Doris Chavez-Linville: I think that anybody that wants to help a student succeed can do it. Let me just put it there. It is fact. You have to have the heart and the passion for any student to succeed, right? So you can do that. You don’t have to speak 20 different languages. I hear that a lot. “We, I don’t speak any language that can do that.”

You can still make the classroom a rich language environment for any student 

Mandi Morris: Welcome to the ML Chat podcast. I’m Mandi Morris, your host. Our guest today is Dr. Doris Chavez Linville, the founder of Lumen Leadership. In her work, decades in biliteracy education, she has done research and worked in assessment that has had impact across thousands of multilingual learners across the country, educators and leaders alike.

This conversation is inspiring. It’s fun. I really enjoyed this opportunity to connect with Doris today, and I know that you’re gonna enjoy it as well. Let’s [00:01:00] go. 

Dr. Doris Chavis-Linville, welcome to the ML Chat Podcast. I have wanted to have you on as a guest for a very long time, and I’ve Been very excited about our conversation today. 

Doris Chavez-Linville: Thank you so much, Mandy. I’m so excited to be here. I love getting your message and saying, “Hey, would you be here?” And so thank you for the invite, and thank you for having me.

Mandi Morris: We have so much to talk about today. It’s gonna be hard to fit it into a single episode. We’re gonna try. There’s incredible work that you have done in the field that has impacted students and teachers across the entire country, and I’m really looking forward to unpacking that work and unpacking where you are today and your current work, your vision, your passions.

Before we dig into all of that stuff, I just wanna get to know more about you. What brought you to the ML space? Where did your drive to become an educator start? Take us back in time a little bit and tell us more about you. 

Doris Chavez-Linville: Absolutely. Thanks for that question. I don’t wanna take it too [00:02:00] long because, to your point, there’s so much I wanna share that it’s probably gonna take me too long, but I’m gonna try to encapsulate it into something more manageable.

But to start, I actually am a former teacher. I am originally from Mexico. I was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, and there I was actually a preschool and kindergarten bilingual teacher in a private school. Now, just to make it very clear, being a preschool and kindergarten k- teacher in Mexico does not mean that you are teaching sounds and how to read in English.

You’re actually teaching vocabulary and songs and getting kids exposed to the language, ’cause they are learning how to read in Spanish. But anyway, I always like to clarify that for people, ’cause I never really have taught sounds and all that. But I was a bilingual teacher in Mexico. And when I came to United States as a college student, when I graduate from college here, and that’s a whole other story for another podcast, that I came with a scholarship.

I actually graduated, and I [00:03:00] start to be a teacher at Migrant Education in Pennsylvania. So most of my students were from families that work in the mushroom industry in Pennsylvania. And I actually, as a brand-new teacher, actually a brand-new graduate from college who was still trying to figure out the world of the United States, ’cause my idea was I’m gonna go back to Mexico and teach there, and here I am 33 years later.

So that’s, a- again, another podcast from another story. I learned how to drive on a Friday, and that Monday was my first homebound class in a mushroom house in Pennsylvania, Chester County, in the outskirts of Philadelphia. And that’s how my story started on really being involved with multilingual learners, mainly students that spoke Spanish at home, that their parents were originally mostly from Mexico, and they were working in the mushroom homes, and the students were receiving services through the Migrant Education Program in [00:04:00] Pennsylvania.

So I think I was one of the first Mexican teachers in that program. And I remember so clearly going into one of my kid’s homes and knocking the door- be like, “Hi, I’m your migrant ed teacher for the summer.” And the mom stop, and she’s like, “Are you Puerto Rican?” And I’m like, “No, I’m actually a Mexican.” And she goes, “Oh my God, hi, your Mexican teacher is here.”

I remember that so much. So that’s how I started, right? Being always by, in my heart, a teacher, being a teacher in Mexico while being in college in Mexico, coming to United States, finishing college, and then going right into migrant education, and I was there for almost five years. So that’s how I came into this world.

Yeah. 

Mandi Morris: So in the program that you were teaching through, the students didn’t come to you to a central location. You went to the students’ homes to teach over the summer. 

Doris Chavez-Linville: That is correct, yes. 

Mandi Morris: Wow, that is so unique. What an incredible program. What an amazing experience, and I can feel the joy and [00:05:00] excitement in you even just remembering how seen and heard that family felt having you show up.

To be their teacher in the summer. And then where did you go from there? That clearly built such a strong foundation for the work that you have built a career out of. But after those five years, where did you go next? 

Doris Chavez-Linville: Actually funny that you asked that question, because, uh, I wanted to make sure I shared that story because it really connects to my 26-year career in EdTech.

So as I was both working, doing after school, before school, and homebound work with migrant education, during the summer, we … The, this is seriously beginning of the century, and it sounds like crazy, but it’s true. It was very early in the 2000s, very early in EdTech. We actually adopted a program that was called Lightspan.

