Mia Allen: Transforming Lives Through Language Education

Mia Allen: [00:00:00] How do we set up all families for success so that when you leave your country inadvertently or because of any number of circumstances you don’t necessarily bring birth certificates and you don’t necessarily bring all of the documentation because you’re leaving not because you want to but because circumstances require you to and so thinking about systems that will support a family through that process and Our systems are really complicated in the United States.

Even registering a child for school if English is not your first language is daunting at best. So having first language support right there to greet families and make certain that, yes, you’re understood, yes, you’re important. Yes, we want to make certain that your child is right where they’re supposed to be and thank you for coming.

With that kind of service oriented approach, I think matters so much. People are humans [00:01:00] and people appreciate that. 

Justin Hewett: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the ML chat podcast. My name is Justin Hewett. I’ll be your host today. And I’m here with my co host 

Mandi Morris: Mandi Morris. 

Justin Hewett: And we just had the best conversation with Mia Allen.

Mia is a longtime friend. She spent a lot of years serving multilingual learners as a teacher. And then as a consultant for a WIDA certified trainer. And now she’s going back into the classroom to work with life students. And it was just so interesting kind of hearing about her journey. and hearing about how she’s thinking about going back into the classroom now.

Mandi Morris: It really was. And something that stood out to me in talking to Mia is that after 25 years in education, she is just as excited to learn new things, try new things. She has so much energy and joy around the work that she’s doing. And that was just really incredible to see from such a veteran educator.

Justin Hewett: Yeah. There’s so [00:02:00] much that A lot of times you get a lot of energy early on in your career. And then over time, you move into more of a leadership position where it’s theoretical and you’re telling people different ideas and things they should try and what they should do. And so it really is fun to, to see her have that energy to go back into the classroom.

But Mia shares some really good insight into how to better think about serving our SLEIF students and our SIFE students. We also end up talking about. Serving our multilingual learners who also have an IEP for special education. And so I think you’re going to really enjoy this conversation.

One of my favorite things about Mia is she is always fun. She’s going to bring great education and learning for us. But in addition to that, there’s always going to be an element of fun. So enjoy this. Wonderful conversation with Mia Allen. Mia Allen has been serving language learners for 25 years. She has worked as a teacher, coach, consultant, and as a WIDA certified trainer.

She has worked [00:03:00] creating dual language and language arts curriculum, and most recently worked as a director of district partnerships with a non profit serving language learners. She recently decided to return to the classroom as a new arrival refugees and SLIFE teacher for secondary learners in Denver public schools.

Mia received a master’s from the University of Northern Colorado in elementary education with a focus on culturally linguistic diversity education. She received a second master’s from the University of Colorado in bilingual special ed. Before going on to get her doctorate in education from the Richard W.

Riley College of Education in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment. With a focus on SLIFE secondary programs. Mia Allen, welcome to the ML chat podcast. We are so excited to have you here today. 

Mia Allen: Thank you so much, Justin and Mandi. It’s going to be super fun. I’m excited. 

Justin Hewett: Mia and I worked together for a number of years previously at Imagine Learning.

That was a long time ago now, and it’s been [00:04:00] so fun to watch you go and be a consultant to so many districts across the nation, go do the WIDA certified trainer thing, and just really. impact a lot of kids. And so I’m fun. I’m excited to talk about that journey you’ve been on and some of the things that you’ve learned.

But Mia, can we start by first just diving into where did you decide or how did you decide to get into serving our multilingual learners? 

Mia Allen: It’s such a good question. And I think it’s innate to my upbringing. We refer to it as a mitzvah and I was part of a multilingual home and my grandmother instilled that notion of service and support because of her journey and that has always been just at the forefront of Both my upbringing and my experience in school.

And I always knew that I wanted to work with students at some level. And so I think that has just been how I navigate the [00:05:00] world. Always navigating the world in more than one language and also thinking about what that looks like for families and students. 

Justin Hewett: And so what languages were spoken in your world as you were growing up, what were you exposed 

Mia Allen: to?

My grandmother for certain spoke to us in Yiddish. My parents spoke French. I ended up getting a degree in Spanish and French. And yeah, both of those languages has been at the forefront. I definitely understand some Hebrew and definitely understand when people are speaking Hebrew. About me in Yiddish, for sure.

I don’t know if I could probably respond. I have all of the important words, but yeah, I think that’s definitely part of our upbringing. And my mom is a New Yorker and my father was also born on the East coast and it’s Definitely part of that part of the world is that you would walk, before you hit the elevator, you would hear at least five or six languages.

And I just think that makes such a rich experience in [00:06:00] life and in the world. 

Justin Hewett: It does. And you can see why at an early age you were drawn to serve students with, A lot of different backgrounds and from a lot of different situations that spoke a lot of different languages. But how did you actually make that decision for the first time?

So you decided you wanted to go into education. How did you decide? 

