficiency of the project. The task itself seemed to be standing in the way of the girls' willingness or ability to respond to the boys from a Levinasian stance which requires us to respond to the Other instead of seeking to control a situation. It is also possible that the values and discourse of staying focused, using time productively, working hard, and being responsible in a conventional, not a Levinasian sense, which are so routinely touted as foundational virtues for success in school, made it difficult for the girls to consider positioning themselves in response to the boys rather than in response to the task at hand. The concerns expressed by Julia and Marisol speak to a larger issue as we consider interaction across linguistic and cultural diversity. It is important to recognize that their frustration did not seem to grow out of personal animosity towards the newcomers. Instead, it seemed to stem from their experience of being successful at school. They had been “doing their part” for a number of years and had positioned themselves to be first generation college students. In the context of the video project, they were simply continuing this high yield performance that had rewarded them over the years. By staying focused on using time effectively to create the welcome video, they were doing precisely what they had signed up to do. 142 Opening Spaces for Responsive and Responsible Interaction In this chapter, I have considered the sometimes uneasy relationship between responsible and responsive interaction in a school-related context. In particular, I have discussed examples from the video project where participants’ sense of responsibility seemed to get in the way of interacting responsively with each other. These moments seemed to be characterized by a concern for task- completion that occasionally hindered our ability/willingness to engage with and respond to an Other. For instance, Julia and Marisol became frustrated with the newcomers when the demands of social and linguistic interaction seemed to impede on the efficiency of making the video. In a similar vein, though I carefully structured activities to increase the likelihood of comprehensibility for ELLs and successful completion of activities, the unexpected consequence of this structuring was that sometimes participants focused more on the task than each other or became so concerned about doing it “right” that they missed the larger objective. The challenge here is that, on the one hand, this sense of responsibility — getting the job done right in accordance with established guidelines — is a valued and necessary disposition in many school-based contexts. In fact, the commitment to the task seemed to be one compelling motivation that kept the participants coming back and engaging with each other during our meetings. On the other hand, responding to an Other in the Levinasian sense demands flexibility in the moment and sensitivity to the other person that may require the suspension or adaptation of pre-established goals and procedures. 143 Commonplace assumptions in the literature suggest that a shared purpose and carefully structured tasks can help bridge the interactional gaps that often typify cross-linguistic and cross-cultural interaction. Our experience with the video project seemed to bear this out — the project itself essentially brought and kept the group together. However, the project and attendant tasks did not guarantee the quality of the interaction or the nature of the relationships forged in this context. Indeed, some of the most genuine and robust interaction seemed to take place when the participants deviated from the script, when they organically responded to each other in the moment. This sort of responsiveness could not necessarily be premeditated, thus limiting the desired outcomes of attempting to establish beforehand processes and outcomes. While one of the goals of planning was to reduce uncomfortable ambiguity, some salient experiences from the video project suggested that this very ambiguity - even with its discomfort — was fertile ground for responsive engagement with each other. An important lesson from the video project is that a sense of responsibility manifested in dutiful completion of assigned tasks does not necessarily preclude responsive interaction, nor does it guarantee it. In fact, opening spaces for responsive interaction might on occasion require less structure, not more. An opening spaces approach invites us to broaden our sense of responsibility beyond the task to prioritize responsive concern for each other. 144 CHAPTER 5 OPENING SPACES FOR INTERACTION “I don ’t know why I was just quiet. ” — Juma, newcomer “He didn’t really say a lot and ljust didn’t know what to do. ” — Julia, old-timer “I really didn’t know what to say. . . I also wanted to somehow make some sense out of what had happened, but I didn’t know how to do it. ” — Anny, researcher Closing Gaps through Knowledge There is considerable comfort to be found in knowing. Yet, as I have discussed in the previous chapters, the video project was marked most profoundly by moments of not knowing — occasions when the newcomers, old- timers, and I found ourselves perplexed, unable to understand each other, and unsure of the next step. The ambiguity arose from multiple sources such as differing perceptions of how to complete a task, difficulty communicating in English, uncomfortable social situations, or uncertain pedagogical decisions. Such moments are to be expected, however, especially in interactional contexts characterized by linguistic and cultural diversity. Although a Levinasian framework situates these disconcerting moments as essential and inescapable in 145 interhuman relations, they remain uncomfortable. lntuitively, we want to avoid them. . Reflecting this tendency to minimize moments of not knowing, a frequently-cited goal of facilitating interaction across difference is empowerment.124 Language such as this is common: “Students need to learn how to perceive, understand, and respond to group differences” or “To reduce uncertainty and anxiety concerning interaction with outgroup members . . .” or “Providing factual information that contradicts misperceptions can also counteract prejudice . . 