Classroom Caffeine
Classroom Caffeine
A Conversation with Raúl Alberto Mora
In this episode, Raúl Alberto Mora talks to us about education theory as a driver for innovative teaching, mentoring and supporting one another, and the journey of a career in Education. Raúl is known worldwide for his work in the areas of alternative literacy paradigms in second language education and research, the study of second language literacies in physical and virtual spaces, and the use of sociocritical frameworks in language education. In particular, he studies the applications of alternative literacy paradigms to analyze second-language literacy practices in urban and virtual spaces He works to understand the use of languages a social and semiotic resource. His work has been published in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, The ALAN Review, Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Social Semiotics, Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, Pedagogies: An International Journal, and other journals. He co-edited The Handbook of Critical Literacies, Translanguaging and Multimodality as Flow, Agency, and a New Sense of Advocacy in and From the Global South, and most recently, Reimagining Literacy in the Age of AI: Theory and Practice. Dr. Raúl Alberto Mora Velez is a researcher at the Educations, Languages, and Learning Environments research group and chairs the award-winning Literacies in Second Languages Project (LSLP) research lab. Raúl is a Research Professor at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Colombia. For more information about our guest, stay tuned to the end of this episode.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Literacies in Second Languages Project Micro-Papers
American Educational Research Association
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Education research has a problem the work of brilliant education researchers often doesn't reach the practice of brilliant teachers. Classroom Caffeine is here to help. In each episode, I talk with a top education researcher or an expert educator about what they have learned from years of research and experiences. In this episode, dr Raul Alberto Mora talks to us about education theory as a driver for innovative teaching, mentoring and supporting one another and the journey of a career in education.
Speaker 1:Raul is known worldwide for his work in the areas of alternative literacy paradigms in second language education and research, the study of second language literacies in physical and virtual spaces and the use of sociocritical frameworks in language education. In particular, he studies the applications of alternative literacy paradigms to analyze second language literacy practices in urban and virtual spaces. He works to understand the use of languages as social and semiotic resource. His work has been published in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, the Allen Review, bilingualism and Bilingual Education, international Journal of Cultural Studies, social Semiotics, key Concepts and Intercultural Dialogue, pedagogies, an international journal, and other journals. He co-edited the Handbook of Critical Literacies, translanguaging and Multimodality as Flow Agency and a New Sense of Advocacy in and from the Global South and, most recently, reimagining Literacy in the Age of AI Theory and Practice.
Speaker 1:Dr Raul Alberto Mora is a researcher in the Pedagogies and Didactics of Knowledge Research Group and chairs the award-winning Literacies in Second Languages Project Research Lab. Raul is a research professor at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Colombia. For more information about our guest, stay tuned to the end of this episode. So pour a cup of your favorite drink and join me, your host, lindsay Persaud, for Classroom Caffeine research to energize your teaching practice. Raul, thank you for joining me. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Lindsay. Thanks for the invitation.
Speaker 1:So, from your own experiences in education, will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now?
Speaker 2:Hmm, I mean that's actually. I mean it's a beautiful question. Because I mean sometimes you don't think about that and I want to. As I read the question I started thinking how far back do I want to go? And I said, let me just go back way back and hop in the DeLorean or the TARDIS or whichever time device you want to use for this, and I'm going to go back all the way to 1999. And I like to go back to 1999 because that's when I wrote my first publication. And I like to go back to that first publication for I mean for a number of reasons. One of them is because it took me a while to appreciate it and I even remember writing a blog in my Medium blog post about the process of how, at some point I really really didn't like the publication and then I realized that that publication is actually was necessary for everything else to happen.
Speaker 2:That paper is something about project work and how I use project work to get my students introduced to writing. It was the very first time I did something that would look like classroom research. I mean, I really had no idea that that was called classroom research. I had no idea how to frame it. I was going out by a number of intuitions when I wrote that paper. I mean, I made a couple of presentations in national conferences and then I turned it into an article. I made a couple of presentations in national conferences and then I turned it into an article. But I like to go back to that moment because, as a very young teacher at the time, I feel that that set a lot of things in motion that a few years later began to crystallize when I was in grad school and I started looking back into this work and saying, oh, this is what research looks like and this is what teachers can do. And that frames how I do all of my mentoring in helping teachers materialize ideas in their classrooms and turn it into research.