Mia Allen: Yes, such a circuitous route. So I graduated four bazillion and a half years ago with a degree in English literature and French and Spanish and took a position teaching in Cholula in Mexico. Wow. And was actually hired as like a social studies secondary teacher.

And then I arrived and they’re like, actually we hired already for that position. So what do you think about working with littles? And I was like, okay. And then I realized that most of these kiddos actually spoke mixed tech and then we’re learning Spanish in the classroom. And there was. 37 or 38 of them and very stark setting as far as kind of materials and support.

And I was like, wow. I’m like, olive [00:07:00] 20 years old. I don’t know , I can handle all of this. And they said, actually, we need an art teacher. So they led me out to this shed that had a tin roof and they said, we have. markers, and we have pens, and we have pencils, and we have paint. And why don’t you teach art to like K 9?

And I said, all right, let’s do it. It’ll be fun. And the kids were phenomenal. And so I set it up like a Montessori classroom. So there were stations for students to work in, and language became secondary to the fun that was happening in the classroom. And I think that’s central to the theme of K 9.

kind of the circuitous route towards education is that the content should take the forefront and teaching kids to really enjoy and engage and then support them with all of the language pieces. And from there, I returned to the United States and actually served as a bilingual victim advocate for the Denver Police Department, [00:08:00] which is a very different practice and process and realized I wanted to make certain I was working with students from a very different angle.

I think my second or third big call was Columbine, and that was really devastating, and so I knew that it didn’t want to be on that side of how to serve families for certain, and ended up being a paraprofessional, a bilingual paraprofessional, and sought a teaching license and all of the different things.

So I have taught in Denver Public Schools previous to all of these other roles for about 10 or 12 years and worked in a dual language school, mostly in elementary, and then continued all of the education and all of the financial duties that requires to continue your own personal education. But Yeah.

Education has always been central to how to serve and support communities. I think 

Justin Hewett: there’s so many things that we want to dive into that. I can [00:09:00] imagine those days around Columbine were really dark. I remember that pretty vividly. And so I can only imagine having being a part of that. 

Mia Allen: Yeah, it was really, it was one of those things that you say in your mind, this can only possibly just happen once.

And I remember distinctly thinking as I was writing, First of all, I worked for Denver Police Department and I worked in arson. And so when the lieutenant said, you’re gonna go, you’re riding with me, Alan. And I was like, okay, where are we going? And then I started hearing all of the chatter. And I was thinking, this isn’t good.

And this is really not good. And I was like, Sarconi, where are you taking me? I was really young. He’s, you’re gonna be assigned to this specific family and this is your job and no one prepares you for any of those kind of things. 

Justin Hewett: You know what though? I think you are uniquely prepared to go do the work that you’re gonna do and we’ll get into that in just a minute.

But one of the things I want to just call out is you [00:10:00] talked about being in the art shed. With the tin roof, and you talk about having these stations and K 8 students that are working in and working out. They probably are coming through at different times of the day. And you mentioned that you had fun, right?

And they had fun. And I think to me, that’s one of the themes that I’ve noticed about you, Mia, over the years, is you work hard. There’s not very many people that I know of that work as hard as you do. There’s nobody that has more fun in the work that they’re doing. When you are doing a training or like when you sit down in a classroom, you understand that in order to educate, you almost have to some degree, first entertain, you have to get attention.

And that’s just something that you really have a knack for. Where did that knack come from Mia? That you just. Understood that. 

Mia Allen: Oh, I have no idea. I think when you come from a large family, if you want your voice to be heard in any way, shape, or form. You have to either be funnier, louder, or quieter. I think you have to [00:11:00] choose one or three avenues.

And Probably all three at any given time. Sometimes it’s just easier to be quieter because it’s going to be said by somebody anyway. You know that cause you have lots of kids and you probably have one that was someone eventually is just going to say what I need. So I don’t need to voice it over.

Sometimes you just have to be funnier. And you have to find a way to break the chaos that is a large family. And sometimes you just have to figure out where your voice is in any given time. And I think the gift of that is just learning how to read a room and read who’s in the room. And I think especially at this time of year, teachers are.

being asked to think about all 150 million things, right? They’re thinking about how to set up a classroom and then they’re sitting in a professional development that may or may not be real relevant in the moment and figuring out a way to read that room and find an anchor that teachers are like, okay, this actually was worth my while and this is actually going to be [00:12:00] valuable for serving and supporting students.

And sometimes it was really hard. Sometimes you have to break through all that cantankerous and find a way, maybe even just to be a little bit funny. 

Mandi Morris: Mia, I’m like just dying to jump into your next steps. I’m so excited to hear you unpack all of that. And you were saying you were in Denver Public Schools for 10 years.

You took different paths. also in education, continued your own personal education. Tell me about your next steps and what led you there. Thanks, 

Mia Allen: Mandi. That’s, it’s a long answer, but I’ll try to be succinct. For the last couple of years, I’ve served as a director of district partnerships, working with three specific districts across the United States.

