Kono Tuesday July 12th Reflection

I found our presenter on Tuesday (Mr. Larievy) to be one of the most passionate and engaging individuals I have heard in quite some time. His dedication to ELL and bilingual education is unwavering and based so deeply in his own experiences. One of the aspects of our class that was of particular significance was the societal and cultural constructs of monolingualism as an benefit. I had seen parts of the film before and it seems that it is certainly possible to overcome these obstacles (i.e. San Francisco), but why is it that we cannot do so on and at a larger level? In our study of the social contexts of education, we seem to be able to trace the inadequacies and problems in our schools to some fundamental and deeply ingrained social constructs. To take the cynical perspective, are we going to be stagnant in our frustrations in schools for a while before some more overarching shifts in cultural and societal beliefs occur?