3’125 I am not arguing against the value of the skills, knowledge, and dispositions invoked in these passages — indeed, it seems beneficial to have a repertoire of possibilities available to draw upon as we respond to the Other. The ethical aporia, however, lies in the assumption that we can know beforehand what we should do in our relations with others -- that we can somehow anticipate the specificity of each encounter with another person. When knowledge and empowerment become the curricular goals, then the values of vulnerability and responsiveness tend to get minimized. Yet in response to these anticipated and unforeseen challenges to our interaction, in planning and mediating the video project I often drew on my past experiences as an ESL teacher. I attempted to bridge the interactional gaps through knowledge-based interventions. I was hopeful that “knowing what to do,” “knowing each other,” “knowing what it means,” and “knowing what it’s like” could prevent or alleviate some of the ambiguity and vulnerability in our work together. 146 For instance, on a large scale, the video project itself was designed to provide us with a shared purpose — we knew what we were doing. On a smaller scale, to help us know what to do, I often presented carefully structured activities designed to reduce linguistic misunderstanding while also providing a clear roadmap for how to complete the task. In an attempt to facilitate collaboration and friendship, I had the group engage in “getting to know you” activities. Additionally, the old- timers expressed a sense of “knowing what it feels like” to be a new immigrant, to struggle with learning English, and to be a newcomer in a school. The perceived “knowledge-base” that grew out of personal experience and my attempts at planning and mediating the project did, to some degree, narrow the gap between the newcomers and old-timers. In some cases, however, what we thought we knew also seemed to impede interaction. For example, while the occasion of the video project brought us into proximity with each other, I worked to alleviate the discomfort of uncertainty through scaffolding the interaction. However, while this structure often provided fairly safe and predictable tasks, it also allowed the participants to engage in the task without really having to respond to each other. Similarly, while the old-timers’ close immigrant ties created a perception of understanding for the newcomers, this knowledge also sometimes seemed to obscure their ability to seek out and accept something different from what they imagined. In fact, throughout the project the participants and I experienced the discomfort of not knowing in proximity despite my efforts to prevent this uneasiness. In dealing with the “language barrier,” the tendency was to think about language in terms of 147 knowable words and linguistic structures — a knowledge set possessed by me and the old-timers and to be shared with the newcomers. These assumptions were complicated, though, by encounters in which linguistic knowledge was not easily transferred, when communication transcended words, and when a willingness to engage with another was more important than a shared language. Finally, the knowledge we had internalized about what it means to be responsible students and teachers sometimes confounded our attempts to respond to each other. It was surprisingly easy for the task to take priority over the person,4 especially when working with other participants seemed to interfere with a strong sense of responsibility to complete the video in a particular way. Closing Gaps; Opening Spaces A substantial body of education research related to interaction between ELLs and non-ELLs proposes a number of ways to close the gap between these groups of students. For instance, research points to the importance of adapting institutional structures and curricular designs in order to provide opportunities for interaction. It also underscores the role of strategic teacher mediation in cross- cultural and cross-linguistic interaction including the benefit of teaching students skills and strategies to communicate and collaborate. Additionally, the literature I should note here that my analysis does not consider language use in terms of the categories of race or gender. The role of gender is a particularly salient issue that could be further explored although I am not attempting as, Deborah Tannen’s (1990) work, for instance, to link gender to relationship vs. task-orientation in conversation. Incidentally, while Tannen’s research suggests that female language use is associated with relationship building and male language use with task completion, in my study, Marisol and Julia, more so than the males, display strong task—oriented tendencies. However, consistent with Levinas’s resistance of categorizing people, my analysis does not overtly consider gender. 