So that’s lots of planes, trains, and automobiles. And as much as I have loved that work, I have really missed working directly with students. I had an opportunity during the pandemic to serve [00:13:00] a small district here in the Colorado metro area with new arrival students. All of these students were Central American students that had spent some time, at least four to six months, at the border and facilities.

And I was told a couple of things about these kids. One, they don’t speak English. Two, they don’t necessarily speak Spanish. Three, We don’t know if they’ve been in school and four, they have a computer five. Good luck. That was what I was told. And this was in the midst of remote learning in the middle of the pandemic.

And a friend of mine said, Hey, we really need some help. Would you be willing to do this? And. I have never had more fun. It was such a joyous group of kids, all with very heartbreaking stories, each and every one of them. But every one of those students has now graduated. Even the students that I wondered if that was going to be their path.

Every one of them has now graduated. And [00:14:00] it reminded me of my why. And I was like, what am I doing? I don’t want to be on a train, plane or an automobile. I. Not certain that these meetings are really actually directly impacting or serving students And I just want to work with kids and I woke up and I was like, how do I do that?

How do I get back to working with students and a colleague in front of mine had returned from Being at the central office in DPS to run this pretty amazing school that we have that is specifically catering to our new arrival families, and it’s a pretty exceptional place, and I reached out and said, What do you got?

What can I do? And Yeah, that’s the path. 

Justin Hewett: So are you going back to Placebridge Academy? 

Mia Allen: I am. I’m gonna be at Placebridge. I know it’s a pretty amazing place. Justin also has had opportunities to visit 

Justin Hewett: Yes, Placebridge is [00:15:00] amazing. For our listeners that don’t know, this is a pretty large building and it has been ran by the most incredible woman, Brenda Kazin.

And I don’t know how many years she’s been running that, but she has had this amazing vision of creating this, Almost the United Nations of schools. And it is such an incredible environment for these new Americans, for these young children to come into. Mia, tell us a little bit about PlaceBridge and I’m guessing Brenda has retired at this point.

Mia Allen: She has definitely, she has lots of grandkids. Kiddos and has a very full and rich life, but she has retired and the building has continued to be a beacon of excellence and support around what are promising practices for programmatic procedural and practices, pedagogical practices for serving new arrival students.

And so it’s a K 8 building. And I don’t remember [00:16:00] exactly the language count this year, it’s always been in the 70s to 80s numbers of languages that are spoken on the campus and. Within PLACE, I think what makes it unique is that there are so many wraparound services that are right there on the campus.

Students have an opportunity to have Jewish family services and mental health support services right there. There’s medical and dental health support services right on the campus. So students don’t have to take our public transportation and get there. The Denver Metro area is challenging at best, and so students can just walk down the hall and get some of the things that they need as they arrive in this country.

And in the Denver Metro area, since I think October November, we have had 42, 000 brand new Venezuelan families arrive, and Placebridge has been a beacon and support structure. amongst all the other Denver Public Schools to really make certain that [00:17:00] these, and Aurora, these students are served, and many of these students would be considered slife, that they have had a limited or interrupted formal education just based on their journey to the United States.

Yeah, it is a pretty amazing place. 

Mandi Morris: Mia, if you could unpack a little bit more about this Tell me a little bit about what a day is like in the life of a student in that school environment. And it’s incredible to hear that there are services like medical, emotional, social need supports for students. What is the classroom like?

When a student is going to school, there are all the students that child is around also learning English as an additional language is, are the English is just embedded into the content classes. Tell me a little bit about what is a day like for a student in that building. Thank you. 

Mia Allen: It is an ECE through 8 building, what is somewhat new to the building this year, and you have to remember I’m just returning.

So this past week I spent the day kind of setting up a classroom for [00:18:00] kiddos, and I will be in a newcomer classroom. So there are levels of support. In addition, Mandi, the students have, there is a center based program as well. There is an autism program in the building. So there are just some pretty phenomenal educators that are really dedicated to serving students in that space.

But historically, and as we continue to reimagine what does newcomer support services look like, Because we have such an influx of Venezuelan students, thinking about also ways to support students towards maybe even a seal of bilingual biliteracy. So in the state of Colorado, like many states, students can graduate with their seal of bilingual biliteracy, Spanish, Arabic, all sorts of different languages.

But the program this year is going to be supporting So that means that students will have some instruction in their home language, Spanish, and [00:19:00] also have that sheltered English that you are, you have been talking about. All educators, because of what we refer to as the modified consent decree in, in Denver public schools, have to have CLDE or culturally linguistic diverse education in some way.

So either educators are what we refer to in Denver as DLDE. Ila E or Ila S, meaning that they are supporting, all teachers are supporting language, but some teachers are also supporting Spanish language. And this year, I think the way that we have set it up for middle school, specifically in the newcomer, is to do some platooning, which is really exciting.

So these students will have a more authentic middle school experience so that when they leave Place Bridge and go to high school, they will be familiar with transitioning classrooms and working with different educators. Electives for our new arrival students will be integrated, meaning that they will be with grade level peers, which is wonderful.