Speaker 2:So, I think that's for me that's the first one, because, again, without that first publication, nothing else would have happened. I don't think the second publication would have happened. Fulbright wouldn't have happened, all the pubs I got after that and the books I'm writing right now nothing of that would have happened. So I always like to go back in that because sometimes, as we get older and we move into our career, we forget about the beginning and we can be very unkind to our beginning or say that it's meaningless or it's insignificant, it's very small, and that always reminds me that no, we have to start somewhere and evolution is just the result of making those first steps and making those first mistakes and then move on and start thinking of bigger and better things. So that's why I thought I would say this first moment, because that was a moment when I said I can write, I have a voice, I have something worth presenting and people are listening to this and I can start building from this. And I go back to that also because one of the things I like to tell grad students in my classes is a lot of research that we do in education begins in classrooms. Like, not all the research that we do in education begins in multimillion-dollar grants. A lot of it begins with teachers who are very motivated and they start doing wild stuff with their students who are very motivated. And they start doing wild stuff with their students and they learn how to turn it into a paper that they present to that local conference, that they present to that major conference. That becomes an article, that becomes a book, that becomes a video, that becomes a TikTok, that becomes a podcast, that becomes something else, and how we need to learn to value those experiences and not simply think that the only thing worth taking to ARA or NCTE or LRA is the big R research stuff. A lot of the grassroots stuff belongs in those spaces. A lot of the grassroots stuff needs to be heard in those spaces, especially in times like these where we have big questions about the nature of research. And I would say the second moment I think the second moment is ongoing, but it has to do with creating my research lab.
Speaker 2:I started conceptualizing in 2011, and I chartered the lab the Literacies and Psychoanalysis Project in 2012. And that's one of the things I usually inevitably talk about when I when I talk about my work, because it's it's in a strictly linked. I cannot talk about my work without talking about my lab and talk about the community that we have built other slp. One of the reasons I like to think about that is because that answers a question that sometimes doc students have as they're finishing their doctorates. It's what can I do with my dissertation? And then there's a thinking yeah, you can write the articles, you can write a book out of your dissertation. But sometimes, if you think carefully enough, you can go back to your conceptual frameworks, to the methodology sections, and you can build a community to do research with. And that's what I did. I mean, I had a university mandate that said we want to have student research lab that looks into English ed. And I said, well, I can do that. I'm just going to gear it into literacy, because that's what I spent the last eight years of my life, trying to make sense of it, and that's what I want to build my postdoctoral career around the whole thing about literacy.
Speaker 2:And I like to think of that as a moment that has been ongoing for the past 13 years, because every time I meet with my students I always come up with new ideas. And I mean just before this conversation, I had a meeting with one of my students. She just joined the lab a few weeks ago and she came with an idea for her senior thesis. We looked at the idea and said I asked her do you really want to do this? She's like, no, I don't. I said, well, of course not. Let's sort of say what do you really want to do? As we were talking I told her listen, for me, the most important thing is I want you to have fun, I want you to be yourself and how, through the lab, all my students and myself included we have found ourselves in the process.
Speaker 2:I cannot think of any project I've done with the students that I don't feel like we're having fun and my students see themselves reflected in the projects, but in the sense of also building a community, that we feel that we're a community, or a legion as we like to say in our lab, and I think sometimes that's important.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we forget about the importance of building community. As we do research, we focus too much about the outcomes and not enough about the process and how we bring people along in the journey, because at the end of the day, for me, what's important for me is to see how many people have gone through this and what they've learned and the kind of people they have become as part of this journey where we're all growing together. So I'd like to start with those two moments, because the second one is still going. We're still doing research, we're still doing the work on gaming. We're still doing the work on gaming, we're still going to work in the city, we're still doing the work in the classrooms, and I still see myself doing that for however long life and providence give me a chance to do it.
Speaker 1:I think everything I hear in what you're sharing, raul, is about the journey, even that first publication that, I think often are firsts. We look back on them and think, oh boy, you know what a mess that was. Or I wish I'd done something or said something differently, but I couldn't agree more. I think that it is the journey that takes us where we are now and without following that path, we might end up in very different places Without, you know, acknowledging our growth and our connections with others. It's hard to make progress in the good work that we want to do. You know, as you talk about finding yourself, having a good time being yourself, the work of education, in my view, should be joyful. It should be a space of community and of reciprocity and, you know, a space of shared learning, and I hear that in everything that you share.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, and again, the power of finding yourself. It's when I think about the journey. It's also part of it has been my own journey in how, over this past I would say that that's 15 years since I finished my PhD I'm kept. Oh my God, I can't believe it's been that long. No, how I had to deal with.
