budding scholar

Across countries, how have localities and governments responded to new communities of immigrants and their unique education needs? Specifically, what policies have been created to train teachers (preservice as well as professional development) to manage the needs of these students? At the teacher level, how much of this policy has helped, and how do they feel about their role helping immigrant students (they are, after all, on the “front lines”)? I’m interested in exploring education policy responses to immigration, specifically with regard to training and supporting teachers. Spain, the U.S., perhaps France, Germany, England. Possibly bringing in Asian countries that have had influxes of immigrants. What have policy responses been, especially with regard to teachers? What would good policy look like?

Today we had a student panel come to our first year Ph.D. seminar to answer our questions about going through the program, meeting milestones, keeping life lively, and generally managing grad school. They had some very helpful points for working through the first years and moving to areas of specialization and dissertations, including:

• Think about what you really want to know, what you care about. What are your questions? What will you need to know to move towards a dissertation in your area?
• The areas of specialization should grow naturally out of what you’re interested in, but remember that they don’t have to be reflective of everything you’re interested–they’re just a way to move you forward to prepare for orals and the dissertation.
• Stay connected with your cohort beyond the first year; graduate school can be isolating in the later years when you’re focusing on your own work. Staying connected with colleagues in the program helps keep the momentum going from milestone to milestone.
• The dissertation might be 3 papers of publishable quality, rather than one enormous paper. This can be a more manageable alternative, and a really good choice for people who want to go into academia or another job where journal publications matter.
• In defining interests and research focus, you vote by what you feel passionate enough about to write a paper on. Think of class papers: which would you write again? For me, this would be the immigration papers I’m writing this semester, and the language papers I wrote last semester.
• As a way of learning about conferences, look at people who you’re interested in, check out their CVs, and see where they’ve presented their work.
• It will always be the case that there are more useful or interesting opportunities than you can take on.

It was striking to me both how far I have to go, and how well my current job and Master’s have prepared me to get there. Given that this program is so research focused, it really helps to have had several years of research experience. Yet there is so far to go, and the only way to learn it is to keep taking on each bit on a daily basis and trying to learn what I can to move forward. With many things, I’m aiming for some level of mastery, which raises the bar…especially with statistics and other methods and analysis topics!

This will be a space to take the questions, notes, peoples’ names, etc. that I am scribbling down daily in my notebook and make further meaning of them. A place to explore what I’m interested in, to weigh what is important in my studies, to grapple with questions and develop my thoughts on topics in my field. It will serve as a record of the names and studies I need to read, the scholarship that is fundamental to understanding education policy. A sampling from my notebook:

9/18/06 What topics would serve me well in Spain? Immigration? Evaluation? European integration?

10/9/06 Does business have as much voice in education in other countries?

1/29/07 Think about the relationship between democracy, language and nationalism. Also, we need longitudinal studies of 2nd language development and bilingual education.

2/12/07 Issue of putting all our hopes for fixing society’s ills in schools. Need to read Richard Rothstein!

My idea for the blog is that it will be a place to think more about these things I write down throughout my days at school and work. A place to test out my opinions on topics. I’d like to go back in time through two notebooks and pick out pieces I want to remember and build on, and write on them. It would also be neat to get conversations going with classmates on the topics we’re dealing with in school. And take it beyond school to others who work in education and education policy.