Science is also going to be [00:20:00] integrated this year. And then there will be one of us who will be submitting. Supporting social studies, one of us supporting language arts, and one of us supporting math. And I will be supporting math. So that should be pretty interesting because I haven’t taught math in a hot minute.

So I’ll be learning math alongside my middle school students to also inadvertently help my daughter who is applying for colleges and ask me all sorts of calculus questions that I don’t remember the answer to. Thanks goodness for Chat GPT. 

Mandi Morris: Mia, I think it’s like a rare person who can teach in an art shed and also teach math.

That is a rare human who can do both of those things. That’s just really incredible. 

Mia Allen: I think the idea is that’s a really thoughtful thing for you to say and thank you, but I think truth be told It’s finding a way to make it interesting, engaging, and meaningful for students, and whether it be art, when students are like, I don’t know how to draw, to math, when [00:21:00] kids are like, why do I actually need this?

I’m excited. Actually, I’ve been starting the last couple of weeks building these life skills using math, the things that we don’t actually think we need, but Truth be told, you actually do need them. 

Justin Hewett: You really do need this. That’s right. My son, Lincoln, the other day, we were driving in the car and he turned to me and he said, Dad, so we learned about prime numbers towards the end of the year.

When am I going to use that in my real life? 

Mia Allen: In my real life. I love that. Go Lincoln. 

Justin Hewett: Outside of school, and I, honestly, I struggled to figure out. I couldn’t come up with something on the spot, and I just started laughing. I just thought it was, like, what a great question. I don’t know, we’re going to have to figure this out.

Mia Allen: Lincoln, when you turn 13, and when you turn 17, and when you also turn 11, that prime number is going to be really important. 

Justin Hewett: Really important. I want to dive in just a little bit. So everybody should go check out PlaceBridge, to be honest. There’s a lot of amazing things happening there. It really.

Everyone across the nation should be learning about [00:22:00] and taking some of those principles and implementing them within their district and finding some ways to do some of that. But I would love to dive in a little bit to our life students. Let’s define it. You said it earlier. The S is students with limited.

Or interrupted formal education. So tell us, what does that actually mean in regards to a student? Walk us through that a little bit. Let’s unpack it. Do we have an idea of how, what percentage of students or how many students that term might apply to Mia? 

Mia Allen: I think given the circumstances of learning. was definitely not equitable or even similar for many of the students during the pandemic.

I often wonder if our understanding of SLEIF or SIFE students should be reimagined a little bit because I think about the students that I taught for just about a year remote and then was in the classroom with them for the latter part of the year and the circumstances which [00:23:00] with which they were learning was.

There was multiple students in the home, many of the students were older, so they were also responsible for the caretaking of their younger siblings, so that, Is distracting and hard to concentrate on your own learning and then also just all of the social emotional kind of considerations for arriving in a new country, not knowing there’s this disease that is happening.

People don’t know exactly the impact. So I think our explanation and definition of SIFE, I imagine probably in the next couple of years will expand. But I think when we think about our Traditionally, SIFE or SLIFE students, some of the pieces that we have to consider are what are the specialized programming pieces and what is the assistance that these students need that’s maybe above and beyond what a multilingual student might need.

Sometimes [00:24:00] we put all of our multilingual students in this. One bucket, right? They’re all just have a home language and are learning another language, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Like a student who has had this interrupted education is in a very different place than a student that has had that consistent support and may actually have strong first language and literacy skills.

Mandi Morris: Mia, when you think about a Psyche’s Life student in secondary, what are practices that you feel like, this is what you gotta do. If you have limited resources, and we know there’s schools all across the country that don’t have the same type of resources, or the same type of systems in place as police Where you’ll be a school built specifically for this.

So when you’re thinking about school districts that have an increase of slave students, and maybe even an unexpected increase, is there some advice that you could give teachers, directors that if you’re going to bite off a first step, start here, and then [00:25:00] maybe even you can grow in this direction, because I know firsthand that can be very overwhelming for both teachers and school districts to know how to tackle.

Mia Allen: That’s a really good question, and I’m not certain I have all the answers, but I think about it through three P’s, right? Through, so what is the program? Then what are our procedural practices, right? And then what is the pedagogy? And all three of those things are so important. So really defining what The program looks like for the campus, and that may look very different from campus to campus.

But how does it support a district mission around serving students? So thinking about that first and getting a real clear picture of my students. Pathway to the classroom was so helpful because the students that I worked with during the pandemic, as I had mentioned, I was given very bare bones information [00:26:00] and having site visits and visiting each and every one of those students homes before classes ever began made such a difference.

Deep impact on not only supporting the family, but also I wasn’t just this two dimensional creature in a screen that was trying to teach English. That really mattered. Like showing up at each and every one of those students homes as a human first with a backpack in hand. And we’re in this really crazy journey together and I’m not certain what that’s going to look like.