Speaker 2:Okay, I now I'm going to have'm going to have to start mentoring my own students. So how am I going to do that? Like, what am I going to pick up from the lessons I have from the great mentors I had in grad school? And how am I going to do this my own thing? And how do I find that fine line where I can guide my students into doing what they want to do, but not turn it into what I want to do? And I always like to tell my students I don't have to do, I don't do dissertations or thesis vicariously. I already wrote mine, so I want you to write yours, just want to guide you.
Speaker 2:And it's also the same time coming to terms with as I get older, coming to terms with I am one of the elders now and it's been, that's been part of my journey how, oh, I'm becoming one of the ancestors. I think I remember hearing Ernest Morrell say that once. It's how we go from watching the ancestors to becoming the ancestors and how we take that role and how we embrace that. How we take that role and how we embrace that Now I'm mentoring all these younger scholars having my students, having their students which is something that's happened over the past few years, when I have my master's students, have master's students and soon my doc students are going to have their own doc students how my role continues to be in helping these young generations of scholars as I continue doing my work and as I continue this journey in this, you know this next stage of my career.
Speaker 1:I think that cycle of mentorship plays out at every level of education. It's not just researcher to researcher, or a college student to college student, but certainly also classroom teacher to young person. You know, and I think that in that cycle of life, so to speak because I think it's obviously not just education but life too, as I'm getting older and I've become the oldest generation in my family, which seems very, very odd place to be what you're saying really resonates with me this idea that we are always becoming and we have those influences from others, people we think with, people we enjoy working with and talking with, who help to shape us into who we continue to become, while we are also hopefully supporting them to become who they want to be as well it's one of those things that sometimes we need to talk more about, because this notion of mentoring, I mean we use that word often but we sometimes mean it as, oh, it's about the younglings.
Speaker 2:but I mean, I remember having a lot of these conversations over the past few years with with my advisor, with arlette willis, uh, and how I talked with arlette all the time about all these new roles that I have to undertake and how important it is to have someone who's been there, who's done that, who can help you navigate these spaces, as you navigate new questions, as I, for example, as I navigate a world where I have dog students in their 40s and their 50s, and how that has changed entirely any perception I had about mentoring.
Speaker 2:Like, no, it's one thing is to mentor dog students in their early 30s, which is the time when I was a dog student and other things when I have to face my students in their 40s. I have students in their early 50s, mid 50s, facing all these other challenges that you know aging brings to the table, and how I navigate that in order to support them in that part of the journey. And I always like to joke, I mean, those were things that grads could be unprepared before, but I still have to find ways to work around it. I mean the community sense. I think it's really important. I mean in the sense of mentorship of our students and us scholars in training, how we get the inner circles involved in the process, and I think for me that's one thing I value a lot, that I always like to ensure that my students have spaces where they can still nurture their family circles, whatever the family looks like.
Speaker 1:Well, I think everything you're saying about education and literacy and mentoring in this highly humanized way it rubs up against some. I think the systems that are in place in educational structures that you know tell us to put in more hours, do more work more. Forget that you're a human right, forget that you have interests and needs and just sit down at your computer and get it all done. I could really appreciate that on so many levels that we can't lose sight of our circles of influence and our own communities, whether they are familial communities or our chosen communities. It's important that we remain in those kind of human circles rather than you know, feeling like a cog in a wheel. Yeah, so what do you want listeners to know about your work?