So it was video games that were played on PlayStations. So we will get PlayStations, and they were, like, reading and math video games, and I love video games. So [00:06:00] I start to implement this. I will go to the homes of my students. I will plug the PlayStation in their TVs, and then we will play g- video games.

And that’s, I started to … So while I was doing that, my children and their families were exposed to a lot more English because all the games were in English, so their English was developing faster. So I start actually sharing with the company. I’m like, “Hey, this is actually pretty cool because the kids are getting to learn some of the math facts and information in English because we have these resources available to them.”

And so they invite me actually to become a consultant to, to work for Lightspan, and I’m like, “What do you mean a consultant? I’m a teacher. I’m always gonna be a teacher, right? I’m going back to get my certification in special ed.” And then they say, “If you want to, you can do that.” I’m like, “Okay, maybe I’ll try.”

And a little funny story is that I did not have a green card. I had graduated as a college student, and I had a work visa [00:07:00] for a year, which I was working with MigraNet, and then they were sponsoring me. And the company say, “We’ll sponsor you.” I’m like, “What?” So that’s how I ended up moving from being a college student, being a teacher for MigraNet, and then going and being a consultant at EdTech.

Starting again in 2000. And again, I’ve been in edtech for 26 years until now as a consultant, a manager, as a product developer, as a project manager. I had, you tell me, all different types of roles in it, but it started from working as a migrant ed teacher, yeah. 

Mandi Morris: Doris, 26 years in edtech, you have seen a lot of fads come and go, but what is something that you’ve really noticed over the years that has changed in how edtech either is supporting English learners or maybe areas and gaps where we’re not there quite yet?

Doris Chavez-Linville: That’s such a great question, honestly. I think that definitely have seen a lot more organizations truly investing [00:08:00] in, in multilingual learners, not only investing in terms of, “Oh, let’s bring somebody who knows a little bit,” but also investing on research, on full programs or platforms that are actually designed- for multilingual learners.

So that’s been the best piece that I have seen. The thing that continues to be the trend is that usually, not always, heads of product across any company, I don’t care which one it is, tend to be people that are more maybe monolingual learners themselves, maybe they have a type of learning experience different to a multilingual learner, maybe even people that are in charge of a product specific or a product strategy.

So I think that having somebody with the background of understanding what it is to be a multilingual learner, living that life, or even experiencing that through years of work with multilingual learners and families makes a big difference. So [00:09:00] what I have seen and the products that work really well are the ones that you see people embedded in those products that have the background versus others that, I don’t know how many times you have heard, “Oh, yes, we have that Spanish.

It was translated.” I’m like, okay, that’s not what we are asking for, and there’s a lot more than that. So I think that’s what I have seen the most. People many times have very good intentions of doing good work. Does not mean that they’re involving the right people to do the good work, and that’s probably the biggest difference that I notice.

Mandi Morris: So there’s still room to grow. Some growth has happened, right? But there’s still room to grow. So Doris, you go into video games, s- kids learning English from video games. You’re a consultant for this company, and it’s, it, like you were saying, wow, how much have things changed since, well, you were saying 20 plus years ago, 25 plus years ago.

Where does your career go from there? 

Doris Chavez-Linville: There’s obviously, again, been a lot of different roles that I have, but I think that the most important role that [00:10:00] I felt that really was that pivoted moment in my career that changed a lot of who I am today and the work that I have been doing lately, it was about seven years ago, where I was working for a company and, and that company, Myan, was purchased by another company, which I used to work at before Renaissance, and I was actually moved into a, into the product team.

I never work in product before. I always did professional development. I did project management. I did consult- that was my role, but that was the first time I ever was involved in product, and to me, that was a brand new world. But one of the things I noticed is that customer constantly were coming to the company and saying, “Hey, we’re not seeing our kids in the products,” or, “The products that are being developed are not quite there yet.”

So the company would say, “We need to do this.” So that was the first time that I was introduced into, oh, this is the product process that you do this work. This is how you developed it, and [00:11:00] I learned a lot, but I also learned a lot about- collaborating with those that know how to develop the product and have great experience, but also push the boundaries on the way that we do work.

So I’m like, “Okay, we’re gonna do the work. I am here. I’m gonna do it,” and then I start looking for research. And I’d known of research from Dr. Kathy Escamilla, and I know research from Dr. Jim Cummins, and I can give you the list of researchers that I’d known their work for a long time. But it, that has been research that maybe has not been continued to follow throughout, and my interest was very specifically around assessment.

So when I was looking about assessment, there was not really that much done. There is obviously the assessment, which is a learn- a language-specific proficiency, but I was more interested about what we ask our students to do, which is reading and math assessments in English of students that have the similar background than me, that you come in with the one language and you’re now adding English to your linguistic [00:12:00] repertoire.