148 recommends that students learn about each other's cultures and interests and that shared identities be highlighted. Effectively accommodating for linguistic difference and making communication comprehensible for ELLs is also emphasized. Each of these approaches is intended to narrow the literal and figurative distance that so often exists between ELLs and their non-ELL peers -- to “close the gap.” While a focus on “closing gaps” presents important options for orchestrating and mediating ELUnon~ELL interaction, the implications of a Levinasian framework offer additional alternatives for conceptualizing interaction across difference. Instead of narrowing the distance between self and others, Levinas helps us consider the potential for ethical interaction by opening a space. Whereas some “closing gaps” approaches stress the value of uncovering similarities between people, a foundational assumption behind Levinasian philosophy is the immutable separation between self and other. Levinas writes, The relationship with the other is not an idyllic and harmonious relationship of communion or a sympathy through which we put ourselves in the other's place; we recognize the other as resembling us, but exterior to us; the relationship with the other is a relationship with Mystery.126 Framing ELL/non-ELL interaction as an encounter with an Other who is truly beyond my full comprehension, rather than someone to be figured out or understood, seems a promising stance to cultivate curiosity, generosity, and humility in our interpretations of each other. Such an orientation also stifles the imposition of preconceived expectations or stereotypes about another person. 149 Furthermore, the Levinasian ethical insight that “I can never know enough” disrupts the knower/not-knower dichotomy that often characterizes relationships between ELLs and non-ELLs where the English Learner is frequently positioned as not knowing. Opening spaces for interaction also implies ethical responsibility to and for the Other. As Levinas explains, “The tie with the Other is knotted only as responsibility, this moreover, whether accepted or refused, whether knowing or not knowing how to assume it, whether able or unable to do something concrete for the Other.”127 Grounded in this irrevocable ethical responsibility for an Other, interaction across difference takes on an Other-centered orientation. Whereas some “closing gaps” perspectives might focus on alleviating my own discomfort, on accomplishing my goals, on communicating my intentions, a Levinasian approach shines the spotlight on responding to an Other on his/her own terms, not my own. It requires listening and learning from the Other and making an honest effort to recognize the depth and breadth of an Other’s humanity. Inherent in an opening spaces approach to interaction is a certain vulnerability and requirement to respond in-the-moment. The interactional space is open and rich with possibility — much of which I cannot predict or plan for ahead of time. Thus, while the application of knowledge, skills, or strategies such as those advocated by a closing gaps approach might be part of an ethical response to an Other, I cannot simply pre-package them for use at my convenience. “Proximity,” Levinas reminds us, “does not congeal into a 150 structure.”128 This lack of structure and predictability can be disconcerting and provoke a “restlessness of this peace.”129 Nonetheless, being responsible to and for an Other is an invitation to embrace this vulnerability. This stance contrasts with alternative ways of mediating ELL/non-ELL interaction that emphasize preventing or ameliorating uncomfortable vulnerability. While I have admittedly drawn a rather stark contrast between “closing gaps” and Levinasian-inspired “opening spaces” approaches to interaction across difference, I do not mean to present a strict dichotomy. Levinas does not deny that one might learn or know about the Other or that such understanding could be true and useful, nor does he reject the notion that similarities exist among peOpIe.130 Instead, a Levinasian framework helps us see beyond prior knowledge to consider the specificity and the ethical demands inherent in the moment of encounter with the Other. From this perspective, present responsibility trumps prior knowledge. This concept might be illustrated by the way Julia’s experience-based empathy towards learning English and her knowledge of strategies for accommodating linguistic difference helped her communicate with the newcomers. At the same time, however, there were also occasions when she was confronted with the option of suspending her personal understanding in order to be open to theirs. Similarly, enacting Levinasian ethics does not require a whole-scale rejection of knowledge, skills, or strategies. Instead, Levinas warns against becoming too comfortable with the thoughtless application of them. Thus, 151 an opening-spaces approach adds a new dimension to a closing-gaps perspective rather than supplanting it. Responsive Improvisation | now turn to a discussion of how an opening-spaces perspective might inform research and practice around ELL/non-ELL interaction. In our efforts to plan, carry out, mediate, and study cross-cultural and cross-linguistic interaction, I am not suggesting that we entirely abandon knowledge-based approaches that often characterize closing-gaps interventions. Instead, we might consider the possibility of placing helpful knowledge, skills, and strategies within a larger construct of responsive improvisation, a concept inspired by Levinasian scholar, Ann Chinnery, who offers a useful metaphor for how we might frame interaction across difference.131 Describing how ethical responsibility might be compared to jazz improvisation, she writes: Musicians engage