And I know I look really strange with this mask on my face, but how do we do this thing together? And then some of the procedures or later this week, we have a new arrival registration system and set up for families to come and really thinking about how do we set up all families for success so that when you leave your country, inadvertently or because of any number of circumstances, you don’t [00:27:00] necessarily bring birth certificates and you don’t necessarily bring all of the documentation because you’re leaving, not because you want to, but because circumstances require you to.

And so thinking about systems that will support a family through that process and our systems are really complicated in the United States. Even registering a child for school, if English is not your first language, is. daunting at best. So having first language support right there to greet families and make certain that, yes, you’re understood.

Yes, you’re important. Yes. We want to make certain that your child is right where they’re supposed to be. And thank you for coming with that kind of service oriented approach. I think matters so much. People are humans and people appreciate that. And then I think about the pedagogical pieces and there’s a lot that There, when we think about our life students, so I think as I’m [00:28:00] preparing to not only teach English language development and math for these middle school aged kids, the first place that I think is going to be really important is to figure out what do they know.

What rich areas do they already bring to the classroom and how do we activate that and so I think about that in also threes Clearly there’s a theme here, but I think about the three C’s actually we did a training on this just in a while ago I’m thinking about first like the first C being context and then thinking about What connections can we support students to make based on their own circumstances, and then also building out opportunities for collaboration and communication.

So really, it’s C to the fourth power, but nobody’s counting. But starting there, thinking about what Students already bring to the classroom. How do we activate that prior knowledge? And then how do we create a space, a learning [00:29:00] space that is not only supportive and reflective of the students that are going to be there, but also is print.

And language rich, having opportunities for students to see all those pieces. 

Mandi Morris: You said something, activate prior knowledge, and I was in the classroom for many years, and you sit in these trainings, you do learnings, and it’s, oh, I love that. Activate prior knowledge. Yes. And then you go back to your classroom, like, How do I do that?

What does that look like? How do I do that in my classroom? And I feel so excited about Flashlight 360 and part of what we’re doing is giving students and teachers an opportunity to activate that prior knowledge to make the connections and for teachers to see, to be able to visualize. I now have data around who has information about the life cycle and who doesn’t have information about the life cycle and where do I need to start.

can I reinforce learning? But I wonder for you in your classroom, when you think about something like activating prior knowledge, trying to make connections [00:30:00] to that background knowledge that students have or the experiences that students have, do you have an example, a story or just like a pedagogy that you have found is meaningful for you in your career?

Mia Allen: I think I’ll tell you a story cause there was an opportunity. So in some of the work that I’ve had. The gift of doing I’ve worked with central consolidated school district, which is on the Navajo nation. So it’s on the Shiprock side of the nation. And we were doing some cognitive coaching cycles with this amazing.

It was a fourth, fifth split class. This particular campus was very far. It was very remote. So many of the classrooms were combined grade levels because of just the numbers of students and how students would come to this particular campus and that And Teacher was teaching a unit, both language arts integrated with social studies on transportation.

And it was really interesting because she was doing just that. How do we activate that prior knowledge? She was like, so how do you get to school? And the kids were [00:31:00] really smart. They were like, we come in a truck or we come by horse. Some of the kids do ride a horse. Some of the kids ride a bicycle. One of the kids said, I ride my skateboard.

And I was thinking. That’s amazing, because the roads are impassable at best, so go you. And so he, she was doing just that, trying to like engage with students around transportation. Some of them said that they use the bus, but very few. But part of what she was teaching the students was about a subway. So I’m a New Yorker, right?

So I’m thinking about what would a student in the middle of the Navajo Nation in Nas Chidi know anything about? a subway. And so she’s, of course, just like always in, in the world of education, like technology wasn’t working, Wi Fi wasn’t working. So like the video that she had prepared to help students activate that prior knowledge, just like you’re asking, Mandi.

Just was a no go, right? And so also the printed papers that she had for students to read [00:32:00] was a black and white image and really all it was like some doors and like a platform, but students really couldn’t make any sort of connections because, first of all, it’s New Mexico, nothing Is underground, and it just wasn’t going well, and she had done all that she could to do that activation of prior knowledge, and then she sent kids to do another great schematic approach, which is like, what questions might you have when you think about this method of transportation and.

Literally, every one of the groups went back and talked about what they wanted on their Subway sandwich. They were, they were like, I love meatballs with pickles. And one of the kids is, man, that’s just disgusting. I like distinctly remember these conversations. I 

Justin Hewett: agree with that boy. 

Mia Allen: Yeah. He, he was like, man, that is disgusting.

Nobody gets lettuce and pickles and tomatoes on their meatball sandwich. Like he was adamant about that. And then one kid was like, cold. I don’t know a ton [00:33:00] about what’s on the subway menu, but I do know that’s one restaurant that’s available kind of towards Shiprock, and kids have eaten there. And so what was missing for them, and this was a Navajo teacher, maybe she’s never even written as the Navajo.

