WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.000 music 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:16.000 Welcome everyone to the 2018 Mario and Alma Pastega family awards ceremony. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:20.000 And I'm Steve Scheck vice president of academic affairs 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:23.000 and I'm delighted to serve as your host for today's program. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:30.000 This represents the 40th year for awarding Pastega Excellence in Scholarship 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:36.000 and the 33rd year for awarding the Excellence in Teaching award. 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:44.000 Over the years the Pastega name has become a very organic part of the WOU lexicon. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:50.000 And whenever one mentions Pastega we think of rooms in the Woodcock building and of these awards 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:52.000 and we think of excellence. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:64.000 And the saying that is in the Pastega room in the Woodcock center is definitely a testament to the Pastega philosophy 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:07.000 and why we recognize the faculty that we do. 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:10.000 Over the years again this name has been associated with this 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:13.000 and we take great pride in celebrating this 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:18.000 and that is why President Fuller is here today, the deans are here today 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:24.000 because we do recognize the role that our faculty play in excellence. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:30.000 We place a lot of emphasis on recognizing this because of not only the personal accomplishment 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:35.000 that a recognition like this symbolizes to the individuals 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:40.000 but also we know that there is the trickle down aspect or the pass it forward aspect 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:46.000 the engagement of faculty such as the two faculty we're recognizing today 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:50.000 the impact that they have daily on student lives here at the university 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:56.000 and we know that that legacy continues to spread across the state and the nation. 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:61.000 So we've come here today to celebrate two of our colleagues, Marie and Peter 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:06.000 in recognition of the work that they have done as members of the faculty here 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:11.000 and especially in areas of teaching and scholarship. 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:18.000 I'm going to ask the respective division chairs to introduce our speakers 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:24.000 and you'll notice how effective Mark Henkels is at doing this. He's done it a few times. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:32.000 But I will also ask for the award winners' dean to come up also 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:34.000 and after the division chairs' introduction 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:40.000 we'll have a presentation of certificate and a little envelope and a photo opportunity. 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:48.000 So with that I would like to invite Dr. Mark Henkels chair of the social science division to introduce our first speaker. 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:53.000 applause 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:56.000 Peter Callero wins another award. 00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:61.000 I'll tell you I was trying to do a little research on this 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:08.000 and he was hired so long ago there's really no evidence of exactly when he got here. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:11.000 But from what I could tell 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:15.000 way back in the mists of time maybe during the Reagan era 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:18.000 a scholar emerged on campus. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:23.000 And he was a Jesuit-trained scholar 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:30.000 and he came wearing Bucky Badger stuff for his PhD program. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.000 And he brought to us the desire to create a sociology program 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:38.000 which had never existed on campus before. 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:44.000 We have ever since then had a sociology program and it has thrived. 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:47.000 But I have to say it didn't thrive just because of him 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:51.000 because you gotta give a shout out to Dean Braa, Maureen Dolan 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:53.000 applause 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:56.000 They also have won the same award for excellence in teaching. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:62.000 And that makes you think, what is it about their teaching that makes it so great? 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:08.000 And I've lived across the hallway from Peter for 20 years at least I'd say 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:11.000 and I can tell you three things I saw. 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:12.000 One thing, quality. 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:18.000 They set out and said we want to have our students know theory. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:22.000 We want our students to know empirical research and statistics 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:28.000 to the level that they could go to any graduate school in the country from Western and thrive. 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:30.000 And they never varied from that. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:36.000 Their theses are some of the best, most interesting theses. 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:43.000 And they lost a lot of students as majors who became social science-sociology majors 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:46.000 in a little bit of avoidance of those standards. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:51.000 And yet they still every produced great students 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:56.000 and their students have really gone out and made a mark in academia and in services. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:61.000 The second thing and I think this is actually the most important thing 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:09.000 he didn't educate people just to have them go places whether it's professional or graduate school or whatever. 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:15.000 He educated people to change the world, honest to God. 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.000 That's what it's about in that program. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:24.000 That program is about telling people the world's not good. The world could be a lot better 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:27.000 and the instrument of change is you. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:30.000 He's a regular Saul Alinsky I tell you 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:32.000 and he empowers people. 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:35.000 You look at the Monmouth-Independence Tenants Union and you look at these other things 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:39.000 and you realize it's not just thoughts. It's not just statistics. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:46.000 It's action that also matters and he makes the individuals think they can make that difference. 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:50.000 And that's the third thing that I've observed over the years. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:54.000 When he talks to students by the time they get to be his seniors 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:57.000 he knows their backgrounds pretty thoroughly. 00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:64.000 He knows their strengths, their weaknesses, their interests, and their concerns. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:11.000 And he gets them to believe that all those things have made them uniquely powerful, uniquely influential. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:16.000 And that they have their own purpose in life that they should go out and fulfill 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:20.000 and he empowers them. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:22.000 I don't know if I have anything else to say 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:27.000 except I've been here a pretty long time myself, 30 years 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:33.000 and I still come across students and I go huh that's an interesting case 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.000 and I still come across classes that just don't work right. 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:41.000 Well I've got a go-to guy, Peter Callero. 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:45.000 So I bring to you Peter Callero, Mario and Alma Pastega Excellence in Teaching award winner. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:48.000 applause 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:55.000 Mark, where'd Mark go? Thank you that was really nice of you. 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:60.000 Thank you also to the Pastega family 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:07.000 for the generous gift of this scholarship money to the university. 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:16.000 But I have to say accepting this award I have a little bit of mixed feelings. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:28.000 And the reason is that I have this lesson where I talk to my students about the culture of individualism. 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:36.000 And I say that when we recognize individuals with awards 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:39.000 give them plaques and money 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:44.000 we raise them up and at the same time 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:53.000 we are unintentionally diminishing the cooperative nature of achievement. 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:62.000 So everything any one of us achieves is really a cooperative, collective effort. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:08.000 And so teaching of course is no exception at all to that. 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:16.000 In fact my teaching is really the department of sociology so Dean and Maureen 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:19.000 I'm so glad that Mark mentioned that 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:23.000 they are just as much a part of everything that I do every day 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:29.000 and god we've been together for sometimes too many years I think. 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:37.000 And so I think it's important for us to recognize that. 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:45.000 Also I don't really want to talk about my teaching today. 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:51.000 I want to talk about not my students, our students. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:54.000 And I want to talk about their achievements 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:57.000 and I'm going to do that with two stories. 00:08:57.000 --> 00:08:64.000 And this first story takes place in a prison. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:10.000 Oregon State Penitentiary the maximum security prison for men in Salem. 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:19.000 And this story begins back in the late 80s, early 90s. 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:26.000 When I first arrived here we had a program at Western where we taught classes inside the penitentiary. 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:32.000 The inmates could actually get degrees. We don't have that anymore. 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:37.000 And faculty could volunteer their time to teach a few classes a year and I was part of that program. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:44.000 The State Pen was close to my house where we lived at the time 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:48.000 and so when I would get done teaching classes on campus 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:55.000 on my way home I could stop by a couple afternoons and teach a class. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:58.000 Well it was one Spring day 00:09:58.000 --> 00:09:62.000 very warm out I remember it. I had a midterm scheduled for my class 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:05.000 there in the prison. 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:10.000 I was feeling a little cranky. I was hot. I was tired. 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:13.000 I wasn't looking forward to going inside 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:18.000 waiting the half hour it sometimes took to go through all the checkpoints 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:23.000 going up to the third floor in the corner where the classroom was. 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:28.000 Actually I think that might actually be the classroom there in the picture 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:32.000 in that corner there. It looked out into the yard. 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:35.000 We had about 15 or 20 students. 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:40.000 Excellent students by the way. Never missed a class. 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:47.000 They were always well prepared. 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:50.000 But they were also very eager to learn. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:57.000 And so I get up there and I walk into the classroom. It was a very tiny room. 00:10:57.000 --> 00:10:62.000 Just barely fitting the 15 or 20 of us in there. 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:08.000 Stuffy, smelled like men sweating. It wasn't very comfortable. 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:13.000 And there was a small window that looked out onto the recreation yard out here. 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:23.000 And then there was a back wall with the larger window where the correctional officers stood guard. 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:30.000 So anyway I get into this classroom that day and nobody's talking. 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:36.000 Usually they're talking. I figured they'd just be nervous about the midterm. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:42.000 So I go in front and open my bag 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:48.000 take the exams out, start distributing them as usual. Still nobody's talking. 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:53.000 Then I sit down at the little desk in front. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:57.000 And a student sitting in the back raises his hand. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:63.000 And I knew all the students pretty well this student especially well. 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:06.000 I'm going to call him Jack. That's not his real name. 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:16.000 Jack was the strongest, most respected inmate not in my class but in that institution. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:21.000 In fact he had won a heavy weight boxing tournament there. 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:26.000 He was in for some violent crimes. He'd spent most of his life on the inside 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:32.000 and he was brilliant. 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:34.000 He was an excellent student. Had this photographic memory. 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:37.000 He was an amazing person in that way too. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:40.000 Anyway Jack raises his hand. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:44.000 And I said: yes Jack, in a sarcastic way 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:47.000 and he says, may we start? 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:51.000 I said yes of course you can start. Begin. 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:58.000 So Jack sits back down, writes his name on his exam, 00:12:58.000 --> 00:12:61.000 stands up and starts walking towards me. 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:05.000 And I didn't know what was going on 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:10.000 and I could see that other students started following Jack. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:16.000 Now all of these inmates are walking towards me with their blank exams. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:20.000 And so I was confused. At first I started to laugh. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:26.000 I said oh that's funny. They started putting the exams down and then walking out of the classroom. 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.000 I was laughing. I was joking with them. 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:32.000 Sit down. Come on, joke's over. They didn't stop. 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:36.000 Then I started to get angry. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:42.000 I said in my mind you're violating the protocol of the classroom. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:46.000 My dad mode kind of clicked in. 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:49.000 I said sit back down here. I'm going to flunk you all. 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:53.000 They were ignoring me. And then I made a critical mistake. 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:60.000 I grabbed one of them by the arm, it was a big arm, and then I let go. 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:01.000 laughter 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:05.000 And they still kept walking and ignored me. 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:14.000 And then I kind of stumbled back I remember that and sat down disoriented 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:18.000 not knowing what was going on. Confused. 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:23.000 And then I remembered. I thought could this be a riot? 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:28.000 Was this some kind of signal for an insurrection on the inside? 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:35.000 And then I realized that at the training before going to teach in the prison 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:43.000 I had signed a waiver that said that in case there is a situation like this and I'm taken hostage 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:46.000 they would not negotiate for my release. 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:47.000 laughter 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:55.000 And I thought I'm gonna die in here. This is how it's going to end. 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:61.000 And then I looked out that window and I thought I'm going to need some security help 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:05.000 so I looked out that window where the guard was 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:12.000 and the students were talking to the guard and they were all joking around and laughing and pointing at me. 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:19.000 And then eventually they all came in. Jack first of course. 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:22.000 They all followed Jack. They sat back down. 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:29.000 And then Jack handed me a piece of paper with a note on it, already written. 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:31.000 And this is what it said. 00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:34.000 Dear Professor Callero 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:40.000 On the first day of class you explained to us that you would be grading on the curve 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:44.000 and that the student with the highest point total would receive an A. 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:50.000 We asked you if everyone would get an A even if we all had a score of zero. 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:56.000 You laughed and said yes, but that it would never happen because students are too competitive. 00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:62.000 You also said that students would never have enough trust in each other to make such a plan succeed. 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:09.000 We have just demonstrated to you that we are not like your other students. 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:12.000 We did not intend to offend or anger you. 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:14.000 This was about education. 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:17.000 We are now prepared to complete the exam. 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:20.000 Thank you for your commitment to our education. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.000 And that note was signed by every student in the class. 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:29.000 applause 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:34.000 That was a moment when the teacher became a student. 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:37.000 And it taught me an important lesson. 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:44.000 Don't underestimate the collective power of our students. 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:51.000 And it motivated me to initiate a new curriculum back on campus. 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:53.000 It took me a few years 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:60.000 but I eventually did put together a series of courses on community organizing. 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:08.000 I thought to myself, how can I take that power that I witnessed with my students on the inside 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:15.000 and get my students on the outside to take that same motivation and energy that I know they have 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:17.000 and put it to work in the community. 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:22.000 So the idea was to have in the fall a course on community organizing 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:29.000 where the students would learn about Saul Alinsky, learn about the history of community organizing, 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:32.000 learn about strategies and tactics. 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:37.000 And then the last couple of weeks in the fall they do some kind of group project. 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:45.000 Students that completed that course would then be eligible to take a follow-up course in the winter 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:51.000 in which they would just be involved in organizing and setting goals 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:54.000 and engaging the community in some kind of project. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:62.000 An even smaller group would then be eligible to serve as independent study or intern students 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:04.000 to continue that project. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:08.000 With the idea that they could then hand off whatever project they started 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:11.000 to the next cohort the following year. 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:16.000 So that first year back in 1998 it was 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:21.000 the students decided that they wanted to work on a project 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:26.000 that dealt with the problems of rental housing in the Monmouth-Independence area. 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:31.000 They were very frustrated with the conditions of housing 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:37.000 and so they decided to set up an organization that they called the Monmouth-Independence Tenants Union. 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:47.000 And the first year they said we're just going to focus on the most egregious problem that's the closest to home 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:54.000 and at that time we had campus housing called Campus Estates. 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:59.000 That's right where the current library is. 00:18:59.000 --> 00:18:65.000 These were a series of little tiny dumps that the students lived in. 