There wasn’t really that much research. And then I find out that the only research that has ever been done with English and a Spanish assessment was done through Dr. Kathy Escamilla and the University of Colorado Boulder team. First time ever, 2014, assess actually a research done in English and in Spanish.

What a concept, right? Like, never done before. So I’m like, “Okay, we need to do this work. There’s not enough research. What’s gonna happen?” I’m like, “I guess I’m just gonna have to go and do my research myself and start my doctorate,” so that’s what I did. 

Mandi Morris: Oh, and when you think about bilingual programs have been around for a long time, and I think what you’re tugging at there is that we have programs to support English learners that look like a lot of different things.

There are so many different ELD models. There’s bilingual education that has its own various forms and acronyms. But where is the research to be able to understand how to properly assess students in these different- [00:13:00] models of adding languages, as you said, to their repertoire, and that there just really was so little research.

So you go to your doctorate, but then where, what do you really focus on? What is the exact research that you are just willing to give away three years of your life to dig into? 

Doris Chavez-Linville: It, yeah. Couple of things. When I went into the program at UPenn, which that’s a whole other story as well of my dream of going to UPenn back when I was a migrant ed teacher and being like, “Oh, it would be great to go to university like that.”

But anyway, walking into that program, I definitely knew that I wanted to do something around multilingual learners, and I definitely knew that I wanted to do something around assessment, but I also understood that in the field of multilingual education, there’s a lot of research that has been done, but usually it’s, it is the stories, the human element.

Been a very high rigor, very important research that has been done. There has been less research [00:14:00] done when it comes to quantitative analysis, when we bring the data, we analyze the data, we look at the numbers. And I wanted to make sure that I did something that connected both pieces. So my research was a mixed methods research in which I analyzed data of English and Spanish of over almost 10,000 students, over 100,000 data points, three-year data across three years.

And then I took that data, put together and interviewed leaders that deal with the data. And I have heard so many times leaders telling us, “Our multilingual learners are behind. They’re always behind. They’re not doing well. Their data is d- mis- it’s just really bad.” They look at the data that they segregate.

Who are always at the bottom? Our multilingual learners. Because sometimes leaders are working within the systems that have been developed for them and don’t have the time or the, not only to question that back, but also even to learn more about how to really desegregate data and look at data [00:15:00] differently.

So that was how I came in. I’m like, “I need to go and interview leaders and ask them, ‘When you look at data through the lens that is presented to you, reading and math data- In English only versus reading and math data both in English or Spanish, i- in English and in Spanish in the case of my research, look together in a holistic way in really looking at how different when you take more variables into account.

What is the student home language? What is the type of program that they’re being receive instruction from? Where? Are they large district, a small district? Is it a, a rural district? Is it a, is it a more of a city, a urban district? All of those different variables are important to take into account, and at the end of the day, what I find out in my research is two things.

Number one, the first that we utilize to look at student data can tell a very different story based on who is part of that framework. Are we norming our data to anything [00:16:00] and everybody and ev- any student that are taking assessment, or are we norming our data on their through, o- only through the lens of multilingual learners?

That’s very different story. Same data, same score- Different norm, norming. Huge way of looking at students differently. And what I also find out is that leaders wanna do the best things for our kids. They truly are in there for the work, to support students, to uplift communities, and they have so many hats that they wear.

And unless we give them the space to think and reflect and have a sense-making protocol to look at data- Right … question the data, question the systems, they can’t do it, not because they don’t want to, it’s just because they are running so fast and doing so much work that we need to give them the space to think and analyze.

So those were the piece- the big picture of my dissertation that came out from the research that I did. 

Mandi Morris: And when we talk about you, you’ve got all the [00:17:00] data, and then how are you norming that data and what framework are you using for that data, that can feel really overwhelming. To your second point, you’ve got admin that care but are so short on time and with so many obligations and responsibilities.

Could you give us a takeaway or a next step, right? Y- you’ve got an admin listening to this podcast right now, and they’re like, “I hear you and I believe you, but what do I do? Because I’m trying to figure it out on my own, and I feel like I’m drowning over here trying to figure it out.” 

Doris Chavez-Linville: So what’s funny, I was actually working with a school district in Colorado, going through kind of the process of, I developed a, a protocol.

It’s called the REAL Sensemaking Protocol, which is the Reflective Equity Analysis by Leaders, and it is a reflective process for leaders. And I’ll be happy to share that. My dissertation is available for anybody who wants to reach out, and I’m working on papers that I can post that is access- accessible [00:18:00] to anybody, that they don’t have to pay through a wall to be able to access it.

So I’m working on that right now. But I think that being able to stop and think that not just the way that has been set up as a system of looking at data is the valid way of data. Data does not make decisions, and I have heard many times people saying, “That’s what the data say, so that’s what we’re gonna do.”

So working in this school district, I remember that I was working with teachers, and we were looking at data, English and Spanish, looking across, looking at the students, how they look through different norming frame. And teachers were having these huge aha moments. I had teachers crying and saying, “Oh my gosh, my kids know so much, and I know I’m doing really well,” which has never had a way of looking at the data.