Subway, I don’t think I ever asked her, but we ended up doing a mental field trip and I was like, all right, so let’s go to Subway. And they’re like, sweet, what are you buying? And I said, okay, so what is the first thing that you notice when you walk in the door? And they’re all talked about the smell of the bread, right?

So listeners probably are like thinking about that. So then I said, okay, so now what are the things that you see? And they were like closing their eyes. And they’re like, we see those yellow booths. And I said, great. All right, so what’s on the wall next to the yellow booth? And they’re like these black and white pictures.

And I was like, what are those pictures? And they’re like, I don’t know. And I said, they’re actually like people getting on and off a subway. And they’re like, oh, we never knew that. And so [00:34:00] then they were talking about why did they call the subway a sandwich shop? Why is it called Subway? And I said, because when you’re hungry at the end of the day, like the easiest thing to eat while you’re standing, holding on to your dear life as the train goes to wherever it’s going, is a Sub, because it’s wrapped.

And theoretically, the guy, the meatball kid was like, no man, your meatballs are gonna fall at the bottom. Not everybody gets meatballs, but it was that activation, Mandi, of prior knowledge. Like them, the students. Could make that connection. We had to start with something that they were familiar with, right?

That they understood. And then they could make that really. Next step around. Oh, okay. So this is why a those are the pictures that I see every time on Sunday. I go to the subway after a family event. They had made those really strategic connections. So it’s the triple C’s in action, right? [00:35:00] 

Mandi Morris: And I love that you point out what happens in education all the time is a lesson that goes awry.

And as a teacher, you just, you got to pivot and you’ve got to be flexible. And the kids are sitting there, I do not understand why we’re talking about like how I get to school and then what I eat. What’s the connection? And you just, you were flexible and you had to pivot and you. Clearly had great strategies from years of experience to be able to do that.

So thanks. That was such a wonderful example. 

Justin Hewett: I love it. I, and it’s, I’m so excited for you to make this transition back into the classroom. Me. I think it’s, you’ve been on a mission all these years and it just, it’s just you getting back to the same roots and mission that really you’ve been on all these years, but there’s another one, another mission that I’ve always thought of you whenever I have questions about our multilingual learners who are twice exceptional.

And back in episode 25, we had the chance to talk with Maribel Merado Colon, [00:36:00] and she talked a lot about our multilingual learners and who were over referred to special education services and how different it is from one state to the next. And I’d love to just chat with you a little bit about this, Mia, and just understand from your experience, why does this end up happening?

Why do we end up having an over representation of our multilingual learners? In special education, 

Mia Allen: it’s such an interesting process, right? I think that pendulum, Justin and Mandi has swung both directions, right? We often see a very vast over identification of students or we see another. practice where we’re very slow to identify our students because we’re fearful that we haven’t really explored and examined the language development pathway first.

And I think, thinking about your question, there’s so many things to consider when we’re really looking at our students. Students [00:37:00] pathway to the classroom, especially in our other conversations. We’ve been talking about cyphers life. Students often see that those students are quick to be identified for additional support services in special education, in the hopes that it’s going to make up for some of the gaps that they’ve had in education.

So we’re looking for tier two or tier three support structures. When in fact, the question I’m always asking is, what are the ways that students can be learning some of those needed skills, especially literacy skills and decoding skills that they may have? Not received, especially if they were remote learning.

How do we support those students in the central classroom as opposed to thinking about special education and support that is beyond the classroom? So I think as we talk about our dual identified students, I think it’s important to start with the where and the what first and really getting a clear picture of.

Again, going back to our SIFE students, what [00:38:00] can these students do and what data can we utilize to really make some informed decisions? And then how quickly can we work through some of those misconceptions or gaps? Not all students, just because they don’t have all phonological awareness skills, need to sit through hours upon hours of OG.

Right? Orton Gillingham training. Plus it’s not very age appropriate for a secondary student. So what are ways that we can make it engaging and also teach those students those core early literacy skills and also have them have exposure to some rich and engaging texts? And that is often the age old question teachers are like, where can they go for those support services?

And I think the better question is, What do they need and how does that happen alongside their grade level peers first? 

Justin Hewett: I love that. I think to me, the thing that really stuck out was the focus on assets first, really understanding what [00:39:00] can the student do, what do they bring to the work and then working from there.

And it’s been really interesting for us to dive into this work and just try to understand so much. And I think a lot of educators don’t necessarily have the tools all the time, but is this a language Deficit or is there something else, right? And I think that a lot of districts really struggle to differentiate between whether it’s a language deficit or if there is a learning disability.

And do you have a framework or a way that, as you’ve consulted with districts through the years, is there a shorthand that you can share that people can keep in mind as they’re. Working with students and trying to identify how to best serve them. 

Mia Allen: I think that there are so many great things that are already out there because so many states have really done such good work already.

And so that has been the core of a class that I’m teaching. I have an opportunity to teach this class through English learner portal on the dual identified. learner. It’s like a three part [00:40:00] class and we first start exploring, the first part of the class kind of explores the misconceptions that are occurring as we think about the needs of a language learner versus the needs of a special education student.