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.000 They talked to the editors of the student newspaper 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:16.000 and said hey look we'd like to contribute to the newspaper a column each week we're going to call Dump of the Week 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:21.000 as a way to get the conditions highlighted. 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:24.000 So this is what was going on in Campus Estates at the time. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:29.000 And I just want to point your attention to the highlighted area because this is important. 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:35.000 It says that in the bathroom the heat is provided by small outdated wall heaters 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:40.000 and in the case of number 199 because of the proximity to the towel rack 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:46.000 an inadequate safety level of the outdated wall heaters has resulted in towels catching on fire. 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:52.000 These were not the only ones. Students had gone to administration and complained. 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:55.000 They even set up a meeting with the president. 00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:63.000 And they were told yes, they realized there were problems but eventually they're going to be torn down. 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:05.000 They're not really worth investing in. 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:08.000 Students were frustrated. They still feared for their safety. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:14.000 That ended in spring of that year. 00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:22.000 And then some of you might remember, in fall of the following year disaster struck. 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:34.000 And one of those estates that students had been complaining about burned to the ground. 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:40.000 And one of our sociology students actually was lucky to escape with her life. 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:43.000 I'm just going to make sure that you read this description here. 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:48.000 This was the front cover of the Statesman Journal, Sunday edition. 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:51.000 Eloina Cedillo doesn't know why she woke up at two A.M. that Sunday. 00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:54.000 She's just glad she did. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:57.000 I could see the red fire. The color of it underneath the bed. 00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:60.000 That's when I got out, the 19-year-old Western Oregon University student said. 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:03.000 Cedillo grabbed a fire extinguisher. It didn't work. 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:06.000 As soon as I got back to the room it went up in flames, she said. 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:09.000 That's when the smoke alarm in the hallway finally went off. 00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:13.000 Cedillo and her two roommates who weren't home at the time lost all of their belongings in the October 17 blaze. 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:18.000 If I didn't get up I wouldn't be here, she said. That's the thing that scares me. 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:21.000 It scared all of us. 00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:29.000 But what it did do is it really motivated the students to continue their work. 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:36.000 This article which appeared in the Statesman Journal was a month after the fire. 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:41.000 Nothing ever reached the press about that fire. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:48.000 It was our students who took the information that they learned in community organizing 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:51.000 to put together a press release 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:58.000 and alert the media about this problem to shine some light on it. 00:21:58.000 --> 00:21:65.000 They were so effective that it was also picked up by the AP wire service 00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:12.000 and I was getting calls from colleagues that I knew out of state that were reading this story. 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:17.000 So that was the real impetus a baptism by fire you might say 00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:20.000 for the Monmouth-Independence Tenants Union. 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:28.000 So over the years one cohort of students trained in the fall. 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:32.000 A smaller group working in the winter and spring 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:38.000 have been handing off the success of one group to the next over the years. 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:47.000 Each group making small progress towards advancing the interests of tenants and tenant justice 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:52.000 and housing safety in the Monmouth-Independence area. 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:56.000 They've done a lot of work. I can't summarize it. It's 20 years of work here. 00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:63.000 But I just want to give you a few examples of some of the success that some of you might not be aware of. 00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:12.000 One of the things that they've done is they engage in an annual education program 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:19.000 in which they do canvasing in the different apartment complexes around the two cities. 00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:23.000 They also regularly do tabling in this building here. 00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:28.000 And they've encouraged the city, that's what this news article is about, 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000 to put flyers in the utility bills 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:36.000 so that tenants can get information about what their rights are. 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:42.000 To this day it's still the case 00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:50.000 most tenants especially tenants for the first time, young tenants, don't know what their rights are. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:58.000 They also have put together a webpage which provides resources for tenants in the area to access 00:23:58.000 --> 00:23:63.000 so that they know where to contact people for help particularly legal advice 00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:07.000 what their rights are, how to report a violation. 00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:14.000 They were instrumental in pressuring the city to adopt a procedure for reporting violations. 00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:16.000 So initially there was no way. 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:21.000 If you had a problem and you suspected that your landlord was breaking tenant law 00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:23.000 how did you get that reported? 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:26.000 They would go to the city and the city wouldn't know what to do. 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:33.000 And so they put together some violation forms the rental unit violation form 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:38.000 and they pressured the city into adopting that form. It took a couple of years. 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:40.000 Monmouth adopted it. 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.000 And then years later they were able to get the City of Independence to adopt this form. 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:49.000 So these forms are now available in both English and Spanish 00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:52.000 and are used by both the City of Monmouth and Independence. 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:55.000 But that wasn't enough. 00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:61.000 They also discovered that just reporting a violation usually just stopped there 00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:04.000 unless there's some kind of enforcement mechanism 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:11.000 and neither city had an enforcement mechanism or set of procedures to enforce these violations. 00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:15.000 They were able to get both cities to establish procedures 00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:20.000 and identify employees who would be responsible not only for reviewing the violations 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:29.000 but then going in and imposing fines on the landlords who were not adhering to landlord-tenant law. 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:34.000 They also met resistance and I love this quote it's my favorite quote 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:39.000 from the great abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass. 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:44.000 reads slide 00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:49.000 reads slide 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:53.000 reads slide 00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:58.000 reads slide 00:25:58.000 --> 00:25:63.000 And our students experienced this. They continue to experience it. 00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:08.000 I'm going to give you a couple of examples of where they received pushback. 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:13.000 Remember the Dump of the Week where they agreed to write a column? 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:16.000 By the way we got a lot of feedback. 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:19.000 It was one of the highlights of the newspaper. 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:21.000 It was before the media that we have today 00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:26.000 when people actually knew what a newspaper was. 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:34.000 So the real estate advertisers complained to the editors and complained to the university 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:40.000 saying we're going to pull our advertising if you continue to run Dump of the Week. 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:43.000 And we said how about if we cut it back to dump of the month? 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:45.000 laughter 00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:48.000 And they said no. 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:53.000 So the editors eventually said we need this advertising 00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:57.000 sorry we're not going to let you do this anymore. 00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:62.000 So there was an important lesson about pushback on that. 00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:11.000 Another example, more recently a group of our students was doing the regular canvasing that they do in Independence. 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:16.000 They were at the Legacy Oaks apartment complex a very large, relatively new complex. 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:19.000 And they were approached by the manager 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:22.000 who ordered them off the premises off the grounds 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:24.000 and they said on what basis? 00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:27.000 They said well no soliciting and they said we're not soliciting. 00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:32.000 We're providing information. We're educating tenants on their rights. 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:35.000 And they said no we want you gone. 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:44.000 And they said no. Our students are very strong when they know they're right. 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:50.000 In the same way that our students at the penitentiary were very strong 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.000 when they knew that they were right 00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:57.000 our students believed that they were right so they didn't leave. 00:27:57.000 --> 00:27:64.000 The manager then called the Independence Police Department and the Independence police officers showed up 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:08.000 and threatened our students with arrest. 