And the principal is sitting on the side listening to session after session that we’re mo- working with teachers, and she comes and she says, “I think I need to sit down and listen to this conversation because yesterday I just made my MTSS resort groups, and I so [00:19:00] wish that I used this data rather than what I yesterday.”

‘Cause what I had yesterday was only looking through English lens. It was only looking, and we are now pulling our students to give them interventions in English, but they’re still learning. And instead of saying, “Oh, this student already knows all of these skills in Spanish, and we are gonna actually do a bi-literacy intervention, or we’re gonna do an intervention that really connects their knowledge and their English language development as con- as a p- as a group rather than independently” thinking that, oh, English is only going to come along if you only think and work and teach in English.

That’s not how the brain works, I can tell you that. I started learning English very late in life, and I had already finished high school by the time I started learning English. I was almost 18 years old, and here I am on my fifth. I finished a doctorate at an Ivy League school. And I had a lot of people telling me, [00:20:00] “You don’t know enough.

Your language is not enough. Your writing needs help. I don’t think that your brain really can process this.” And there was nothing of that about me. It was about the way that people look at language use and the way that people think about language. So when a principal is able to look at language differently and plan for MTSS groups based on more data and m- and based on different frameworks, there is gonna be a different way of thinking and planning for students.

So all of this to say that I think that principals really need to… And not only principals, any leader that is working with multilingual learners need to question the way that things have been always done for kids. There are different ways of doing work for students. We just need to be able to push and say, “Is it truly the best thing for my kid looking through the same lens, a monolingual, monoglossic way, or do I really need more [00:21:00] data about my student to make better decisions for that student so that student can feel better about themself, and my teachers feel better about the way that they’re teaching the student, and our families?”

It is consequential the way that we think about how we- Talk about data to everybody who is involved with that student’s life and student’s performance and future and their journey for success. 

Mandi Morris: And it’s consequential across the board, as you’re pointing out right now. And going back to that MTSS, it’s consequential pulling kids out of class.

It’s consequential students missing an elective because they need a remedial class or because they have a, an additional intervention that they need. All of those things have an impact on how a student sees themself within that learning environment. I- it’s human nature. You see it even in very young kids, that pecking order, right?

You see it in kindergarten. You see it in even younger. Students are trying to figure [00:22:00] out, how do I fit within this peer group? What is my status? Where do I belong? And I think as adults in the room, there’s so much responsibility, and you pointed out not just on the principal, any leader and any educator, too.

If you’re looking around and your intervention class is the exact same five kids every single year, you should be questioning that, right? If it’s your intervention class is only multilingual learners, you should be questioning that. I think everyone has a power to have curiosity around, do we have the right data?

Are we using the right framework to analyze the data that we have? And if we have gaps, it’s not enough just to say, “We have gaps. What are we gonna do about it? We can’t do anything about it.” It’s you can do something maybe that’s iterative, maybe something that’s small that can help continue to improve that work that you’re doing in the classroom.

How do you think about bigger school districts have more resources, right? So they have more [00:23:00] teachers and leaders who are bilingual. They have more educators that have spent years in the classroom supporting multilingual learners. When you have worked with smaller school districts that have fewer resources, how do you help set a, maybe a mindset around working with- within the constraints that you have?

Doris Chavez-Linville: I’m so happy that you bring the whole concept of mindset. And I think that anybody that wants to help a student succeed can do it. Let me just put it there. It is fact. You have to have the heart and the passion for any student to succeed, right? So you can do that. You don’t have to speak 20 different languages.

I hear that a lot. “Well, I don’t speak any language. I can’t do that.” You can still make the classroom a rich language environment for any student by doing some beautiful, positive asset-based linguistic practice. For example- You can make sure that a student use their whole linguistic repertoire when you’re teaching, and help [00:24:00] them make cross-linguistic connections across what they know in their language and when they’re bringing into this new journey and development of English as their new language, right?

As additional language. And remember that our language are the basis of everything, right? W- when people say, “Oh, kids don’t have any language,” oh my gosh, I… Please explain that to me as if I was a five-year-old. Everybody brings language. It might be a different type of language, lang- different code, different name language, but everybody brings language.

And with them, they bring experiences, and with experiences they bring knowledge. And the knowledge that they’re bringing might be different than your knowledge and your experiences, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a valid l- knowledge. So I think that for somebody who might have a smaller school district or limited resources, it’s about opening their hearts and their minds about the possibilities that can happen in the classroom.

How can I make my classroom a more rich language environment, not only for English? I never [00:25:00] say English language environment, I say language environment, and I think that’s when people like, “We only should only use English.” I’m like, “So-” When I, I think about it, you’re taking away all the tools and resources that students bring the moment that you say, “Only English, nothing else,” like they were a blank slate that you’re gonna start, and you are erasing who they are, their background, their culture, their knowledge, their experiences, and their whole self and their whole being.