Speaker 2:Well, I love that question. I think the first thing I want listeners to know about my work is to know what we do and I say me, I mean when I talk about the work I do along with my research team, my research lab, my legion, I would say conceptually at work. It's basically at the intersection between second language studies and TESOL and literacy studies, and when we talk about this idea of literacy in second languages project as the name for our lab, literacy in second languages is that. It's that intersection where we start thinking how we explore the presence of multiple languages in different spaces that sometimes we don't pay attention to. Like the cities, cities are incredibly prelingual spaces. It's just that we sometimes don't pay attention to that because oh, it's just a billboard, oh, it's just a graffiti, it's just a sticker on a pole, on a light pole. It's just, it's the name of a store, it's the name of a barbershop. But once you start looking at that more carefully and I'd say without being so judgmental, you can learn so much about the way languages shape and reshape cities and how we have access to so many languages in our everyday life that we're not even listening to, we're not paying attention to. So that's been one of the lines of work I've developed with my team over the past decade and we're still working on it looking at how languages create different ways to look at a city if we want to conceive the city, and thinking about what we can learn about that when we're teaching languages and what we can learn about that when we are teaching languages. Then there's all the work that we've done with video games and how gamers appropriate languages within that gaming culture, within the play, and how they use these languages and strategies to thrive in the games and to belong to the games and to belong to these communities.
Speaker 2:And then there is the work that we do with teachers in the sense of give them the theory. That's what I advocate for. That's the thing I've done with my master's students and with my doctoral students. Look, here's the theory, here's multimodality, here's critical literacy, here's multiliteracies, here's digital literacies, here. Do something, think, mean, think about this like you can use whatever metaphor you want Play-Doh, lego box, whatever you want, whatever you want and build something with it. You're the one in your classroom.
Speaker 2:I'm not here to tell you what you can do. I'm here to tell you this is what a theory could do if you play with it and we just let teachers play with theory, which is something that we're not doing enough, this idea that we still have places where we think that teachers need to be told exactly what to do and that we need to come with this prepackaged thing and we have to give them this prepackaged thing because that's what they want and the reality that's no, that's not what they want. They don't want the prepackaged solution. They take it because that's the only choice you give them. I mean, if all you're going to offer me for dinner is ramen noodles and my choice is ramen noodles or go hungry, I'm going to have the noodles. But if you give me the option of going to the kitchen, opening the cupboard, see what's in the cupboard and cook something, I'm going to go and cook something. So that's what I'm saying. What options are we giving teachers? Are we giving the teacher the options of going to the cupboard and finding and picking the ingredients in the cupboard and then you give them the skillet and then you let them cook? Or are you just telling them all you can eat is this prepackaged pan and that's what you can eat? When you give teachers the possibility to cook, to play with theory.
Speaker 2:I've seen my teachers do incredible things in the classrooms, in public classrooms, in rural classrooms. So I'm not talking about here the elite bilingual private schools that we have sometimes in Colombia that happens there too, make no mistake about it but I'm talking about my teachers in public schools and inner city neighborhoods, my teachers in rural schools taking theory and doing the alchemy that we need to do with theory and getting their students engaged in writing, getting students engaged in learning a language, getting students engaged in literacy. That's part of the work I do with teachers is get them into theory and then helping my young teachers understand, first of all, the theory is accessible, that research is accessible, that they can theorize, that they can talk methodology, even if they're undergrads, my undergrads know that once we enter this place, we are going to talk. We're going to get serious about talking about methodology. We're going to get serious about talking about theory. We're going to conceptualize, we're going to write conceptual papers. We're going to write and we're going to talk about this in the grandest stages, and that's one of the things that what we do.
Speaker 2:I mean I tell my students not to be afraid. No, I tell them, no, we belong at LRA, we belong at ARA, we belong at international conferences and that's where we're going to go how Well, we'll figure it out later. But we belong in those podcasts, we belong in those webinars because we're doing great stuff and because my students are they. I mean, I believe in their absolute excellence, I believe in their awesomeness, I believe in their brilliance. And if I'm not gonna believe in my students brilliance, awesomeness and fire then why do I even have a research lab in the first place?
Speaker 1:my wheels are are going for sure what you're saying, raul. It just reminds me of often the way that educators are treated in the spaces where they work. You know so often teachers are treated as though they don't know as much as the printed curriculum, right? They're treated as though they don't know as much as policymakers no-transcript and the experiences they have and leaning on them to do the good work with the theories.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, I'm one. I mean because one of the things I really hate is when people talk about this whole notion that we have to recruit the best of the brightest, and I hear this all the time. Yeah, we have to find ways to get the best of the brightest. And then I go to my lab and I start meeting with my undergrads and I look at them and I look at what they do and I'm like what are you talking about? I'm already working with the best and the brightest. I mean, my students are the best and the brightest and I believe it firmly and they prove it to me every single day With everything we have at our research meeting. There is so much magic in those meetings and I get so many ideas and they help me think. I mean the fact that I'm writing one book. The book about video games is basically all my co-authors are undergrads and early career teachers. I have a couple of veteran teachers, but students who are giving me everything they got and they're throwing their magic in every single chapter of writing. But it begins from the notion that they tell me we got this golden opportunity. Let's not put it to waste. And they don't put it to waste. So it's first of all, it's how we create.