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:14.000 And so at that point they called me 00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:17.000 and said what should we do? 00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:24.000 I said I don't want you going to jail so yes please leave the grounds. 00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:27.000 We'll pick this up later. And we did. 00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:32.000 And we ended up in long negotiations. We approached the city council 00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:37.000 and the city manager and then the owner of the apartment complex 00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:40.000 and we were in negotiations over a period of time. 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.000 And we reached this in my view unsatisfactory compromise 00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:49.000 in which they would distribute the information which they haven't been doing. 00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:52.000 It's a long story. 00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:55.000 We're looking at legislation right now. 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:60.000 We've got some support with the Oregon Law Center but that's a whole other story. 00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:02.000 I won't go into that right now. 00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:15.000 The third example of pushback and resistance was when the negligent landlord threatened a lawsuit. 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:20.000 And this was fairly early on. 00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:26.000 I've got a copy of the first and last page of this letter we received from the lawyer 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:32.000 in which they claim that we made defamatory comments regarding my clients and Windjammer Apartments. 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:39.000 The statements went so far as to imply that due to living conditions the complex poses a fire and safety hazard. 00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:42.000 And that's absolutely the truth. 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:52.000 This was at the time one of the most egregious violators of landlord-tenant law safety and health. 00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:57.000 Railings were falling over up on the second floor. 00:29:57.000 --> 00:29:62.000 There were holes in the floor of the apartments. 00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:12.000 And Paul Evans some of you know Paul, former student now state representative 00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:13.000 at the time he was mayor. 00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:20.000 He was working with us as we were organizing the tenants in this apartment complex. 00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:25.000 So he's named on the suit too. 00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:31.000 I threatened a countersuit for defamation 00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:36.000 because you'll notice that they have me under department of psychology up there. 00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:37.000 laughter 00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:43.000 No offense to my colleagues in the psych department but for a sociologist that's going too far. 00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:49.000 So this was just a threat. 00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:51.000 It didn't go anywhere. 00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:55.000 But you can imagine if you're a tenant and you complain 00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:60.000 and you get something like this and you don't have the support of an organization. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.000 OK so today they're continuing the work. 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:08.000 Last year they moved beyond the cities of Monmouth and Independence. 00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:12.000 They're working in coalition with other state groups. 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:16.000 They were leading a rally at the state capitol last year 00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:19.000 for tenant rights particularly on no-cause evictions 00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:24.000 and also these dramatic increases in rents that we've seen 00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:30.000 in the neighborhood of 20 and 30 percent that are threatening a lot of tenants with homelessness. 00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:37.000 We've actually got May here. May is one of the leaders. 00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:40.000 Raise your hand May so everybody can recognize you 00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:43.000 and the good work that you're doing. 00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:48.000 Are there any other MITU-istas here right now? I don't see any. 00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:52.000 Yeah. Dalia is over here. Come over here Dalia so everybody can see you. 00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:56.000 applause 00:31:56.000 --> 00:31:61.000 So they've been working with the Community Alliance of Tenants in Portland 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:04.000 on the larger statewide issues. They're trying to develop that. 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:11.000 They had a great event in a neighborhood in West Salem earlier this year. 00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:13.000 So the fight goes on 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:18.000 and the education goes on also. 00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:26.000 So that's the end of my two stories. The last thing I want to talk about is the future. 00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:31.000 If you work here at Western 00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:38.000 you recognize this tagline. It's our new tagline. 00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:43.000 Without of course the question mark and without that logo. 00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:45.000 So I have a couple of questions. 00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:51.000 Where specifically are we going? 00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:57.000 Where is Western Oregon University going and how are we going there? 00:32:57.000 --> 00:32:61.000 And I have a suggestion. A small suggestion 00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:08.000 that our destination is the good society. 00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:14.000 A more just and more equal society. 00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:17.000 And how are we going to get there? 00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:20.000 Let's follow the lead of our students. 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:27.000 And let's identify an immediate problem in our community. 00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:37.000 And imagine a coalition of faculty and students working together across multiple disciplines 00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:41.000 year after year on the same project 00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:46.000 modeled by our students with the tenants union. 00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:53.000 And I think we could do something really special 00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:58.000 and we can model something really special for other universities 00:33:58.000 --> 00:33:61.000 if we're able to accomplish that. 00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:12.000 And the good thing about that is that a measure of justice and solidarity and equality 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:16.000 would be the ultimate assessment tool. 00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:18.000 Thank you very much. 00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:24.000 applause 00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:30.000 I had it on good authority that Peter and Marie were going to provide us with a song and dance 00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.000 between the two presentations so I'm not sure why Peter sat down. 00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:36.000 laughter 00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:43.000 So many of you know Marie. Probably most of you know Marie, through her activities with the university. 00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:47.000 Serving on faculty senate, on the BA/BS working committee, 00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:54.000 on the bargaining team and on various faculty senate committees that she's worked on. 00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:59.000 You probably also know her through the undergraduate licensure program she coordinates 00:34:59.000 --> 00:34:63.000 because so much of our course work takes place in other divisions around campus. 00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:08.000 But maybe you're not as familiar with her work in the division of education and leadership. 00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:11.000 So our division is very complex. 00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:14.000 We have 11 unique programs 00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:18.000 and if my counting is correct Marie has taught in eight of them. 00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:21.000 She's coordinated three of them 00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:27.000 and she's been heavily involved either in creating or in restructuring five of them. 00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:35.000 She is currently the interim director for our clinical practices and placements. 00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:42.000 So she supervises the placement of hundreds of preservice teachers for their student teaching experiences. 00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:44.000 She hires and trains supervisors. 00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:48.000 And she finds solutions to myriad problems out in the schools. 00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:52.000 She also manages an S and S budget that's larger than my own. 00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:59.000 Any given day you might find Marie teaching classes, observing students out in the schools, 00:35:59.000 --> 00:35:63.000 attending TSPC meetings that she loves 00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:07.000 co-teaching a class at College Hill in Corvallis 00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:11.000 attending an ED TPA conference, mentoring a master's student on a thesis 00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:16.000 or reading to students in a K12 classroom possibly leading a book group there. 00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:24.000 You might find her out solving problems in Salem or Woodburn or Dallas or Corvallis schools. 00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:28.000 Or collaborating with a graduate student on a professional presentation. 00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:34.000 You could find her teaching a bootcamp about ED TPA another favorite topic in our division 00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:37.000 or attending a professional conference. 00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:44.000 You could find her participating on a book awards group or involved in any number of other activities in our division. 00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:46.000 But despite all of these activities 00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:51.000 this does not form the core of Marie's professional life. 00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:56.000 What is central to Marie's professional life is books. 00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:59.000 For those of you who haven't visited Marie's office 00:36:59.000 --> 00:36:65.000 you'll find that it is covered wall to wall with floor to ceiling bookcases. 00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:10.000 And those bookcases are filled with children's books and young adult books 00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.000 possibly an occasional textbook and maybe some adult literature. 00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:20.000 The books spill down off of the bookshelves into piles on the floors. 