So being able to say, “I’m gonna open the door to possibilities. Can I write new vocabulary words in English, and what are the vocabulary words in Spanish, in Vietnamese, in Urdu?” A- any other language that my students, let’s help them write. We have technology that we can leverage of making, co-creating vocabulary wall- walls that are language rich, that students can feel like, “Oh, that is a cognate.”

We work, and cognates are just the, the [00:26:00] tip of the iceberg of everything else. And also, we just translate it. Translation, you’re still looking through your own lens and your own work and your own world. If I’m translating your ex- my experience and what I’m expecting to what I think you will understand, translation can be helpful in a few things, but that is not the only do, the only…

Y- you just cannot do that. So I think that it is creating environment where students can feel free to utilize their full linguistic repertoire, making connections and really making them language detectives. I love, I heard that from experts before, in which the students start to be curious about language and curious about, “Oh, what I know in this language connects in the other language.

What are the differences? What are the similarities?” There’s so much to work, the work that can be done of opening your mind about this is only English. When we do that, you have already closed the [00:27:00] opportunity, and kids will feel that. They will feel that, families will feel that, and you will have an effect on the outcomes that you are expecting.

Those are not gonna be the out- outcomes that you really want to get, because you’re shutting down who the people that are in your room really are. 

Mandi Morris: I, I think I wanna explore this a little bit more with you and just be real. I’m a white girl from the South, okay? I grew up in a small beach town. Every single person I saw looked like me.

That’s where I grew up, right? I didn’t choose to grow up there. I didn’t make decisions as a child. That’s where I was born and raised. And but I got a little bit older and I got really curious about, wait, I read books. There’s a world out there that’s different from my world? And I made decisions as an adult, right?

That I wanted to, I wanted to travel, I wanted to learn things, I wanted to teach abroad, and I did those things. I pursued those things. I lived on the West Coast, and my husband and I would laugh, like, we had been living in the Middle East and moved from there to the West Coast, and we were like, “This [00:28:00] culturally feels as different as having just lived in the Middle East compared to having grown up in the South.”

There are, there are opportunities It’s not an excuse for those of us who look and sound like me that, “Here’s a cognate list,” or, “Here’s Google Translate. Good luck.” We can do better, and that doesn’t mean that we have to know all of the things. It doesn’t mean that we have to speak all of the languages. At, there were points in my career I had eight different languages s- represented in my classroom.

But we can get curious. We can be humble about what we do and don’t know. We can seek out others who have those lived experiences and say, “Help me understand. Help me see the world through your perspective, through your lived experience.” And I think that when we do that, that makes all of us stronger, and it allows those, those teachers and educators out there who are me, right, to be able to say, “Yeah, I wanna just [00:29:00] continue to learn, and I wanna approach it with humility and do the best that I can, and I wanna really embrace my students’ full identity.”

I love how you represented that. I think if you were to ask any teacher, “Do you wanna erase your child’s identity, your student’s identity?” “No, I would never wanna do that.” But then in actuality, it’s what a classroom environment has the power to do or not do. So I just, I wanted to spend a, a moment there to explore that with you, but I think what you’re saying is really powerful.

Doris Chavez-Linville: Thank you, Mandy. I’m just gonna tell you that I have, I truly believe that every educator that it is in, in schools today are there because they truly wanna make a difference in the life of kids, right? I really believe that with all my heart. And but I also believe that sometimes our own ego gets in the way, and we believe that what we have known and done, it’s the way.

And that’s the beauty about research. When we do research, we learn new things. We push back on the things [00:30:00] that we thought were real. We get new information. We go and investigate and figure out if that phenomenon stay the same or has change or not. And I think that’s the beauty about digging and getting curious about the research that has been done lately and the changes.

Like, before, it was like, “Oh, the best thing is to take the students, not to speak their own language,” because people thought that if the stu- that it will get in the way of learning English. Research is very clear. When students leverage their own language and they leverage their s- experiences, they’re actually going to accelerate their learning in not only English, any new language that they’re learning, right?

Try trying to learn a new language, and what’s the first thing that you do? You try to figure out and make connections like, “Oh, I heard that before. That sounds like…” We do that ima- as an adult. Imagine as a child who is learning every day, and the experiences are really building who they’re gonna… the basis of who they’re gonna become as they grow.

So I think that’s a important thing to remember. I think that, [00:31:00] and I don’t know if it’s okay, but I can share some of the researchers that I know have done some amazing work that I recommend to people. So for example, I keep saying something about our multilingual learners always being in the bottom. Dr.

Laura Censi Moreno and Dr. Kate Seltzer from New York, they were the Ofelia Diaz academic children, and they’ve done amazing work. And a couple of the books that they have is like The Translanguaging Classroom, which people hear translanguaging, “Whoa, what do you mean? That’s like bilingual dual language.”

