Resisting Ice and The Deportation Crisis Conference (blog post 5)

FNED 547 Introduction to Classroom Research

Conference Title: Resisting Ice and The Deportation Crisis

Rhode Island College (Gaige Hall 200) 

Today I attended a conference hosted By the RIC Community. Today’s lead by Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance (Amor) and The South East Asian freedom Network (Seafn). The conversation lead by representatives of these three community organizations was to help people be aware of what is going on currently in many communities around the Country as well as in the State of Rhode Island. 

Just like the title of the discussion says there is a deportation crisis going in the US and the community must unite resist ICE and deportation. The presenters spoke about this crisis that is affecting people in many of our communities. The presenters spoke about their organizations, how they came into existence and what they are working together to support the immigrant community resist ICE and resist deportation.

A basic premise of our common humanity is that people have a right to stay where they are. They also have a right to migrate when conditions become too dangerous or oppressive to support life. The current situation is related to conditions in other countries which forces people to abandon their home land, embark on a very risky journey to come to the United States in search for a better life. Sadly this trend have been happening for many many years, but currently, conditions have become so bad that people are forced to flee. It is impossible for them to exercise their right to stay, and now the United States, whose imperial policies helped create the crisis, is denying them their right to migrate. In many cases, these families try to escape death and persecution in their countries due to war, gang related deaths, poverty as well as other factors. 

Steven the presenter from Seafn, stated explained that in order to understand why so many families embark on dangerous journeys that lead to crossing the border without documentation, we need to focus on some underlying causes. Since the mid-twentieth century, the US as the dominant hegemonic power in many parts of the World has created the conditions for the present economic, social and political realities of the region(s). Unfortunately the US interventions in other poor nations will only serve to worsen the poverty and violence resulting in people fleeing their homeland to come here searching for freedom, and a better life for the entire family. Sadly they have to deal with Deportation.

The agencies presenting today work with many other Organizations such as The Young Lords (Chicago Illinois), Black Panther party, and The Fang Collective Group work in unison to help the vulnerable members of the community have access to resources that they would normally do not have access to; despite the present political climate. The three organizations assist many of the communities by providing its members the following services: 

– Emergency/immediate legal services to protect people from ICE and other law enforcement agencies,

– Culturally competent psychological services,

– Supporting and tracking incidents and victims of hate crimes,

– Protecting our communities against all forms of violence, especially state-sponsored violence

I was surprised to see how even though these organizations have been around for some time now, all three operate on a voluntary basis and on determination of the communities being affected by social injustice. Sadly, because of lack of funds the organizations are not able to do more than they already do. 

The three presenters urged the audience to support their cause. “We must Resist, Stop ICE and deportation” All presenters asked the audience to them in any way possible. The organization’s goal is to together keep communities safe. They reiterated that unfortunately money is their biggest problem as they are not able to get funding to provide our most vulnerable the services they desperately need. 

My family and I had the privilege of coming into this country legally many years ago. As an educator who service many immigrant students, feel sad when I think of how everyday, people who call the United States home—including the mothers and fathers of US citizen children, tax-paying employees, and respected community members---are being arrested, locked up, and deported under a system that often does not even weigh their deep and longstanding ties in the balance. Sadly the children of individuals who are detained and deported are always at the receiving end of the unjust scale. They have to suffer the destruction of their family and are still expected to perform and succeed in school. 

As the administration tries to crackdown on “illegal resident”, ICE is also sweeping in immigrants who are legal residents but who have been convicted of sometimes only minor or old criminal offenses. Until a measure of sanity returns to the nation’s immigration policy these non-profit, volunteer-based organizations will not give up on the immigrant community. Amor and Seafn are working hard to fight against criminalization, surveillance, racial profiling, and mass imprisonment. The organization's ultimate goal is to decrease the number of people in and harmed by the criminal legal system. 

I believe that we are all in this together and I believe that the fear of undocumented students and their families need and must be addressed. How can we help our students and families face their hard reality? by keeping ourselves informed, by providing appropriate outlets for students’ thoughts and feelings. We need to make sure our students are nurtured and feel connected in our classroom. We must encourage them to have a voice and to learn to advocate for themselves and their family. As caring educators we must foster more relationship-centered schools. More than ever, our immigrant students need to experience a sense of safety and community in school. None of these things will happen unless we make them happen. Our students are our future, we need to protect them!