00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:25.000 And you might have to move a pile off a chair if you'd like to sit down. 00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:34.000 This doesn't even count the boxes of unpacked books that arrive regularly from awards committees 00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:40.000 that Marie will now have to read, I apologize, get to read and evaluate 00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.000 in her work on book committees. 00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:52.000 Faculty disappear into Marie's office and they emerge with carts full of books to use in their classes. 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:56.000 They go in to browse the shelves to find the perfect book for a child or a grandchild. 00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:58.000 That's something I'm guilty of. 00:37:58.000 --> 00:37:61.000 Or perhaps the perfect book for an ailing student. 00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:05.000 They might need a book to support a lesson on diversity 00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:08.000 or maybe some Spanish books for a bilingual classroom. 00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:14.000 Books are everywhere but Marie can always put her finger right on the perfect one. 00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:19.000 When it became clear that one office couldn't contain all of Marie's books 00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:22.000 we commissioned a gorgeous floor to ceiling locking bookcase 00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:26.000 that welcomes visitors into the division of education and leadership. 00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:29.000 If you haven't seen it you should come by for a visit 00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:35.000 but you might have to step around a faculty member with a cart who's loading up a classroom set to teach a class. 00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:42.000 At the end of the year Marie donates boxes of books to libraries in poorer school districts. 00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:46.000 She provides baskets of books for fundraisers. 00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:53.000 Maybe some of you won some books at the union's May Day festivities. 00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:63.000 She might ship books off to Africa where a student or a graduating student is working in the Peace Corpse. 00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:07.000 She might leave her students with a book in hand when they graduate. 00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:10.000 Marie's passion is for books 00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:16.000 but beyond that she has a passion for sharing this love of books and reading with children and students 00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:21.000 and for using books to help children understand diversity or science or illness or caring. 00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:27.000 It's about ensuring that all students are literate in a world that needs books more than ever. 00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:31.000 And it's about understanding how children and their teachers interact with books. 00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:35.000 Central to all of Marie's work is a solid research agenda 00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:41.000 that's grown to include colleagues and students, graduated students, and preservice teachers. 00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:44.000 So it's my pleasure now to introduce Marie LeJeune 00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:49.000 to explain how she weaves all of these responsibilities together with her scholarship 00:39:49.000 --> 00:39:54.000 to share some of her insights with us and to take us on a journey into her world of books. 00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:60.000 I want to start with a few thank you's as well. I also want to say thank you to the Pastega family 00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:03.000 for the support that they give to Western Oregon University in this award 00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:09.000 and I feel really lucky that in my first few years at Western I was able to meet both Mario and Alma Pastega. 00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:14.000 I want to say thank you to my division and to my dean. 00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:18.000 Mary that was a very beautiful introduction 00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:22.000 and I consider Mary to be one of my very first mentors here at Western so that means a lot to me. 00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:27.000 And I think of my division as my WOU family 00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:31.000 and thank you for putting up with all of the messes that I make in the building 00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:33.000 and I hope the books make it a little bit worth it. 00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:42.000 I want to say thank you to my family who are here. They also put up with a lot of book messes as well. 00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:45.000 I want to say thank you to my mom who's here 00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.000 who never turned me in for having an alias at the library 00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:54.000 when I wasn't allowed to check out any more books because I hadn't returned the other ones. 00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:57.000 Don't listen Janine and Elizabeth. 00:40:57.000 --> 00:40:64.000 And I want to say thank you especially to my husband who puts up with lots of shenanigans 00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:08.000 and probably hadn't anticipated many of the messes that I would make 00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:13.000 bu you make a lot of my ambitions possible so thank you so much. 00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:20.000 So this quote here actually opened my dissertation 11, 12 years ago now. 00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:28.000 And I take it out again quite often because it's very powerful to me and I think it really centers what my work is. 00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:32.000 So my work is about books but it's also really about stories. 00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:39.000 And I think this quote is about the power of narrative, the power of stories that we read to each other 00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:42.000 that we tell to each other, that we share with one another. 00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:48.000 As a qualitative researcher I'm particularly interested in story and voice-centered narrative 00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:53.000 and so you'll here a lot of voices hopefully today in the research that I share with you. 00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:57.000 And as a teacher-educator who specializes in literacy instruction 00:41:57.000 --> 00:41:64.000 I'm especially interested in the stories of children and young adults and the teachers who work with them 00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:09.000 to help shape and inform their literate identities. 00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:14.000 So this week several people did ask me what I was going to speak about 00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:18.000 and then before I could tell them they stopped and answered the question for themselves 00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:21.000 and they said oh we know you're going to talk about books, right? 00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:27.000 Because I am like the title of this lovely picture-book, that book woman, OK? 00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:33.000 And Mary already gave me away but I don't really believe it's hoarding if it's books. 00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:39.000 This is just a little evidence that was taken this week in my office 00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:42.000 that books really matter to me. 00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:49.000 When asked to describe my research agenda I often think people aren't really sure what a children's literature specialist does. 00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:56.000 For the past 15 years I've worked to really understand the body of literature that's available for children and young adults. 00:42:56.000 --> 00:42:60.000 And that does mean that I read a lot of books. 00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:05.000 I've worked on several state and national literature award committees 00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.000 and I serve as an early reviewer for several children's publishers. 00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:11.000 And so yes I read a lot of books. 00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:16.000 I would say every year I probably read several hundred books that are published for children and young adults. 00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:24.000 Although that is only a drop in the bucket as thousands of amazing books are published for young people every year. 00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:28.000 I critique and review many of these books and talk about the appeal that they might have for young readers 00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:33.000 but really as a teacher-researcher and as a teacher-educator 00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:39.000 the piece that's most interesting to me is where texts or books meet up with the reader. 00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:44.000 What Rosenblatt describes as the transaction between a reader and a text 00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:50.000 and what that looks like in the imaginations of children and young adults and the teachers that work with them. 00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:55.000 So because of this a majority of my research takes place in K12 classroom spaces 00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.000 investigating how texts impact children and young adults. 00:43:59.000 --> 00:43:67.000 And luckily because I work at Western every day I work with amazing preservice and in-service teachers. 00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:12.000 And I've been lucky enough to research and co-research with many of our graduates. 00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:15.000 A few of whom are here today which means a lot to me 00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:20.000 and you'll actually get a little bit of a view into a couple of their classrooms. 00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.000 So I'm interested in stories, the physical books that we read with and to young readers, 00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:32.000 but also the stories of how children's imaginations and worldviews are shaped by words and images and conversations. 00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:39.000 My work, both my teaching and my research, is focused on honoring the voices of children and young adults and teachers in schools. 00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:43.000 Voices that I don't really think we hear enough of. 00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:46.000 Words are sacred. They deserve respect. 00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:50.000 If you get the right ones in the right order you can nudge the world a little. 00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:56.000 How and what creates that nudge can be different for all sorts of readers and for students and teachers. 00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:59.000 In my work it almost always starts with text. 00:44:59.000 --> 00:44:66.000 That text might be words, that text might be images, but often it's a combination of both together. 00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:13.000 And I'd like to share a little bit with you today about the ways that children interact with text and make meaning from the world. 00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:16.000 So I'd like to first talk about pictures 00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:19.000 which we sometimes neglect to think about when we think about books 00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:26.000 but pictures are very important in the work that I do because I work with very young readers as well as adolescent readers. 00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:31.000 So although in our classroom we've moved away from Dick and Jane readers and the imperative to look 00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:34.000 the truth is that look is often the first place I think of 00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:39.000 when I talk with children and think about how we nudge their worlds. 