Speaker 2:When we are in those positions where we can open these spaces, who are we bringing to the table? Who are we bringing along for the ride? It's, I'm thinking about us and Higher Ed. We get invited to all these parties and the question I would like to ask everybody is are you bringing a plus one, a plus two, a plus three, a plus ten, or are you just flying solo? Because I mean, that's the big question for me, that's, that's the big challenge. Are you flying solo or are you, as someone told me, lift him as you climb? You RSVP to the party. Who's your plus one? And I mean by a party, I mean a book chapter. You're writing. Are you bringing a plus one or you just decided that this is a solo party? Are you inviting your students to write with you? Are you inviting junior colleagues to write with you?
Speaker 2:Now, if they decline, that's a whole different story. But if your students are willing and they want to write and they're good, and you're not bringing them along, you're not telling them, you're not bringing them along for the party, I'm going to blame you. You're the one who got the invitation my students at this particular moment in their careers. No one is going to invite my students to give a talk or to join a podcast or to present a paper or put together a symposium.
Speaker 2:I get those invitations. So if I get those invitations and I don't bring them along, then the responsibility is mine. Our responsibility as mentors is also creating those spaces for the younger generations, for people to know they exist, giving opportunities that they're not going to have unless someone who's in a position to get those opportunities invites them. So get your team, get your students to be part of these spaces. That's how we build community, that's how we build a legacy. Now, in many ways, that's how we build the future of this, how we get the teachers, how we get the undergrads, how we get the grad students involved so that they know what it's like, they get a taste of those spaces and then, when it's their chance, they will surely pay it forward.
Speaker 1:Considering how we act and react in each and every moment and how that does in fact support paths to a better future for all of us. This idea of bringing a plus one, I've never really thought about it that way. It is so critical whether we are inviting teachers to research conversations, asking them to share their great ideas, inviting them to come, you know, join projects and share their own expertise, help us sense, make from their own perspectives. There's such energy in what you say, Raul, and I think that's an area where, in some spaces, I think we are thoroughly lacking. So if we can re-energize some spaces where teachers do work and students work, we could all be in a much better place. I think this sense of community, the sense of supporting each other as we continue to grow in our thinking and even influence to bring others along with us, yeah, and it's also about breaking this culture of gatekeeping that we have.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a culture that I have with colleagues. I mean how much gatekeeping it is when people put together volumes. I recently just posted something on Blue Sky about that, saying that, look, if you're editing a volume and you get so many good submissions for once, why don't you try, instead of sending the letter, saying, oh, we got so many good submissions, but yours doesn't fit. Why don't you look at the ones that don't fit and see what's going on there? And people will be like people say, yeah, but you still have. Now you have to go to the work of finding more reviewers or finding.
Speaker 2:Look, I never said it was going to be easy. I said it's possible. If you get 30 abstracts for a volume but you can only have 10, is there a possibility from those 30, you can get another 10, that you can make another issue or another volume and another 10, that's going to be another volume. And, yes, you're going to have to spend your time looking for another publisher for that. You're going to have to start looking for another journal for that. But at the end of the day, when you can say that you opened room for 30 people as opposed to closing the door on 20, what's going to sound better? What's going to make you look better, buddy? I mean even if you're going to think in this very utilitarian sense.
Speaker 2:Well, I put together three issues and I got 30 people who published papers as opposed to. I just talked to the 10 people I know, because it's like the 10 people I know, my ocean's 11 thingy, and then everybody else. Yeah, good luck, beautiful abstract, but good luck, that's gatekeeping. There is too much of that, and as we break, breaking the cultural gatekeeping means making sure that practitioners get places, that speakers, people who are writing in their second language, get welcome to those spaces, without having to prove to you that I got my paper proofread by a native speaker before I submitted it here. Like I always like to be kind of a little snarky and saying, yeah, if I'm a native speaker who knows as much about the subject as I do, I'm happy to have that person proofread it for me. Until that happens, I'm not going to lose my sleep.
