Learning As Educators: It begins from the self

Ibrahim’s article raises several vitally important questions that we must consider when working as a TESOL professional. What I think is most valuable that we can take from this article however, is that we must also consider what position we hold within the hegemony. In order to understand what our students might feel/perceive us to be, we must be able to discuss and understand how our race, ethnicity, language skills, gender, economic status, etc. increase or decrease our own symbolic capital both inside and outside the classroom. Without this understanding I do not think we will be able to offer much assistance to our students in their own search for identity.

Our future students in the ESL classroom will more often than not be a global embodiment of racial identities, and without a basic awareness of the paradigms that our students face in SLA as a racialized (or marginalized) body. We have to ask:  “How do we practically combat this?” but I would add, “How do we manage our own predetermined roles as gate keepers to these racial essentialization? How do we fight against that?”