00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:44.000 This is the natural first thing most children do. They look around them. They look at pictures. 00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:47.000 They investigate the world visually. 00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:51.000 Most of us can name a favorite picture book. 00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:54.000 Books that were read to us or we read to others. 00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:60.000 Maybe they were shared with us by a sibling or a parent, a teacher or a librarian. 00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.000 We often think of picture books as for the very young. 00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:11.000 Books that are for children until they are independent readers and they graduate to chapter books or novels. 00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:13.000 But this isn't true. 00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:16.000 The picture book is a format for storytelling 00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:23.000 and this format offers a richness that not only appeals to but informs readers no matter what their age. 00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:26.000 A picture book is generally a 32 page book. 00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:33.000 And what makes it unique is that both the images and the words matter equally for meaning-making for the reader. 00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:39.000 A picture book is a specific format that has details that other books do not. 00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:44.000 It might have a dust jacket, a pictorial board, 00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:48.000 end pages, title pages, front matter, back matter, 00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:52.000 what we call paratexts in the world of picture book analysis. 00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:57.000 And all of this really matters for children as they look at the world. 00:46:57.000 --> 00:46:65.000 As these elements of paratext are visually oriented I often see adults skip right past them when they look at a book 00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:08.000 and they go right to where the narrative text begins. 00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:16.000 But children and students who take my children's literature courses know that that is not where we began to look at a book. 00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:23.000 So just really quickly this is Wolf in the Snow authored and illustrated by Matthew Cordell 00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:28.000 which was the 2018 Caldecott Award winner for illustration. 00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:33.000 And if we looked at this book and we skipped right to the title page 00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:35.000 we would miss several things. 00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:37.000 And children know to look for these things. 00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:44.000 So if we took our dust jacket off we would notice that there's actually a surprise for us that Matthew Cordell has designed. 00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:48.000 And we have these panels that add in new colors and illustrations 00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:52.000 that are going to give us a preview to predict what else might happen in the book. 00:47:57.000 --> 00:47:65.000 If we skip right to the tile page we will miss not one but two, three, four, five 00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:10.000 pages of illustrations that offer us important meaning-making. 00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:16.000 So this is one of the things I'm very interested in, looking at how children pick up picture books 00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:18.000 and notice all of these things visually. 00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:20.000 And this is the first way that they make meaning. 00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:25.000 This is often the first way that children accomplish deep analytical reading skills. 00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:31.000 How they learn to predict and synthesize and review and evaluate and it's very important. 00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:38.000 So I encourage you the next time you read a book with someone to really think about visuals very deeply because children do. 00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:43.000 I'm going to share a couple examples from a classroom research study on illustration analysis 00:48:43.000 --> 00:48:45.000 and the power that it has for young children. 00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:51.000 Before I start I want to share that this research is actually from Holly Sims' classroom who is here today. 00:48:51.000 --> 00:48:54.000 She actually teaches with us now at Western. 00:48:54.000 --> 00:48:57.000 But I've worked with Holly for years. 00:48:57.000 --> 00:48:64.000 She is a former graduate student of mine and she's one of the most amazing teachers I've ever known. 00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:07.000 And I worked in her classroom a lot. One, because she was always welcoming 00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:12.000 but two, she was masterful at working with children on reading and conversation. 00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:17.000 And you'll see some of the things that children in her classroom were able to do and discuss 00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:21.000 because of her masterful teaching and the fact that she really honored children's voices. 00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:27.000 So one year I was invited by Macmillan Publishing to present with Jason Chin 00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:31.000 who is a Caldecott Award winning author-illustrator. 00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:38.000 And Holly and I together investigated an author study with Jason Chin's work in her classroom. 00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:42.000 Over here on the side you can see me reading aloud with her class 00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:46.000 but we were really looking deeply at the images in Jason Chin's books. 00:49:46.000 --> 00:49:49.000 One of the things that's really specific to Jason Chin's work 00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:56.000 is that he writes nonfiction stories but he accompanies the stories with very fantastical illustrations. 00:49:56.000 --> 00:49:59.000 So the fantasy element comes in the illustration. 00:49:59.000 --> 00:49:62.000 And so here there's a young boy and he's picked up a book on the bus 00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:05.000 and he's reading nonfiction text about the Jurassic Period 00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:12.000 but in the background of the subway we can see the imagination that's going on in his head. 00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:16.000 And the children of course immediately know what is going on here 00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:19.000 and they realize something that their teacher has already talked to them about 00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:22.000 which is the fact that great readers make pictures in their heads 00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:25.000 and that Jason Chin is representing that. 00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:28.000 And so Lily here is really seeing how that is happening. 00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:34.000 One of the things that I think is very interesting about working with illustrations with children 00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:36.000 is that they will always teach me something that I never saw in a book 00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:38.000 no matter how many times I read it. 00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:41.000 So over here on the side you have a very small illustration. 00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:46.000 This is a boy who's getting ready to climb a Redwood tree because the book was entitled Redwoods. 00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:53.000 And we're having a conversation in the class about where we think Jason Chin got the information to write this nonfiction book. 00:50:53.000 --> 00:50:55.000 The kids have wonderful ideas. 00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.000 They say things like maybe he went to the Redwoods. Maybe he lives nearby. 00:50:59.000 --> 00:50:65.000 And then a little boy named Noah who's a second-grader says, I think that he read a book. 00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:10.000 And like most teachers do I say that is an amazing prediction. Can you tell me why you think that? 00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:15.000 And he says well go back two pages and look again at that illustration. 00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:22.000 And he points out to us that the protagonist here is reading a how-to book called How to Climb Trees. 00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:26.000 And he says look, this character that he drew is reading a how-to book 00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:29.000 I think Jason Chin put that in his illustration 00:51:29.000 --> 00:51:33.000 because he's read how-to books and he knows that's how you learn information. 00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:37.000 Something that I had not noticed until Noah pointed it out to me. 00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:44.000 So visual analysis is very important in the work that I do with picture books but so is sociocultural analysis. 00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:48.000 And this is where the title of my presentation comes from 00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:53.000 thinking about this metaphor of mirrors and windows and sliding glass doors. 00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:58.000 In 1990 Rudine Sims-Bishop wrote a very groundbreaking piece that is still referenced today 00:51:58.000 --> 00:51:61.000 part of the reason why it's called revisiting this topic 00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:04.000 and she talked about her metaphor for how children interact with books. 00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:11.000 And she said that books can be mirrors or they can windows or they might be sliding glass doors. 00:52:11.000 --> 00:52:13.000 When we think about that and what that means 00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:19.000 it might be that books are a window into a new experience or a new place or a new way of being for a reader. 00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:22.000 But also maybe they're a mirror. 00:52:22.000 --> 00:52:27.000 They let us see something that we connect to. Something common culturally or by our own experiences. 00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:30.000 Something that we recognize about ourselves in a book. 00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:38.000 Of course the interesting thing is that the same book could be a mirror for one child and could be a window for another child. 00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:44.000 And we all need books that do both. We all need books that are both windows and mirrors for us. 00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:49.000 And Bishop talked about, and this was in 1990, she said what's concerning though 00:52:49.000 --> 00:52:55.000 is that we don't have enough mirror books for children of color or children from other marginalized groups. 00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.000 That was in 1990. Still, 18 years later that is true 00:52:59.000 --> 00:52:61.000 and that's something that we need to think about. 00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:07.000 How do we provide enough books that children can see themselves in the books that they read? 00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:10.000 But I also think it's equally important to think about window books. 00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:15.000 What happens if children never read books that show them about different ways of being in the world? 00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:17.000 What happens then? 00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:22.000 How do we learn to grow to appreciate diversity or have empathy for others? 