Speaker 1:You know, this happens on a different level in classrooms every day. In fact, teachers are encouraged to be gatekeepers in so many ways. You've either met this precise standard and you must meet the bar as it was set by someone else, rather than looking for the brilliance and then identifying how those ideas kind of coalesce, or how we make sense of them together, even when they weren't what we expected ideas kind of coalesce, or how we make sense of them together, even when they weren't what we expected. Yeah, you've just given me so much to think about. Is there anything else you want to share with listeners about your work?
Speaker 2:I think one of the things I would say I'm very proud of is not just that, it's how we also have created a culture of understanding the academic literacy culture. I always love to talk about our little publication, the LSLP Micropapers, as something that has become a hallmark of our work, in the sense that as we conceptualize our research, we write those little papers and my students and I can make so much sense of these concepts and then we have these things already online that people can find and people can cite and people can use as a reference. But it's become a culture where everybody knows they have to write one and the sense of accomplishment when that micro paper is published on the website and we advertise that it's published, they feel like it's empowering. I can talk about these heavy research concepts, these things about literacy, and say it in a way that is articulate. But it's also mine, because I think the thing about theory is not simply regurgitating the authors or regurgitating the references, but how I make sense of this for the stuff I'm doing.
Speaker 2:If I'm talking about AI, yeah, but what does AI mean to you and how are you thinking about that work? You're thinking about critical literacy yes, great, and there is a host of people you have to read in order to understand the field, but what does it mean to you and what does it mean for the work you're doing with your students? Same goes with the other concepts. Or we talk about video games, we talk about urban ethnography or whatever concept that we're developing at the moment, and I I love that part of the work because everybody's already thinking and writing and, as we and we're collectively building a conceptual base that helps us all the time, and I think that that that is also a really, really pretty thing about the things we do. It's how we are also thinking of knowledge construction and conceptualizing from a very grassroots perspective that, yes, we have to read the who's, who and everybody who's done something and we have to do the searches, but at the same time, we're also adding our contribution, through the things we write, to the collective knowledge.
Speaker 1:Is that site something that we can link in your show notes and make that available to listeners? Absolutely yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, wonderful, I mean it's all available. It's basically it's all on our website, but there is one particular link that takes you directly to the LSDP micro papers.
Speaker 1:Great. We will link that in the show notes and on your guest page. So one closing question for you, Raul. Given the challenges of today's educational climate, what message do you want teachers to hear?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, now that's a question that I think probably would have had a very different answer two months ago, would have a very different answer a month ago and it would have had a different answer three weeks ago. So let's try to give the best answer we can today, but I think first I would like to take a moment to get all those teachers out there, like everywhere, everywhere in the world, because there are some struggles to teachers that are not unique to one country. Many of these challenges are collective. I see those struggles in teachers in Colombia and I heard those struggles in teachers in Norway, and I've seen those struggles in teaching in the US, and I heard the struggles in teaching in Brazil and in Poland and in Mexico, and I hear from teachers in different parts of Latin America. But the first thing I would like to say is, first of all, please understand that many of us who are in higher ed we appreciate you, that your work is appreciated, that your work is respected, that your work is welcome, that maybe in higher ed we need to interrogate ourselves about how often we don't say that, how often we don't tell teachers that their job is worthwhile, that they're doing fantastic jobs, that they are sometimes beating every imaginable odd, every imaginable challenge and challenges that sometimes we in higher ed, at this particular point in our careers, might not even be able to face ourselves or meet ourselves. That your work and I like and I like to make sure that teachers hear this no, you, you are appreciated and we appreciate you and you, what you do with your students, we see it and we should have told you this more often and we should have advocated for you more often.
Speaker 2:I've never liked to come to talk to teachers from deficit perspectives I mean, they have heard enough of that. I like to always come to the idea that what you're doing is amazing. You're doing great stuff. Maybe you don't use the terminology that we use. Maybe you don't call it multimodality. Maybe you don't call it critical literacy. Maybe you don't call it multiliteracies. Maybe you don't call it multimodality. Maybe you don't call it critical literacy. Maybe you don't call it multiliteracies. Maybe you don't call it this that I call it in my work, but when I go and see it, what you do in your classrooms, I see what you're doing and then we can find middle ground where I can tell you this is what it's called and you can show me what you're doing and then we can find together a way to build it.