And then we look at promising practices, TESOL’s promising practices around some of the things that need to be In place to support language development, and then some of the other pieces that are super, super helpful around the high leverage instructional practices and special education, and that guide is really helpful.

That’s another. place that I often have districts and or folks think about as they’re looking at some of the promising practices. And then the other place that’s really helpful is San Diego Unified actually has a referral and decision making matrix. One of the things that it does is it’s such a nice matrix and it’s really helpful.

So I always go to what has already been created. The Center [00:41:00] for Applied Linguistic is someone you actually had on the show, has done such thoughtful work. They actually have a cohort of educators that I love when I have the opportunity to attend, talk about some of the promising practices across the United States.

And San Diego Unified, as I was talking about, talks about this initial referral and then the decision making practice. So some of the questions, has this English language learner physical and psychological factors been ruled out as a primary issue? consideration for difficulties. Again, if we think about our new arrival students and more specifically this group of Venezuelan students, like their journey to the United States has been harrowing at best.

And yeah, psychological factors may appear in some circumstances, like a learning disability or a slowness to understand a concept. And that may not be the case at all. It just may be circumstantial. And I [00:42:00] love it. Utilizing some of these referral kind of matrix first and really exhausting all of these questions in getting a holistic picture of who these students are before we start identifying what tier two intervention needs to be in place for a student.

I 

Mandi Morris: think it’s worth calling out here too, for students who, like these Venezuelan students that you’re referring to that have spent six, nine, 12 months. Trying to get from Venezuela to the States and What life was like even before that journey was unstable in order for them to make the decision to do the journey which is very dangerous and Unpredictable and then we have these students show up in 8th 9th 10th grade And it’s I’ve seen from teachers and with the best intentions, but I’m just trying to teach my content And they want it to be fast.

We want it to be fast. We want there to be a quick fix to get [00:43:00] students from, okay, they’re here. And now let’s go into content. I think we have to create space and just calling out that, emphasizing what you said about, it’s going to take time. We have to create space and have some patience in that process for students who are showing up as Siphon Slife students and have come from really environments, especially in the secondary environment.

Mia Allen: Yeah. And trauma really has. Very different ways of showing up and 100 percent impact student learning experiences and how they show up on any given day in the classroom. And so I think we would be remiss not to consider those things, especially as we create a holistic picture of who these individual students are.

And one of the things that Flashlight has been able to do for districts is just that, help provide yet another data point specifically focused on oracy for students. What are some of the things that students actually may know in their first language? [00:44:00] And what is the bridging that may need to occur so that they can write and or speak in English too?

Mandi Morris: Mia, I really am hoping that in six or seven months that you will be able to come back and talk with us again because I want to hear all about what your experience was like, but as just a baseline, so for doing our progress. Monitoring here, right? Okay, so let’s create a baseline and then we’ll see what it looks like in six or seven months.

I would love to hear you talk a little bit about what are you most excited about going back into the classroom with these students and what are you nervous about? I’ve been out of the classroom for, I was in a coordinator position before I moved into education technology. I was in that position for three years and in ed tech for a little over two at this point.

So it’s been a minute that I, since I’ve been in the classroom, and I’m thinking about for myself, if I were to be really honest, I would be a little nervous. Is my classroom set up right? Am I, do I [00:45:00] have, I can, am I ready to put all of it into practice? Tell me a little bit about what are you feeling and what do you think it’s going to be like?

Mia Allen: Those are great questions. Instagram is a dark and a hole of great and also daunting content and things that I’m nervous about. I thrive and believe that students also thrive in an environment that is organized in which they feel empowered to make the environment themselves. So they know where the things are so that they can do the thing.

And I think that’s really important. There are so many Pinterest, Instagram videos of how to create a border and all of that. It’s, I find that so daunting and overwhelming because first of all, during the pandemic, when I was in the classroom, we had very little resources and much of what I was teaching was two dimensionally.

And actually every Wednesday, the students did cooking, which was hilarious. And Those things make me nervous when I watch those videos. [00:46:00] It’s really a bad thing to do at 2 a. m. Don’t do it. So those things make me nervous. Have, is this aesthetically pleasing enough? And also, this is a very old building, and the circumstances are many things you can’t change, like windows don’t open, and the classroom was a classroom that had many educators last year.

So what is the experience of these students with a teacher that’s going to be there consistently for them? And so those things make me nervous. What makes me most excited and hopeful is just students. And I actually have an amazing team. I’ve already had an opportunity to meet one of the educators is also new is going to be an ELAS educator and one of the other educators has.

been with PlaceBridge for a very long time and is incredibly dedicated, and I think that matters so much because none of this work can happen in isolation, and so the things that I’m most hopeful for is the opportunity to collaborate with [00:47:00] Folks that are equally dedicated and share a similar asset based mindset around what students can do.