in rigorous study and practice in order to build up their memory of repertoires; then, at the moment of performance, they must suspend deliberation and abandon the known in order to embrace risk and vulnerability. In terms of ethical responsibility, however, one's repertoire would clearly not be a storehouse of ethical 'knowledge,‘ for ethics always exceeds what can be thematized or known. Rather, repertoire would have more to do with the capacity for vulnerab1ig9I and exposure to the other, to the pains and pleasures of a human life. Drawing on this metaphor, the “opening spaces” perspective envelops pedagogical and research interventions that represent an Other-centered orientation and are applied in a manner that is sensitive to the moment at hand 152 and particular to the people involved. The term “responsive” is intended to convey the ethical component of interaction across difference — the responsibility to listen and learn from the Other and to act accordingly. “Improvisation” signals in-the- moment response tailored to the particularities of a given situation. But this response is not a free-for-all; rather, just as a jazz musician draws on a repertoire of musical possibilities and impossibilities to improvise in response to another musician,133 improvisation in the context of cross-cultural, cross-linguistic interaction can (and likely will) be grounded in knowledge of the idiom and a repertoire of acceptable possibilities. Indeed, as Chinnery reminds us, being truly open to improvisation also means we also don’t become “so committed to a particular conception of responsible and responsive pedagogy that we misread situations which may in fact call for nothing other than a well-rehearsed ,,134 response. Summary and Implications The table below summarizes some of the key assumptions foregrounded in closing-gaps and opening-spaces perspectives. To reiterate, both of these perspectives have the potential for ethical enactment and I am not suggesting an either/or relationship. However, they emphasize different aspects of interaction across difference. For example, a closing gaps framework stresses mediation (especially by the teacher) to create optimal circumstances for interaction through targeting anticipated obstacles (social, linguistic, cultural, etc.), arranging favorable contexts for interaction, and learning about the Other and how to 153 interact. The goal is to narrow gaps along predictable social boundaries and decrease the risks associated with interaction across differences. Alternatively, an opening-spaces viewpoint calls attention to the inherent vulnerability that characterizes sincere attempts at interaction across difference. It calls for a responsive and improvisational stance embodied in ethically responding to an Other and a recognition that the Other cannot be fully known. In this way, the goal is to open spaces — even wide open spaces — for other-centered interaction across difference. Table 2. Unique Emphases: “Closing Gaps” and “Opening Spaces” Closing Gaps Opening Spaces Mediating Proximity Accepting Vulnerability Language as Tool Language as Approach 0 Learning through interaction 0 Exposure 0 Making English 0 Listening to the comprehensible Other Perceived Similarities The Other is beyond me Common Cause Unconditional obligation Strategies and Skills In the moment response Within the opening-spaces framework, I now suggest several options for response that might characterize our encounters with Others. In particular, I discuss how this perspective might inform mediation of ELUnon-ELL interactions, 154 related teacher preparation, and research. First, adding an opening-spaces approach to the curriculum implies a way of positioning ELLs that is different from the closing-gaps approach. In fact, the term “English Language Learner" becomes problematic within the opening-spaces perspective because it rejects the reduction of a person to his/her level of English language proficiency. Rather, the person is assumed to be much more than English — more, in fact, than I can possibly know or comprehend. While supporting English language acquisition remains a priority (primarily because most English learners have a strong desire to learn English), knowing English is not viewed as a pre-requisite for interaction. Instead, opportunities for interaction regardless of the ease or difficulty of communication are embraced. An opening spaces perspective invites us to embrace the ethical possibility of engaging with an Other with whom I don’t share a common language before the language barrier is overcome. It also requires us to share the burden of understanding — instead of “she doesn’t understand me,” we might think, “I don’t understand her.” This repositioning has the potential of influencing the way both teachers and peers interact with English learners. Just as English learners are repositioned, so too are their teachers. Like a jazz musician who is improvising with another musician, the teacher listens carefully not only to what ELLs are saying, but also pays attention to the depth and complexity of the person that might remain unsaid. The “music” is not just English, but includes concern for the interests, desires, and full complexity of the individual. While certain aspects of the interaction can be anticipated, the details of the moment cannot be known 155 ahead of time similar to the way an improvised piece of music emerges in the act of playing together. Similarly, as teacher educators are preparing teachers to work with diverse learners or teachers are preparing students to interact across linguistic and cultural difference, responsive improvisation suggests that we balance our efforts towards preparing for some future hypothetical interaction with in—the-moment mediation. For instance, while teachers might explicitly teach strategies for negotiating meaning with speakers of another language in anticipation of future opportunities for interaction, these strategies ought to be treated as flexible and improvisational. Additionally, rather than seeking to avoid the discomfort inherent in interaction, future-looking and in-the-moment conversations with students might frame this vulnerability as an opportunity for responding to an Other, a space for responsive improvisation, rather than as a problem to be solved or prevented. Along these lines, teachers might choose to model what it might look and feel like to find yourself in an uncertain situation. 