Speaker 2:These are difficult times, I think. Not acknowledging that, that there are difficult times, it would be foolish. But at the same time, I think that there are pockets of hope and happiness and joy that we still have to exploit and we still have to discover. Stay true to yourselves. I think that would be the one thing I tell you. I mean, teachers are doing. Teachers are amazing. One thing I had the chance to learn working with my teachers at the lab is the amazing work they do and how much of a difference they make when they are in their classrooms. And then I also look at what teacher educators are doing every day in different ways and how much that matters when it comes to getting teachers out there in the field. So I would say that would be what I would say is continue doing the work.
Speaker 2:I would say from the end of teacher ed, we have to really coalesce a little more, because more challenges are coming and we're not coalescing enough, we're not strategizing enough. We have to sustain our communities and sustain them with I mean with a lot of love and hope. But love and hope, that is not idealistic, but it's actually grounded in the fight. But that would be my message and just keep being yourselves, keep doing the great work you're doing. I mean, the thing about teaching is that sometimes people don't notice what you did right away they feel, but they notice it eventually.
Speaker 2:But I think those of us in these positions of research and advocacy, we need to do a much better job in, you know, telling teachers and telling our students that they're doing great stuff and that they, their work, matters. I think we need to do I mean again, higher ed and research. We need to do better. We need to do, I mean again, higher ed and research. We need to do better. We need to do better because I think we're not. I mean, we have great efforts but they're still isolated.
Speaker 2:But we need to do something more. Let's say, more widespread, more sustained, more sustainable. Of course, with this, I need to make sure I keep telling that to my teachers and keep telling that to my students, not always remind them how amazing they are, remind them of the brilliance and the fire that they have, and I think as long as we keep doing that and we keep working together to sustain that fire, I mean that's part of this, part of fighting and winning the good fight, is that? So I hope that really resonates with teachers and other colleagues and that inspires people to keep the spark alive. I mean, at least for me, that's what I'm going to do in the next hour or so when I'm going to start meeting my students to work on our chapters and work on our projects.
Speaker 1:I know your message certainly resonates with me and I absolutely agree. The challenges are collective, but I think whenever we put some collective energy into supporting the good fight, as you called it, we can do some great things. We can still identify and work within those pockets of hope and joy and love and share that with with everyone in our educational community, the youngest of students to our oldest of students. So so, Raul, I thank you so much for spending this time with me. So, Raul, I thank you so much for spending this time with me. I think you've got such a critical message always, but certainly now, In this moment, I think we need more than ever to honor each other and support each other and lift up each other's voices so that we can continue doing the good work for young people. So thank you so much.
Speaker 2:My pleasure, pleasure is all mine. I appreciate the space and the conversation and, yeah, let's keep it going, let's keep it rolling, let's keep doing the good work.
Speaker 1:Great Thank you. Dr Raul Alberto Mora is known worldwide for his work in the areas of second languages, critical discourse analysis and sociocultural theory. In particular, he studies the applications of alternative literacy paradigms to analyze second language literacy practices in urban and virtual spaces. He works to understand the use of languages as social and semiotic resource. His work has been published in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, bilingualism and Bilingual Education, social Semiotics, key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue. Pedagogies, an international Education, language and Ideology Journal of Education for Multilingualism, howe Journal from Columbia and Crossroads, a journal of English studies from Poland. He also co-edited the Handbook of Critical Literacies in Translanguaging and Multimodality as Flow Agency and a New Sense of Advocacy in and from the global South, published in 2024, as well as forthcoming books Understanding Second Language Users as Gamers, language as Victory, reimagining Literacy in the Age of AI Theory and Practice English Language Teacher Education in Latin America. And Reimagining Critical Multimodality in Education from Soil soil to seedlings. Dr Raul Alberto Mora is a researcher in the Pedagogies and Didactics of Knowledge Research Group and chairs the award-winning Literacies in Second Languages Project Research Lab. He has served as visiting professor, visiting scholar and guest lecturer at universities in Colombia, poland, mexico, chechnya, brazil, united States, spain and Norway. Raul is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a research professor at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Colombia.
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