So those are the things I’m most hopeful for. And every day is a different journey. And that’s the gift of working with kids because that didn’t work yesterday. We’ll try it again today. And if it didn’t work today, we’ll try it again tomorrow. And I’m excited and hopeful just to have this group of students have a great engaging, fun.

So there we go. So, this is the end of this video. I hope you enjoyed it. I’ll talk to you next time. Bye. All right, we’re going to do great things, including math. 

Justin Hewett: Including math. 

Mia Allen: Including math. We’re going to do math. 

Justin Hewett: And maybe, we’re going to do all the math. 

Mia Allen: We’re going to do all the math. Yes, my daughter and I were creating a list of life skills with math that you need.

And she had some really great ideas for a 17 year old. She’s like, turns out you really need a budget. I’m like, huh. So, Lululemon shopping is not a good 

Mandi Morris: option. No, it’s not. It [00:48:00] is not. I can speak firsthand. 

Justin Hewett: Mia, I love hearing what you’re a little bit nervous about and what you’re excited about. But I want to just commend you on not only the work that you’ve done for all these years, you’ve impacted a lot of educators really across the nation and that are all working with a lot of students and you took a lot of great experience that you had and a lot of hard work into learning more and learning more about best practices and sharing those and then you spread.

All of that, the gospel of how to serve these students really well and how to be assets based, but also how to understand the cultural and linguistic diversity that is in the classroom and so on and so forth. And here you are now going back to teach a class of students. And it actually is very noble.

And I think it takes a lot of courage to go step back into the classroom like this. And I couldn’t be more proud of you as a friend. And I just, I think those kids are just so lucky that they’re going to get to have [00:49:00] miss Allen, miss doctor, Mia Allen. There we go. I snuck it in really. I think they’re super lucky and I cannot wait to do a follow up here in a few months from now to hear about your experiences in the classroom, working with these lucky kids, 

Mia Allen: Thank you so much.

I really think of it as a step forward. I think all educators, if you get too far from the work that matters, I think you lose your vision and you lose your why. And that’s what I’m excited about. I think the leader of this school was an executive director of multilingual education for the district for a long time.

And she shares that same vision of, I really want to support students and So, it’s neat to be alongside a team of people that share that. I think more educators should be required to be also serving in the classroom too. And thank you. Those are really nice things to say. 

Justin Hewett: Yeah. No, I love that idea of, yeah, go lead [00:50:00] for a few years, go do some of these things and then go jump back into a classroom.

And then maybe you boomerang back into leadership or, but I think you’re right. I think there’s a lot that could be learned from that and go take a lot of your theories and go put them back into practice and see what actually is working today. 

Mia Allen: Yeah, teaching during the pandemic was life altering, to be honest with you, it was not All of those promising practices.

I was like, yep, that’s not going to work today. So we’re going to try this again in two dimension with one of my students who literally joined every single day. I love this kid. He joined in the, from the bathtub because that was the quietest place with the best wifi to learn. And that just speaks volumes to who kids are and their resilience is Miss here.

I am okay. 

Justin Hewett: Mia, we need to wrap up, but I want to ask you a question before we do that, which is if you got to go back in time and go talk with either with yourself, when you were just getting started on your journey of surfing students, [00:51:00] or maybe it’s a brand new educator, that’s a year or two removed from college.

They’ve got their first year or two of working with a class of students under their belt. What piece of advice would you share with them? 

Mia Allen: I will share advice that I actually got from Lily Wong Fillmore, who came to my classroom, I don’t know, the first five or so years that I was teaching, and I had done all the things to create this word wall, because We do that.

We think it needs to look and feel a specific way, and she was so funny. She had the students put their back to this word wall, and she asked them to recall anything that they could, and literally none of the students that she asked could recall anything on this word wall. It was Wallpaper, for sure. And she’s such a lovely human.

It was such a humbling experience, but it was also so telling. What are the things that we choose to spin our wheels around? And what is really going to matter for students in [00:52:00] the end? And making a beautiful word wall that wasn’t student centric, student created, student engaged at all, but aesthetically pleasing.

mattered not at all. And so that was such a pivotal place in my teaching life of thinking around what are the things that matter. If we post a learning or a language target and the students don’t understand the language, what is the point? I think the question that I would ask as a coach or would ask myself, are you doing the thing because it’s checking a box because someone said you gotta or are you doing the thing because it’s actually going to matter for students and a learning and language target are really impactful if the student knows what they are and that the student is really has taken the onus and can say, yes, actually, by the end of this experience, I actually can do this thing and here’s how, then great, keep doing that.[00:53:00] 

But if not, don’t bother. Unless you want to put it on Pinterest and then it might look good. Somewhere but won’t matter 

Justin Hewett: but that’s when you run down the Instagram hole at 2 a. m And people are seeing a word wall that they maybe they need to have that in their classroom, but oh wait It didn’t necessarily move the needle.

Yes. That’s right. Mia always candid always authentic always fun Thank you so much for being here with us. It was a pleasure to have you with us on the ML chat 

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