156 Table 3. Possible Responses: “Closing Gaps” and “Opening Spaces” Closing Gaps Opening Spaces “They don’t understand us” “We don’t understand them” Preventing vulnerability Accepting vulnerability Predictable application of strategies Responsive improvisation Learning about the Other Learning from the Other Having the right words Making the approach Planning ahead Responding in the moment Modeling competence Modeling “not knowing” Conclusion The opening-spaces approach discussed in this dissertation grew out of an attempt to better understand interaction between ELLs and their English- speaking peers, particularly from the students’ point of view. In organizing and carrying out the video project, l was largely operating under assumptions illuminated by a closing-gaps perspective. I expected our work together to be challenging and complex, but I did not anticipate a number of the most profound and provocative challenges we encountered. In particular, some of the facets of the project that were the most intriguing to me involved occasions when student interaction seemed to be stifled by the very things I would have expected to foster it based on suggestions from the closing gaps literature. 157 Often, the common thread between instances where interaction broke down seemed to be occasions when concern for the other person was overshadowed by preconceived notions about how things ought to be. And in these unpredictable moments, my careful orchestration of the project, the participants’ and my prior knowledge and experience, and implementation of recommended strategies to solve problems fell short. This is not to say these things weren’t helpful, but they weren’t adequate. Rather, this type of knowledge- based paradigm - knowing what to do, knowing what something feels like, knowing how to solve problems — sometimes had the tendency to overshadow the specificity of the moment, and more importantly, the individuality of the other person. Moreover, each of these encounters has ethical overtones which are not fully accounted for in the closing gaps perspective. Informed by Levinasian philosophy, the opening spaces framework offers an additional lens for explaining these interactional breakdowns in the video project and in general, for conceptualizing, mediating, and enacting interaction across linguistic and cultural difference. These perspectives are important because interaction matters a great deal if English learners are going to have opportunities to fully participate in school and if non-ELLs are going to have the rich opportunity of interacting with and learning from students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. At the heart of the opening spaces framework is an Other-ward orientation — choosing to embrace one's responsibility to and for the Other. To conclude, I return to a conversation among the newcomers that captures the spirit of this stance. After one of our group meetings, I watched with interest as the boys 158 spontaneously picked up my digital audio recorder and started to re-enact what seemed to be a radio talk show. They light-heartedly interviewed each other in English, bantering back and forth. As their “interview” drew to a close, the boys “signed off” one by one this way: Gilbert: . . . I’m Gilbert. Don’t forget my name. Gilbert. What’s your name, dude? Peter: Yeah - My name is Peter. . . Don't forget my name. . . Last year I played soccer. . . You see these shoes? From Central. You see that pictures right there, the high school right there, the television? This school is good. I like it. You want to talk some? o.k. (He hands recorder to Juma) Juma: Hey — you know — l’m Juma. Don’t forget me. I like Central High school. That’s why I come here every day. This is my friend, Bosco. He from Congo, you know. Yeah. He’s my African brother. This episode can be read in multiple ways. On the one hand, it is possible to see desired and conventional learning outcomes: fluent and comprehensible use of English, demonstrated facility with technology, awareness of the genre of a radio talk show. In fact, when I first observed this interaction, I experienced a moment of satisfaction as I saw them take up the learning opportunity I had provided for them. However, as I continued to reflect on this moment, I felt the power of their words in a different way. Their appeal, “don’t forget me” carried significance beyond the moment. I interpreted this as a desire to be seen and remembered not for just what they could do or what they knew, but for their very existence, unique, complex, and precious. As an alternative to forgetting the Other, Levinas suggests the possibility of “forgetjtingj myself for my neighbor.”135 In this way, 159 responding can be a form of remembering as we open spaces for “going generously toward the You,"‘35 I Kris D. Gutiérrez and Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, “At Last: The" Problem" of English Learners: Constructing Genres of Difference,” Research in the Teaching of English 2006): 502—507. James P. Lantolf, Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, Oxford Applied Linguistics (Oxford [Eng]: Oxford University Press, 2000); Teresa Pica et al., “Language Learners' Interaction: How Does It Address the Input, Output, and Feedback Needs of L2 Learners?,” TESOL Quarterly 30, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 59-84; Aida Walqui, “Scaffolding Instruction for English Language Learners: A Conceptual Framework,” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 9, no. 2 (2006): 159-180; George C. 