Many School Districts throughout the country have vowed to protect undocumented students and their families in response to what the present administration is doing. Many School Districts believe that, "School should be a safe place, just like home" 

I also believe that our students go to school to learn, to feel safe. I also feel that school shouldn't be a scary place for them to go to. I am happy to hear that Many School Districts around the country believe that undocumented children have the right to attend a public school and be educated just as a US citizen has the right to be educated.

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Memo Blog Post # 5

The Research Design

Developing an Action Plan For Your Inquiry

By Beverly Falk & Megan Blumenreich

(Chapter 5) 

Chapter five explores ways for teachers to make an action plan(s) as they try to conduct classroom research. I hope that this chapter gives me a clearer idea on how to proceed with my investigation as I still am a bit worry about how to gather data in order to conduct a good classroom research project. 

For me, designing a classroom research project based on my main question(s) and subquestion (s) is still a bit challenging to me since I have to collect data as I am also teaching my classes. Also creating meaning questions that can help me produce a good report that will benefit me as a teacher and also my students, makes me nervous. I will like to be able to gather data that will help me get ideas, analyze them and make an educated conclusion that will guide as I explore how to become a good classroom research teacher. 

I currently have 8 groups/classes which I see every other day, so deciding which group(s), student/students will be my first priority. I am also thinking about my possible inquiries and the data I need to collect for my research project and the more I think about it, the more nervous I get. So what data am I going to collect? How will I know what type of data will be good enough for my project based on the questions I have? Will one source be good to collect enough data for the project? Regarding this Falk and Blumenreich states that, to “think how each data source you decide to use will answer each one of your questions” (Falk & Blumenreich page 65). 

I like that both authors tells us that as a way of figuring out how to identify if the chosen sources) will help classroom researchers as they try to answer each question. I also liked the fact that they tell us to remember not to just focus on one source to get pertinent data. “A minimum of three different sources is generally recommended” (Falk and Blumenreich page 66). I now see that being able to utilize different source for data collection will and also making a question and sub question chart will definitely help me get a clear understanding about my teaching and my students. 

As I previously stated, as we are advancing in the semester and as I think of how fast the project due date is approaching, makes me feel super nervous. I worry because I think of how am I going to collect all the required data for the project as it is difficult for me to go out and interview, videotape, observe other classes/teachers when in the District I teach student privacy is a big concern. Also getting participants can also be somewhat difficult. I also think of the time I have to collect and complete the project (about a month and a half), I hope to be able to complete this task without feeling anxious with the task(s) presented before me. 

So, keeping in mind the time I have to complete this task and once I collected important data, what do I do with it? How do I organize the information collected? Page 71 of the chapter tells me that in order to construct a good plan of action, I will need to think about what I want to do and need to plan accordingly before collecting pertinent data. Regrading my time frame and data collection and organizations concerns) chapter five reminds me that ”you need to consider how you will go about analyzing your data and what time frame you have will follow to complete your story? So now I have to start thinking about how I will use the data collected in a way that I will be able to draw a good conclusion, but as the project unfolds will also be able to analyze and look at things I had never planned on examining before.

After reading this chapter, I now know that I will be spending a lot of time planning, collecting and organizing the data because. I really hope that the planning stage will yield clarity about my plan and the goal(s) I like to achieve/meet at the end of this project. 

The last pages of the chapter share good input into the classroom research topic as it talks about planning inquiry projects for students. The chapter tells us that we need to consider children’s questions as we planned our curriculum. So, understanding what they can bring to our classroom, what they understand, their strengths, needs will help educator shape and make informed instructional decisions to help children learn better. I felt connected to this line, “only when we build into our teaching plans a way to take into account what is happening with our students”-through a continual gathering of evidence of what they understand and how they can actually apply their understanding-will we have a way to assess effectiveness of our teaching” (page 78). 

Yes, as educators we are always thinking of ways to make positive adjustments) in order to reach our students. Adjusting the curriculum to meet students academic needs will welcome and promote meaningful and active learning. Students will feel important and will become a vital part of the learning process. I plan on making sure my students become a partner in the teaching and learning process. I hope this project will help me complete this task successfully.