You can actually have a lot of translanguaging happening in an English-as-a-mode-of-instruction classroom because that’s what translanguaging does. It creates the environment for a student to show up- As full, they, who they are fully while learning another language and still building from what they know. So The Translanguaging Classroom is an amazing book that Dr.

Ofelia Garcia, Dr. Suzanne Ibarra Johnson, and Dr. Kate Seltzer developing in the second [00:32:00] edition. Actually, Dr. Seltzer and Cenzy Moreno did a, a, an article that I love, and I always like to share this article with everybody, and it’s called Always at the Bottom, how our multilingual learners always look when you look at data, that they are at the bottom.

But we need to look underneath the data to truly discover the gift, the knowledge, the, the experiences that actually our kids come with so much lear- knowledge, things that probably many adults in the United States would never imagine, that can be leveraged to really uplift who they are and help them build, again, the life and the experiences that they deserve as a student in the United States.

And remember that 80% or more of our multilingual learners are US citizens that were born in the United States. I wanna make sure that’s also very clear, that we’re talking about every child is our child, and we should be wanting to do the best for all of them. 

Mandi Morris: Dr. Seltzer came on this [00:33:00] podcast. She is incredible.

I saw her present at NABE, I guess it was maybe a year ago, and sh- her work is really incredible. I think the way she’s talking about translanguaging feels like something you can put hooks in, and that’s what’s sometimes difficult about when we talk about what feels like a theory around education. It can feel good, and it can feel right, but then in the classroom, you’re like, “But what am I supposed to do?”

I like the way that she’s breaking things down. I think there’s a lot that just feels practical and approachable from the work that she’s doing, and I, I think there’s so much that is just, “Oh, that makes sense. Of course. If you speak multiple languages, they’re happening at the same time in your brain.

They’re part of how your brain circuits are connected. There’s not one that you can turn off and then turn on another.” I think that work is really powerful, so thank you for sharing the article. I am gonna check that out today. [00:34:00] Where are you now? You did your PhD and a lot of committed work to dive into that data, and how did that push you and your own work forward?

Doris Chavez-Linville: Thank you for that question. Now I’m actually doing my own work. I founded Lumen Leadership, which is a research and consulting firm, and my, the whole idea is about, I have worked with leaders for many, for decades now, right? And I have seen different types of leadership. And one of the type of leadership that has inspired me the most is that leadership that truly wants other leaders to see the possibilities.

And I think that’s the, that’s why it’s called Lumen. It comes from the word, which is these little bags of sand with a little lan- lantern that they put everywhere in Santa Fe, and I went to Santa Fe a lot for La Cosecha, which is one of our dual-language conferences, and it just come in like the luminarias, it’s about lighting the path for others to find their way.

[00:35:00] And I think that when you’re a great leader, th- you get curious and you’re willing to question the systems and processes that are in place so that you can help your teachers and your kids find a way, and teachers The teachers are leaders, are one of some of the most amazing leaders I ever met.

Paraprofessionals are some of the most amazing leaders that I have met. You don’t have to have a title in order for you to be a leader, and that is the idea of Lumen Leadership. It’s like, what are the tools that can be developed to help leaders help others find a way by getting curious, by learning, by connecting, and by reflecting?

And I think a lot of that reflection and sense-making of what’s happening around us can really make us better leaders. And so that’s the idea. 

Mandi Morris: And what research are you excited about right now? I’m sure you’ve got something on your desk. You love research, it sounds like. 

Doris Chavez-Linville: Yes. So I’m actually working right now on with Doctora Susana Ibarra [00:36:00] Johnson and Dr.

Elizabeth A- out of New Mexico on a specific grant about data and biliteracy assessment that is more humanly driven. So they’re utilizing Dr. Laura Sensy Moreno and, and I cannot remember off the top of my head the other researchers, but the Doctora Flores from California on students actually developing what profiles, biliteracy profiles, having interviews with the students one-on-one as they develop and utilize translanguaging in, in, in their own journals, journaling.

So there’s a lot of really great work happening, and I’m incorporating the quantitative, like how do we quantify some of that more humanistic way of doing assessment for a student for the growth in their student self way of looking at themselves. So that’s one of the pieces I have been applying in couple of different fellowships and other grants, and then I’m working with some districts that wanna dive and again, develop more systems [00:37:00] that are cohesive and realistic to when it comes to multilingual learners, and how we look at data across language, and how we plan based on the student profiles, which is very different than just thinking that everybody should fit this category.

Kids are very different, and we need to think about them differently. 

Mandi Morris: Absolutely. I love work that school districts do around student profiles. It’s a commitment. It’s individual, but that’s what makes the outcome so powerful is because it is individual and it’s grounded in the student perspective. As you mentioned earlier, there’s so much work that doesn’t take into consideration the student perspective.

