Some Roses, Some Thorns, & Some Buds | #ACTFL24

Hey family,

Whew. It has been quite a whirlwind. Today is my last day of classes before a divinely timed break for Thanksgiving. I'm hoping you all are getting through these weeks and finding joy in it all.

Having just experienced the annual ACTFL Convention in Philadelphia this past weekend, I thought I'd share some related thoughts and reflections.

Some Roses

• Having had the distinct privilege of presenting alongside the brilliant Erica Peplinski-Burge for our session Embracing Diversity: Teaching Culture left me feeling so lucky and so so fulfilled. Erica is genuinely one of the sharpest minds and kindest hearts you could ever come in contact with. It was also just so cup-filling to see so many of my people, especially former and current colleagues, come through and show support. I've been through quite a bit of dealing with hating-ass co-workers, so to have folks pull up and show love was just so beautiful.

  
  

• I also was so lucky to be invited to sit on a panel entitled Language as Liberation by ACTFL President and my dear brother Dr. LJ Randolph. I can say without hesitation that this is an actual dream fulfilled. Like, I have prayed for opportunities like this specifically, and this weekend I had the chance to walk in that answered prayer and I'm just so thankful. To share the stage with LJ, Dorie Conlon, Uju Anya, and Junko Yamamoto (all of whom have ALL of the letters behind their name and have dutifully earned every last one of them) was an incredible learning experience and such a joy to be able to share some of my thoughts on how we can leverage our classrooms into spaces for liberation and joy.

  
  

  

  

  
  
  
  

• I got to see so many of my favorite people, and I was able to attend some incredibly powerful sessions that are sitting with my spirit quite heavily. Notably, my dear friends and sisters Annabelle (La Maestra Loca) Williamson and Bertha Delgadillo presented an immensely moving workshop entitled ADHD EmpowerED: Supports for Teachers with ADHD that had half of the room sobbing for the majority of the 45 minutes. They did so much to make so many of us feel seen and, as the title promised, empowered.

  
  

  One point in particular that has been resonating with me since then is the importance of seeing our condition through the lens of its advantages as opposed to its deficits. Not only for the sake of showing compassion to ourselves when we otherwise spiral into anxiety and depression about why we have such a hard time doing things like other people do them, but really because we have legitimate superpowers. I have a much longer thought about this, but a short version is this... What we've been conditioned to believe is lazy procrastination is actually just our extraordinary ability to mentally map out our work over time, and then to effectively and efficiently put those ideas down on paper within the constraints of a deadline. Whew, I'll write more about this soon,.. but yeah...

  
  

  I also got to check out Joshua Cabral's presentation on teaching grammar in context that just made so many ideas come together in an organized, digestible way (as is his superpower) and I can't wait to move forward implementing a lot of this stuff with intentionality.

• I got to see some of my favorite people from AfroFranco Teacher Collective PLC!!! I'm so grateful for this group of incredibly thoughtful people who just keep me inspired and hungry to be the best teacher I can be. Special shoutouts to my dear friends Heidi Trude and Sophie Forker whom it was so great to see again, and to Nada Jamaty, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in person for the first time this past weekend! Thank you for being so dope.

Some Thorns

• First, for sure, has to be getting diagnosed with stress-induced shingles in the middle of last week. 0/10, would not reccommend. Fortunately, I'm on the mend, but it was not a good place to be in, especially going into such a heavy weekend.

• That definitely bled into my next thorn, which was that I had been so looking forward to turning up with folks this weekend, and I just couldn't do much more than what I had to do, and then going home and resting. I am super thankful that I got to see some of my people at the convention hall and all that, but I really was just so drained and couldn't be entirely present even while I was there. My sincere apologies to all my beloved folks...

• Also, directly connected in many ways is that I didn't get to see many of the sessions that I'd hoped to attend. In particular, my dear friend and mentor Cécile Lainé had a session, Cultivating Cultural Connections: A Novice Approach, early Sunday morning that I was dying to see and take all the notes on, but I just couldn't get moving at that point. I hope I get the chance to see her present in another space and time really soon.

Some Buds

• I can't say enough about how on-time this Thanksgiving break is. Of course, I'm an idiot and will be cooking up ideas and all that throughout, but I am really committed to taking some time to decompress and just be present with the family. We'll see how that goes.

  
  

• Also, as much as I love ACTFL, it tends to feel overwhelming and, as they say, like drinking from a fire hose. So I'm especially excited to have some other stuff coming up, like NECTFL in NYC a few months from now, where I'll be presenting on using comprehensible folktales to foster proficiency, literacy, and interculturality, and speaking on a panel about AI in the world language classroom alongside some more super-brained folks.

  
  

• Finally, as I couldn't be more grateful for my OG Teacher Collective peoples...the inaugural crew, to whom I owe so much... I'm equally excited to open doors to membership in the coming months and invite some more folks to join the space of French teachers looking to build community and support one another in this work. So keep an eye out for more info on that in the next few weeks!

Alright, family, I appreciate you taking the time to read. Again, here's to strength and joy and all that as we step through this year together.

Peace peace,

bt