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Duff, “T he Discursive Co-construction of Knowledge, Identity, and Difference: Ethnography of Communication in the High School Mainstream,” Applied Linguistics. Vol 23(3) 23, no. 3 (2002): 289-322; Bogum Yoon, “Uninvited Guests: The Influence of Teachers' Roles and Pedagogies on the Positioning of English Language Learners in the Regular Classroom,” American Educational Research Journal 45, no. 2 (June 2008): 495-522; George C. Bunch, ““Academic English” in the 7th Grade: Broadening the Lens, Expanding Access,” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5, no. 4 (October 2006): 284-301. 4 Bunch, "Academic English" in the 7th grade”; Yoon, “Offering or Limiting Opportunities." Patricia A. Duff, “Language, Literacy, Content, and (Pop) Culture: Challenges for ESL Students in Mainstream Courses,” Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des Iangues vivantes 58, no. 1 (2001 ): 103-132; Jennifer M. Miller, “Language Use, Identity, and Social Interaction: Migrant Students in Australia,” Research on Language and Social Interaction 33, no. 1 (2000): 69-100; Jennifer M. Miller, Audible Difference: ESL and Social Identity in Schools (Multilingual Matters Ltd, 2003); Evelyn 160 Jacob et al., “Cooperative Learning: Context and Opportunities for Acquiring Academic English,” TESOL Quarterly 30, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 253-280. Susan Gass, “Input and Interaction,” in The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, ed. Catherine Doughty and Michael H. Long (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003), 224-255; Pica et al., “Language Learners' lnteraction”; Lantolf, Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. Walqui, “Scaffolding Instruction for English Language Learners.” 8 Duff, “Language, Literacy, Content, and (Pop) Culture.” 9 lbid., 119. 0 Harklau, “ESL versus Mainstream Classes.” 1 lbid., 262-263. 12 Yoon, “Offering or Limiting Opportunities.” 13 Bunch, “"Academic English" in the 7th grade.” 14 Miller, “Language Use, Identity, and Social Interaction.” Andrew Gitlin et al., “The Production of Margin and Center: Welcoming-Unwelcoming of Immigrant Students,” American Educational Research Journal 40, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 91-122. 16 Gunderson, “Voices of the Teenage Diasporas”; Annette M. Daoud, “" The ESL Kids are Over there": Opportunities for Social Interactions between Immigrant Latino and White High School Students,” Journal of Hispanic Higher Education 2, no. 3 (2003): 292; Candace Harper and Ester de Jong, “Misconceptions about Teaching English-language Learners,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 48, no. 2 (2004): 152-162. 17 Andrea C. Allard, “Aussies and Wogs and the Group In-Between: Year 10 Students' Constructions of Cross-Cultural Friendships,” Discourse 23, no. 2 (2002): 193-209; Carola Suarez-Orozco, Allyson Pimentel, and Margary Martin, “The Significance of Relationships: Academic Engagement and Achievement among Newcomer Immigrant Youth," The Teachers College Record 1 1 1, no. 3 (2009): 5—6; Bunch et al., “Beyond Sheltered Instruction.” Daoud, “ The ESL Kids are Over there”; Harklau, “ESL versus Mainstream Classes”; Gitlin et al., “The Production of Margin and Center"; Carola Suérez-Orozco, Marcelo M Suarez-Orozco, and Irina Todorova, Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society, tst ed. (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008); Angela Valenzuela, Subtractive Schooling: U. S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); Laurie Olsen, “Learning English and Learning America: Immigrants in the Center of a Storm,” Theory into Practice 39, no. 4 (Autumn 2000): 196-202. James Moody, “Race, School Integration, and Friendship Segregation in America,” American Journal of Sociology 107, no. 3 (2001): 679-716. 0 Nilda Flores-Gonzalez, “Popularity versus Respect: School Structure, Peer Groups and Latino Academic Achievement,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 18, no. 5 (2005): 625-642; Rebecca M. Callahan, “Tracking and High School English Learners: Limiting Opportunity to Learn,” American Educational Research 161 Journal 42, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 305-328; Suarez-Orozco, Pimentel, and Martin, “The Significance of relationships.” Gitlin et al., “The Production of Margin and Center”; Miller, “Language Use, Identity, and Social Interaction.” 2 N. Eleni Pappamihiel, “English as a Second Language Students and English Language Anxiety: Issues in the Mainstream Classroom,” Research in the Teaching of gig/ish 36, no. 3 (2002): 327-355; Olsen, “Learning English and Learning America.” Yoon, “Uninvited Guests”; Sharkey and Layzer, "Whose Definition of Success?”; Duff, “Language, Literacy, Content, and (Pop) Culture”; Verplaetse, “Mr. Wonderful: Portrait of a Dialogic Teacher.” Patricia Phelan, Ann Locke Davidson, and Hanh Thanh Cao, “Students' Multiple Worlds: Negotiating the Boundaries of Family, Peer, and School Cultures,” Anthropology & Education Quarterly 22, no. 3 (September 1991 ): 224-250. 