And I love you called out earlier to think that students don’t come with language, they don’t come with experience. It, it reminds me of my grandma, “Be seen, but not heard.” It’s like, are we past that? Come on. How do we move beyond that? So that’s exciting. When you think about you travel a ton, you work with school districts from all over the country, what are things that you’re seeing in the field right now that you feel really [00:38:00] excited about?

Translanguaging is certainly one of them, but are there- Even small moves that maybe you’ve seen in a teacher’s classroom, or something you’ve heard from a student or from a researcher that you just feel like there’s something here, this gets me excited. 

Doris Chavez-Linville: Yeah. Actually, I’m gonna share Dr. Roberto Peña Díaz.

He’s in New York City. He’s a practitioner. He’s a principal in a early childhood fully bilingual building in New York, and he just finished his dissertation around MTSS and leveraging student language. And the work that they’re doing at that building, oh my gosh, I think that needs to be replicated across the nation of the way that students are talking about cross-linguistic connections, about doing analysis of the sounds and graphemes and phonemes that they’re learning across languages.

And for them to be able to say, “Oh, this sound is the same one in English and in Spanish, but this is a new sound in Eng-…” These little babies, kindergarten, first grade, the way that they talk about language and the way that they understand [00:39:00] language and that metalinguistic awareness work that they’re doing every single day, it’s fantastic.

So that’s one of the places I think I would like to highlight. Another place I love to highlight is CESER, the other side of the world, in, in, in Oregon. They have been working for a long time. I actually read a book and, of research that was done there. But they have a very large population of multilingual learners.

They have worked very hard of developing their bilingual programs. They still have different types of programs that students receive instruction through, but their bilingual programs are really starting to show so much work, so much great outcomes, and I think that it’s important to highlight that. You say that earlier, it takes a long…

To be able to learn two languages and be biliterate in two languages, it is a long run. It’s not something that you’re gonna get immediately, “Oh, I took, took two years or two classes, and now I’m fully bilingual and biliterate.” That is not the way that our brain works. It [00:40:00] takes time. But I think that the district of, as a whole are doing an amazing work building capacities and building systems that truly incorporate a lot of the great work that has been done, again, from the University of Colorado Boulder, the work that has been done in Texas, the University of Texas with Dr.

Elena Izquierdo and Dr. José Medina. They’re doing a lot of work on leaders and how you walk, walk around schools and build capacities of teachers on what in the classroom happening, what you should be seeing as it’s happening. So there’s a lot of great research happening. I wish I could give you a list of another 20 other amazing districts that I have seen, but I just wanted to share some of the beautiful, bright areas that I have experienced.

Mandi Morris: I love that. I… It’s really cool. You’re calling it out from coast to coast, right? Across the country, different things are happening, and I love where you started. I’m imagining young kids talking about with linguistic [00:41:00] awareness, but that is a perfect example of taking a theory or a concept, right? But then what does that look like in practice in a classroom?

And some people might say, “Five and six-year-olds can’t talk about that,” but they can. They can. They need adults- In the room to guide it, to have a blueprint of what it looks and sounds like. And I think it’s worth calling out here too that guess what? That is gonna be super messy when you get started. And it’s not y- if you walk through that school, and they’ve been doing it for two years, it would be easy to walk through and say, “Oh my gosh, I could never do this.

Look how incredible this is, and look at what…” I- there’s no way it looked like that the first six months, right? They were figuring it out. But I think that’s something that I love about education and about educators, that we can get messy. We can figure it out. We can do the work. It’s iterative. It takes time.

You’ve gotta have grace that it’s not gonna be perfect when you get started, but that’s okay. I think there’s a lot of [00:42:00] pressure, right? Teachers feel the pressure, admin feel the pressure, districts feel the pressure for res- immediate results. That’s just not how learning works, as you said. And to do the big, cool things like this school that you’re talking about in New York, you’ve gotta accept that you’re gonna have to work through kinks, and it’s gonna take some time.

I wonder if you could speak in any more detail about maybe at the school at New York or in other places where you’ve seen researchers or practitioners, they’re experimenting with a new way of, for example, the meta-linguistic awareness, and it just, it takes time, or it’s messy in the middle. Have you seen that or could speak to that at all?

Doris Chavez-Linville: Oh, 100%. So I can give you another example of another great district, and I think that you actually had one of their leaders in your podcast before, from Adas- Adams 14 in Colorado. I’ve been working with them for a while, and they’ve been working on really looking at data differently. And the first time it’s like, “Oh my gosh, we have so much data.

We’re doing data this [00:43:00] way and that way,” and then we start thinking about what’s the purpose, which pieces are you gonna utilize, how we’re gonna utilize them, what assessment it’s appropriate, what the- And then even digging into assessment literacy. What does that mean? What does that look like? What, what, what do we understand about assessment, and what truly can happening?