00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:24.000 Very important things to think about. 00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:31.000 Occasionally I hear a story of a teacher or librarian or parent who feels the need to maybe protect children 00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:34.000 from window books that feature tough issues. 00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:40.000 Painful topics such as abuse or poverty or other social issues. 00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:47.000 Matt de la Pena, an award winning author who writes about issues related to race, biculturalism, immigration, 00:53:47.000 --> 00:53:49.000 all sorts of important issues 00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:54.000 talks about how sometimes people want to shield children from his books. 00:53:54.000 --> 00:53:57.000 He relates an interesting story about going to a school library 00:53:57.000 --> 00:53:62.000 where a librarian told him how much she loved his books. 00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:07.000 However, she said, I want you to know that I really like your books. 00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:13.000 I mean we don't have those kind of kids at our school so we don't stock many of them. 00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:16.000 But I want you to know how much I appreciate your work. 00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:23.000 Matt's pretty smart. He thought about it for a second and said no, I totally get it ma'am. 00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:28.000 Out of curiosity though, how many wizards do you have at your school? 00:54:29.000 --> 00:54:32.000 Now I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. Don't get me wrong. 00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:39.000 But I'm also a really big fan of children thinking about the world we live in and the needs that many people have 00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:45.000 and for them building empathy from knowing the world and knowing that others live different lives than they do. 00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:51.000 Oftentimes we have a tendency to maybe sugarcoat childhood, what it is to kids 00:54:51.000 --> 00:54:54.000 and some people want to shield them from these windows. 00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:60.000 Every term of my children's literature class we start with a classic and one of the most perfect stories ever written, in my mind. 00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.000 Anyone know what book this is? Charlotte's Web. 00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:08.000 In many classrooms this is the first chapter book that a teacher will read to their classroom. 00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:15.000 And probably many of you today remember having this tale read to you by a loved one or a teacher or a librarian. 00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.000 When we read this book together at the very beginning of our class 00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:23.000 invariably one novice, soon-to-be teacher will say 00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:28.000 OK spoiler alert if you haven't read Charlotte's Web 00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:32.000 Charlotte's death is too much for children 00:55:32.000 --> 00:55:37.000 and maybe we should save the book for say fifth or sixth grade or so. 00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:39.000 And again they're new to working with children. 00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:44.000 So we have a lot of conversations. We talk about how Charlotte's Web teaches us many things. 00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:49.000 How it's a tale of friendship and risk and caring and life and yes, of death. 00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:52.000 And we talk about how literature endures 00:55:52.000 --> 00:55:58.000 and how timeless and important the theme is of sacrifice and courage and yes, of grief. 00:55:58.000 --> 00:55:66.000 We learn and talk together about how children learn to navigate such topics through safe spaces in classrooms 00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:09.000 and often through characters and narrative. 00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:16.000 And then we move on to read contemporary picture books and middle grade novels that feature tough issues 00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:23.000 like immigration, addiction, homelessness, disability, and other issues that do affect children's lives. 00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:25.000 So back to Matt de la Pena. 00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:31.000 Recently his picture book Love was critiqued by some reviewers for featuring this scene 00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:36.000 which shows a child being comforted by his dog during a domestic dispute between his parents. 00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:39.000 Some felt this was too harsh for young readers. 00:56:39.000 --> 00:56:43.000 In an article entitled Why We Shouldn't Shield Children from Darkness 00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:51.000 de la Pena describes how honoring diversity and acknowledging the truth of children's lives in picture books does matter 00:56:51.000 --> 00:56:55.000 and how it provides both windows and mirrors for children. 00:56:55.000 --> 00:56:59.000 Those of use who've taught public school or who've worked with children know 00:56:59.000 --> 00:56:64.000 that many children and adolescents live incredibly hard lives. 00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:09.000 Their identities have already been shaped by abuse or neglect or trauma. 00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:15.000 Books are a safe space for children to navigate the tumultuous world that they and we live in. 00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:18.000 In fact they're often safe spaces for us as well. 00:57:18.000 --> 00:57:25.000 So again it is important for children to see mirrors and to know that they are not alone in their experiences. 00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:29.000 It's also important for children to see windows 00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:34.000 to understand how others live and to build empathy and resolve to work for a better world. 00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:38.000 So our children's literature course here at Western that's an intro course 00:57:38.000 --> 00:57:42.000 is actually entitled Children's Literature in Diverse Classrooms. 00:57:42.000 --> 00:57:48.000 We talk a lot about the diversity that our future teachers will see in the classrooms that they will inhabit 00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:50.000 and the children that they will teach. 00:57:50.000 --> 00:57:54.000 In working with preservice teachers I weave in many books that feature diverse content 00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:58.000 and feature diverse classrooms and students. 00:57:58.000 --> 00:57:62.000 One of the units that we look at is called learning differently 00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:06.000 and we investigate books that feature issues related to learning disabilities. 00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:12.000 And students really start to reflect on what this might be. They get a window into their future classroom. 00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:19.000 And they start to think about providing both window and mirror books for the children that will be in their classrooms. 00:58:19.000 --> 00:58:25.000 It's my intent that future teachers will see the power of literature within their classroom to embrace difference 00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:29.000 and to consider both the mirrors and windows that books provide to children. 00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:34.000 Continually here at Western I'm reminded of how important windows and mirrors are. 00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:41.000 I'm reminded of how important windows and mirrors are when an ED student tells me after reading I'll Give You the Sun 00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:47.000 where were books like this when I was a teenager and navigating my own identity as a young gay man? 00:58:47.000 --> 00:58:49.000 As I read Noah's story it was my story. 00:58:49.000 --> 00:58:57.000 As Mary mentioned every Monday I co-teach a book club class at the alternative high school in Corvallis 00:58:57.000 --> 00:58:62.000 with an amazing language arts teacher who also no surprise is a WOU grad. 00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:06.000 Together we read young adult novels and many of them deal with tough topics 00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:12.000 addiction, abuse, immigration, sexuality, power, culture, sense of self. 00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:17.000 The class has been wildly popular and very gratifying to teach and co-teach together. 00:59:17.000 --> 00:59:20.000 And we spend a lot of our time conferring with students 00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:24.000 and talking to them about their lives and the books that they would like to read 00:59:24.000 --> 00:59:27.000 and the windows and mirrors that they would like to see in those books. 00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:30.000 Sometimes this is still surprising to the kids 00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:36.000 and many of them are reawakening after years of what I call being dormant readers. 00:59:36.000 --> 00:59:41.000 A few weeks ago I got this email from my co-teacher Anne about a new student. 00:59:41.000 --> 00:59:44.000 I just recruited a new student for book club. 00:59:44.000 --> 00:59:46.000 She is a recovering nonreader. You know the type. 00:59:46.000 --> 00:59:50.000 I used to read a lot like in fifth grade but then I stopped. 00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:56.000 Today she showed me her copy of Gabi, A Girl in Pieces. This is a book that we offer in book club. 00:59:56.000 --> 00:59:62.000 She said I don't even know if this book is appropriate for school but I love it. 01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:05.000 And it really reminds me of my own life. 01:00:05.000 --> 01:00:14.000 Anne writes, it's both funny and sad that a book that rings so true for her is also one that she assumes would not be allowed in school. 01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:20.000 Teachers can change these perceptions and can open up spaces for students to see themselves 01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:23.000 and the issues that matter to them in books. 01:00:23.000 --> 01:00:27.000 So I've talked a lot about fictional narratives up until this point 01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:32.000 but one of my primary areas of expertise in children's literature is actually nonfiction literature for children. 01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:38.000 And I recently finished several chapters for a coauthored book on the place of nonfiction in the classroom 01:00:38.000 --> 01:00:41.000 to grow readers and writers. 01:00:41.000 --> 01:00:46.000 In times when we see the shrinking of the curriculum in imperative subjects such as science and social studies 01:00:46.000 --> 01:00:49.000 pushed to the margins in many elementary schools 01:00:49.000 --> 01:00:54.000 books offer teachers powerful spaces to weave this content into the literacy curriculum. 01:00:54.000 --> 01:00:58.000 Children are intrinsically curious about the scientific and social world 01:00:58.000 --> 01:00:63.000 and quality literature, especially nonfiction, provides spaces for inquiry. 01:01:03.000 --> 01:01:07.000 During the three years that I spent on the Orbis Pictus Committee for Nonfiction Literature 01:01:07.000 --> 01:01:12.000 I was able to read a vast amount of nonfiction literature. 01:01:12.000 --> 01:01:17.000 A friend said to me when I started on the committee, you are going to be so smart by the time you finish that committee. 01:01:17.000 --> 01:01:24.000 And she was right. I learned a lot from these books and children learn a lot from these books as well. 01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:29.000 One of the things that I think is so important about nonfiction literature and deep study of nonfiction in classrooms 01:01:29.000 --> 01:01:32.000 is that it offers students the opportunity to ask important questions 01:01:32.000 --> 01:01:38.000 and to learn ways to find the answers which is very important for life. 01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:42.000 And in fact one of my favorite aspects of studying nonfiction with children 01:01:42.000 --> 01:01:46.000 is investigating and examining the process by which authors create work 01:01:46.000 --> 01:01:53.000 and then students using those nonfiction books as mentor texts to answer their questions and create their own books as well. 01:01:53.000 --> 01:01:57.000 So these examples here are from Marianne Hill's classroom who is also here 01:01:57.000 --> 01:01:63.000 who is a former undergraduate and graduate student of Western. We grow amazing teachers here. 01:02:03.000 --> 01:02:05.000 Marianne is an amazing writing teacher 01:02:05.000 --> 01:02:12.000 and has allowed me to come in and co-teach with her for several years every spring on nonfiction writing 01:02:12.000 --> 01:02:15.000 and we have learned a lot alongside of each other. 