25 lbid., 246. 26 James A. Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society (Seattle, WA: Center for Multicultural Education, University of Washington, Seattle, 2001 ). Bunch, “"Academic English” in the 7th grade”; Jacob et al., “Cooperative Learning.” 28 Duff, “Language, Literacy, Content, and (Pop) Culture”; Yoon, “Offering or Limiting gaportunities.” Jana Echevarria, Mary Ellen Vogt, and Deborah J. Short, Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners: The SIOP Model, Second Edition, 2nd ed. (Boston: Pearson Allyn and Bacon, 2003); Tamara Lucas, Ana Maria Villegas, and Margaret Freedson-Gonzalez, “Linguistically Responsive Teacher Education: Preparing Classroom Teachers to Teach English Language Learners,” Journal of Teacher Education 59, no. 4 (July 7, 2008): 361 -373. 30 Callahan, “Tracking and High School English Learners”; Gitlin et al., “The Production of Margin and Center”; Valenzuela, Subtractive Schooling. Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society, Thomas Pettigrew, “lntergroup Contact Theory,” Annual Review of Psychology 49 (1998): 65. Jacob et al., “Cooperative Learning.” 33 Glynda Hull and Katherine Schultz, “Literacy and Learning Out of School: A Review of Theory and Research," Review of Educational Research 71, no. 4 (January 1, 2001): 577. 34 Moody, “Race, School Integration, and Friendship Segregation in America”; Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society. 5 Gutiérrez and Orellana, “At Last,” 505. 162 36 Gunderson, “Voices of the Teenage Diasporas”; J. Lynn McBrien, “Educational Needs and Barriers for Refugee Students in the United States: A Review of the Literature,” Review of Educational Research 75, no. 3 (2005): 329. McBrien, “Educational needs and barriers for refugee students in the United States,” 31839. Suarez-Orozco, Pimentel, and Martin, “The significance of relationships," 713. 39 Suarez-Orozco, Suérez-Orozco, and Todorova, Learning a New Land; Miller, “Language Use, Identity, and Social lnteraction”; Gunderson, “Voices of the Teenage Diasporas”; Valenzuela, Subtractive Schooling. Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society. Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society, Moody, “Race, School Integration, and Friendship Segregation in America”; Pettigrew, “lntergroup Contact Theory.” Colin Davis, Levinas: An Introduction (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), 3. Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo, translated by Richard A. Cohen, trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), 95. lbid., so. 45 lbid., 89. 46 Emmanuel Levinas, Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, ed. Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak, Simon Critchley, and Robert Bernasconi (Indiana University Press, 1996), 17. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 90. 48 Sharon Todd, “Introduction: Levinas and Education: The Question of Implication,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 22, no. 1 (January 1, 2003): 3. 49 Gert Biesta, “Pedagogy with Empty Hands: Levinas, Education, and the Question of Being Human,” in Levinas and Education: At the Intersection of Faith and Reason (New York: Routledge, 2008), 206. American Educational Research Association, “Standards for Reporting on Humanities-Oriented Research in AERA Publications,” Educational Researcher 38, no. 6 gSeptember 2009): 482. Elliot Eisner, “Objectivity in Educational Research," Curriculum Inquiry 22, no. 1 gpring 1992): 12. Callahan, “Tracking and High School English Learners”; Gitlin et al., “The Production of Margin and Center.” Suarez-Orozco, Suarez-Orozco, and Todorova, Learning a New Land: Harklau, “ESL versus Mainstream Classes”; Valenzuela, Subtractive Schooling. 163 54 Callahan, “Tracking and High School English Learners”; Gitlin et al., “T he Production of Margin and Center.” Harklau, “ESL versus Mainstream Classes,” 266. 6 Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society, Michelle Fine, Lois Weis, and Linda C. Powell, “Communities of Difference,” Harvard Educational Review 67, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 21—64. 57 Callahan, “Tracking and High School English Learners”; Valenzuela, Subtractive Schooling. 58 Duff, “Language, Literacy, Content, and (Pop) Culture”; Sharkey and Layzer, “Whose Definition of Success?” Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society, Miller, “Language Use, Identity, and Social Interaction.” 60 Gunderson, “Voices of the Teenage Diasporas”; Miller, “Language Use, Identity, and Social Interaction”; Pappamihiel, “English as a Second Language Students and English Language Anxiety”; Yoon, “Offering or Limiting Opportunities.” Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise Than Being: Or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1998), 100. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 86-87. 3 Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 82. 64 lbid., 139. 65 lbid., 124. 66 Levinas, Ethics and Infinity. 67 Ann Chinnery, “Aesthetics of Surrender: Levinas and the Disruption of Agency in Moral Education,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 22, no. 1 (January 1, 2003): 7. Pettigrew, “lntergroup Contact Theory.” 9 Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society. 70 Ibid. 71 Julian M. Edgoose, “A Twitch Upon the Thread: Levinas, the Conscience of Teaching, and the Teaching of Conscience,” Philosophy of Education Yearbook 8 (2000): 208. Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 139. 3 Lynn Fendler, “Others and the Problem of Community,” Curriculum Inquiry 36, no. 3 (.3006): 303-326. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 86-87. 5 Bunch et al., “Beyond Sheltered lnstruction”; Gunderson, “Voices of the Teenage Diasporas”; Yoon, “Offering or Limiting Opportunities.” Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 124. 164 77 Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society, Duff, “The discursive co-construction of knowledge, identity, and difference”; Gunderson, “Voices of the Teenage Diasporas”; Kelleen Toohey, Learning English at School: Identity, Social Relations, and Classroom Practice, Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 20 (Clevedon, [England]: Multilingual Matters, 2000). Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 139. 79 Gunderson, “Voices of the Teenage Diasporas"; Suarez-Orozco, Suarez-Orozco, and Todorova, Learning a New Land. Gass, “Input and Interaction”; James P. Lantolf, “Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning: Select Bibliography,” n.d., http://language.la.psu.edu/aplng597fNL2BlB.html. Lucas, Villegas, and Freedson-Gonzalez, “Linguistically Responsive Teacher Education”; Harper and de Jong, “Misconceptions about Teaching English-language Learners.” 82 Jana Echevarria, Maryellen Vogt, and Deborah J. Short, Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners: The SIOP Model, 1st ed. (Allyn & Bacon,1999) Levinas, Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, 48. 84 . lbid., 49. 85 Levinas, Ethics and Infinity. 6 Levinas, Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, 112. 87 Paul Standish, “Levinas and the Language of the Curriculum,” in Levinas and education: at the intersection of faith and reason, ed. Denise Egea-Kuehne (New York: Routledge, 2008), 56-66. Levinas, Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, 48. 9 lbid., 145. 90 Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 48. 91 Ibid. 2 Levinas, Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, 145. 3 lbid., 112. 94 Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 88. 8 9 5 Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 46. 96 lbid., 49. 97 lbid. 98 Robert J. Marzano, Jana S. Marzano, and Debra J. Pickering, Classroom Management that Works: Research-based Strategies for Every Teacher (Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2003), 77. Gutiérrez and Orellana, “At Last.” 165 1 00 Henry T Trueba, “Multiple Ethnic, Racial, and Cultural Identities in Action: From Marginality to a New Cultural Capital in Modern Society,” Journal of Latinos and Education 1, no. 1 (2002): 7—28. Martin Nystrand, “Dialogic Instruction: When Recitation Becomes Conversation,” in Opening Dialogue: Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Learning in the En Iish Classroom (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997), 1-29. Beverly A. Boyson and Deborah J. Short, Secondary School Newcomer Programs in the United States (Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity, & Excellence, 2003); McBrien, “Educational needs and barriers for refugee students in the United States.” 3 Linda Harklau, “From the "Good Kids" to the "Worst": Representations of English Language Learners across Educational Settings,” TESOL Quarterly 34, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 35-67; Suarez-Orozco, Suérez-Orozco, and Todorova, Learning a New Land; Valenzuela, Subtractive Schooling, Greta Vollmer, “Praise and Stigma: Teachers' Constructions of the 'Typical ESL Student'," Journal of Intercultural Studies 21, no. 1 (4, 2000): 53-66. Duff, “Language, Literacy, Content, and (Pop) Culture”; Harklau, “ESL versus Mainstream Classes.” Suérez-Orozco, Suérez-Orozco, and Todorova, Learning a New Land, Yoon, “Uninvited Guests.” Miller, “Language Use, Identity, and Social Interaction"; Suarez-Orozco, Pimentel, and Martin, “The significance of relationships.” Valenzuela, Subtractive Schooling. 08 Levinas, Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, 17. 109 Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 101. 11° lbid., 97. 1“ Chinnery, “Aesthetics of Surrender." 112Ibid., 13. 1 ‘3 lbid. 114 Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 98. 5 Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 139. “6 Elliot Eisner, ‘What Does It Mean to Say a School is Doing Well?,” Phi Delta Kappan 82, no. 5 (2001): 367—372; Denise Clark Pope, "Doing School": How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students (Yale University Press, 2001); John P. Portelli, “Exposing the Hidden Curriculum,” Journal of Curriculum Studies 25, no. 4 (1993): 343—358; Philip W. Jackson, “Life in classrooms,” New York (1968) 7 Todd, “Introduction,” 3. 166 118 Echevarria, Vogt, and Short, Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners; Lucas, Villegas, and Freedson-Gonzalez, “Linguistically Responsive Teacher Education.” 119 Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society, 10. 0 Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 77. 121 lbid., 51. 122 Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 98. 23 Levinas, Ethics and Infinity. 24 Phelan, Davidson, and Cao, “Students' Multiple Worlds”; Miller, Audible difference; Bonny Norton Peirce, “Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning," TESOL Quarterly 29, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 9-31; Banks et al., Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society. 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