And then walking with teachers o- in small groups at a time for them to be able to voice their frustration about, “Oh my gosh, now we have a new way of doing it,” and then coming back and be like, “Oh, wow, this worked really well. Now I wanna dig more, and now I wanna…” So I think that, again, the discomfort of we’re gonna do something different is, oh my gosh, you’re gonna shake my boat, you’re gonna move my cheese.

It’s gonna be different now. But then coming back and being like, “Oh, I’m getting it. Oh, I get it. Now let’s continue to work through that,” I feel like I’ve seen that happening. I’ve seen where somebody’s like, “Oh my gosh, it was okay to let kids speak another language,” and the way that they were [00:44:00] so excited, and then being able to find the word in English, and be like, “Oh, that’s what you’re talking about,” or getting just…

So I’ve seen that in classrooms, like here in Tampa, Florida. I live in Tampa, Florida, in Hillsborough County. I’ve been in some of the classrooms where children are translanguaging, and teachers are so dedicated to, “Yes, we’re gonna do this,” and seeing, again, it takes time, and there’s specific expectations.

But when kids show up, and teachers are seeing and practicing new concepts, and seeing the outcome, having a happy kid who’s learning, who’s excited, and wants to come back to your classroom, isn’t that a win just by itself? 

Mandi Morris: Oh, I love that. Happy kids who wanna come back to school. That’s what it’s really all about.

If kids don’t feel seen, and heard, and belonging in the classroom, and this is old. This is nothing new. It… But it’s the foundation. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. If kids don’t wanna be a part of that community, they don’t feel like they’re seen, and heard, and belonging in that [00:45:00] community, there’s really not anything else that you can do.

So gosh, that’s beautiful. Okay, I wanna know where are you going next? Are you gonna be presenting at any conferences? Where can people find you? I know that you’re active on LinkedIn. I’ve followed you for years. I look at what you post and enjoy it. I enjoy following you at different conferences, and, but where can people find you this upcoming year?

Doris Chavez-Linville: Yeah, so I will be definitely attending con- conferences, mainly bilingual conferences, because that’s, like, my cup of tea. So coming up, TABE Con in San Antonio, Texas. Then it’s gonna be La Cosecha in Santa Fe coming up next year, CABE in Long Beach, California, and NABE here, neighbors in Orlando, Florida, so that will be great.

Also, I am right now been posting in LinkedIn quite a bit. I like to put- pieces that help people reflect and think. Like, to me, it’s all about that reflection moment of thinking about something and finding the possibility. So right now I’m posting a [00:46:00] whole series called Visibility Series, in which I’m thinking about, how do you make students visible in the classroom?

How do you make their work, their knowledge visible? So you go back to my post, and you can see posts from one to five, and then I have five more that I’m planning, so it’ll be a whole 10-post series. I’m actually working on a really cool project. It’s call- it’s a podcast called Nuestras Voces, Our Stories, and that into a proposal of a fellowship that I applied for.

Hopefully we’ll get it. But I still wanted to share the voices of immigrants, Latin community, that sometimes people feel like, “Oh, you did it. You did great.” But we have our stories, and we have our own voice, and that’s the idea of being able to share those stories and voices for our kids and our community.

Because right now there is a lot going on in our political environment that have really made people- Feel like they don’t belong. And to me, it’s an [00:47:00] attempt to be able to tell people, “I see you. We’re here. We’re a community. We’re strong. We all have stories to share.” And so that book will be coming hopefully by Hispanic Heritage Month.

So look wherever podcast is released. But it is really about stories and about sharing our path and our journeys with everybody. 

Mandi Morris: That’s so beautiful. I remember in the classroom, I predominantly taught secondary, and I really loved using podcasts with students because it was a great opportunity, too, for students to have insight to a world outside of their own environment, right?

Their own little worlds that they lived in. And it was really difficult at the time, though, to find podcasts that featured voices and professionals and adults who looked and sounded and had lived experiences that were similar to my students. I think that work is so powerful. I’m really excited that you’re doing that work.

You’re the right person to be doing it, and I can’t wait to check it out. Please share it out with us, too, and we’ll [00:48:00] repost it. We would love to support you in that. 

Doris Chavez-Linville: Thank you. 

Mandi Morris: Dr. Doris, this has been so lovely to talk with you today. I can’t wait to see where this next chapter of your journey takes you, and I’ll see you at NABE in Orlando.

And it will be fun to just stay in touch and hopefully have you back on the show again in the future. 

Doris Chavez-Linville: Absolutely. Thank you so much for the invitation, for letting me share a little bit of my story, being able to be vulnerable, share the passion that you know that has got us to connect and to, a- and to be here today.

And I just always wanna remind everybody that we have the power in our hands to make a difference for somebody, and just to your point, being able to open up our hearts and our minds to the possibilities of what can happen when we see our kids fully. So thank you again for the spot, for the opportunity, and I really appreciate you.

Mandi Morris: Thank you so much