01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:20.000 It's been very powerful for ourselves as teachers but also for the students to learn 01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:23.000 that there are spaces to find answers that matter to them. 01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:28.000 You can see here one of her students who's done a lot of extensive note-taking through reading nonfiction 01:02:28.000 --> 01:02:32.000 and then has created her own nonfiction book page 01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:37.000 where she's asked important questions that she wants to know and then discovered the answers 01:02:37.000 --> 01:02:40.000 and is now able to teach them to others. 01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:46.000 So through studying nonfiction I believe that students see themselves as capable researches and writers 01:02:46.000 --> 01:02:52.000 but also possibly as scientists or historians which I think is important to many of us as well. 01:02:52.000 --> 01:02:55.000 So I want to bring these threads back together now 01:02:55.000 --> 01:02:58.000 and talk a little bit about the rational or the 'why this matters'. 01:02:58.000 --> 01:02:61.000 Some might ask why spending time with children in schools 01:03:01.000 --> 01:03:06.000 and studying the way that they and teachers interact with literature is so important. 01:03:06.000 --> 01:03:11.000 Others might actually think that children and teachers having conversations about text is so commonplace 01:03:11.000 --> 01:03:14.000 that it's not necessarily noteworthy. 01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:20.000 Although I've always been interested in books and conversation and literacy practices 01:03:20.000 --> 01:03:23.000 I became firmly committed to this work when I was in my doctoral studies 01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:28.000 and I was teaching a graduate class in children's literature to practicing teachers. 01:03:28.000 --> 01:03:32.000 And I remember spending a day book-talking so many amazing picture books 01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:35.000 and talking about ways to incorporate them into the classroom 01:03:35.000 --> 01:03:41.000 and they were all kindergarten teachers and they were practicing teachers right then 01:03:41.000 --> 01:03:47.000 and two of them pulled me aside at the end of the class and were speaking for the group who all worked in the same district 01:03:47.000 --> 01:03:54.000 and they said this is really exciting but we want you to know we won't be able to use any of these things in our classrooms. 01:03:54.000 --> 01:03:59.000 And at first, kind of like Peter's story, I thought what is going on here? 01:03:59.000 --> 01:03:63.000 OK this is crazy. What is this resistance I'm seeing? 01:04:03.000 --> 01:04:10.000 And they let me know every moment of every day in our kindergarten class is scripted for us 01:04:10.000 --> 01:04:16.000 and we don't have any time to read aloud to children. In kindergarten. 01:04:18.000 --> 01:04:21.000 These teachers wanted examples though. They wanted research. 01:04:21.000 --> 01:04:28.000 They wanted examples from classroom spaces so they could show administrators and legislators and policy makers 01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:35.000 that reading with children and having conversations is vitally important for children's development. 01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:38.000 And that is why this work matters so much to me. 01:04:38.000 --> 01:04:41.000 Limited views on what is literacy instruction 01:04:41.000 --> 01:04:47.000 and boiling literacy instruction down to packets and dittos and skills is troubling 01:04:47.000 --> 01:04:51.000 for teachers and for students and frankly for all of us. 01:04:53.000 --> 01:04:58.000 Picture books and children's literature may not seem like a political topic. 01:04:58.000 --> 01:04:62.000 But the children and teachers like the ones that I worked with in Nevada 01:05:02.000 --> 01:05:06.000 most likely to have limited curricular policies push down on them 01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:09.000 as you can probably imagine 01:05:09.000 --> 01:05:16.000 are children and teachers who live and work in socioeconomically disadvantaged schools 01:05:16.000 --> 01:05:21.000 and often children for whom English is not their first language. 01:05:21.000 --> 01:05:26.000 So this work definitely is political and critically important. 01:05:26.000 --> 01:05:33.000 And I teach my students that curriculum is always political because it's always invested in some ideology about the world. 01:05:33.000 --> 01:05:39.000 So luckily I believe that teachers want to push back. They want to have these spaces in their classroom. 01:05:39.000 --> 01:05:44.000 But I also know it's part of my job to equip future teachers with the knowledge and theory 01:05:44.000 --> 01:05:49.000 to know why reading and real books matter so much for young readers and young writers. 01:05:49.000 --> 01:05:52.000 So having spaces to work in classrooms matters so much 01:05:52.000 --> 01:05:56.000 because when you can bring those real conversations into your classes from your research 01:05:56.000 --> 01:05:60.000 future teachers realize why they want to have spaces like that. 01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:08.000 I remember a student saying to me once, I want to learn how to get my students to talk like that. And that's what we want. 01:06:08.000 --> 01:06:13.000 So most of us know that Western grads go out and do amazing things. 01:06:13.000 --> 01:06:17.000 Luckily for me they keep in touch and they let me know some of these things. 01:06:17.000 --> 01:06:21.000 They send me their reading spaces. They talk about the books that they're reading. 01:06:21.000 --> 01:06:23.000 They come back and ask for books. 01:06:23.000 --> 01:06:26.000 Like Mary said it's not just our professors who get carts of books. 01:06:26.000 --> 01:06:32.000 Former students come back and get bags or boxes of books as well to take out into their classrooms. 01:06:32.000 --> 01:06:34.000 So this is really important work 01:06:34.000 --> 01:06:42.000 and it's very affirming to know that teachers are really valuing the place of books in children's hands. 01:06:42.000 --> 01:06:44.000 So many of you have probably read The Giver. 01:06:44.000 --> 01:06:49.000 I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now. 01:06:49.000 --> 01:06:54.000 This was the first children's book I was assigned when I went back to graduate school to become a reading specialist. 01:06:54.000 --> 01:06:60.000 And it was a powerful book then. It was written way before it was the dystopian rage in YA literature. 01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:08.000 But it's a book about how authorities have come in and they've taken everything painful out of society 01:07:08.000 --> 01:07:10.000 so that society can just be a little bit nicer. 01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:16.000 But of course when we take everything else out we also take out diversity and we take out difference 01:07:16.000 --> 01:07:19.000 and we take out passion and we take out power. 01:07:19.000 --> 01:07:24.000 And Jonas the protagonist in this book eventually learns of a place called Elsewhere 01:07:24.000 --> 01:07:28.000 and that there are worlds and people different than himself and his family. 01:07:28.000 --> 01:07:36.000 And that's the danger if we don't read. We often think that there is only this. There is only now. 01:07:36.000 --> 01:07:38.000 There is only here. 01:07:39.000 --> 01:07:43.000 I want to finish by saying I think this work of putting books in children's hands 01:07:43.000 --> 01:07:47.000 and opening up spaces for children to think about the world 01:07:47.000 --> 01:07:51.000 is probably more important than it's ever been definitely in my own career. 01:07:51.000 --> 01:07:54.000 On the morning after the last presidential election 01:07:54.000 --> 01:07:60.000 I received over a dozen emails, texts, and Facebook messages from former students who are now teachers 01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:04.000 asking me how to talk with their students that day. 01:08:04.000 --> 01:08:09.000 How to calm their fears, what to read to them, what to say. 01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:15.000 I reminded these teachers that children already have the heroes they need in front of them. 01:08:15.000 --> 01:08:18.000 And I knew that they would find the right books and the right words 01:08:18.000 --> 01:08:25.000 to let their students know that they are loved and valued and powerful and capable and important. 01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:31.000 But I do know that in a world where to some, science is suspect, 01:08:31.000 --> 01:08:35.000 where walls are more important than pathways 01:08:35.000 --> 01:08:40.000 where secretaries of education are not worried about protecting our most vulnerable children 01:08:41.000 --> 01:08:46.000 providing spaces to read widely and to think about diversity 01:08:46.000 --> 01:08:52.000 and about windows into other ways of being is more important than it's ever been. 01:08:52.000 --> 01:08:56.000 Access to books for all children matters. 01:08:56.000 --> 01:08:60.000 Preparing teachers who understand this is vital. 01:09:00.000 --> 01:09:04.000 How do we bring books that matter into children's hands? 01:09:04.000 --> 01:09:07.000 We tell the stories that otherwise don't get told. 01:09:07.000 --> 01:09:11.000 We piece together the stories that some might hide from children. 01:09:11.000 --> 01:09:14.000 We remember that words can still nudge the world 01:09:14.000 --> 01:09:17.000 and sometimes more than a little bit. 01:09:17.000 --> 01:09:19.000 Thank you. 01:09:19.000 --> 01:09:28.000 applause 01:09:28.000 --> 01:09:33.000 Well thank you and it's so good to have a beautiful spring day to enjoy this celebration. 01:09:33.000 --> 01:09:41.000 I want to thank both Peter and Marie for thought-provoking presentations related to the work that we do here at Western. 01:09:41.000 --> 01:09:44.000 I'm so glad to see family members here enjoying the day as well. 01:09:44.000 --> 01:09:47.000 It's wonderful that that's part of our community going forward 01:09:47.000 --> 01:09:50.000 as well as some of our alums who are now out in the field teaching. 01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:56.000 It's so good that we have some of you here to enjoy the work of our faculty. 01:09:56.000 --> 01:09:62.000 This program is long-lasting as Dr. Scheck mentioned, for many many decades. 01:10:02.000 --> 01:10:08.000 And it really honors the work that we do here at Western around academic excellence. 01:10:08.000 --> 01:10:15.000 The core of academic excellence I think is the scholarly and creative work that Marie talked about. 01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:20.000 It's also the way in which we can weave that together to challenge our students to learn 01:10:20.000 --> 01:10:25.000 in a very active and proactive way as Peter described. 01:10:25.000 --> 01:10:30.000 It's that intersection of the work we do that builds the body of knowledge and discovery 01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:34.000 that drives the university forward over these centuries. 01:10:34.000 --> 01:10:41.000 And I know that all of us here are lucky to have a chance to work in such an environment 01:10:41.000 --> 01:10:46.000 because we care deeply about the role it has in society. 01:10:46.000 --> 01:10:54.000 Without education, without learning, without universities, we would be at peril for many, many things. 01:10:54.000 --> 01:10:63.000 I think Western stands as a tribute to the work that has come before us. 01:11:03.000 --> 01:11:08.000 As an example of that I'm looking around the room and also looking at the program 01:11:08.000 --> 01:11:14.000 and there are scores of previous award winners in the room as well. 01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:20.000 Previous Pastega Award winners both for teaching and for scholarly activities. 01:11:20.000 --> 01:11:28.000 If you're inclined would you wave your hand to give us a sense of how many of those award winners are joining us today? 01:11:28.000 --> 01:11:31.000 It's scores of them. 01:11:31.000 --> 01:11:33.000 I want to thank you for the work you've done. 01:11:33.000 --> 01:11:36.000 applause 01:11:36.000 --> 01:11:42.000 And while Peter gave us a warning about these kinds of events as separating us 01:11:42.000 --> 01:11:45.000 I think in this particular case it draws us together. 01:11:45.000 --> 01:11:50.000 It draws us to the passion that we have at Western for academic excellence. 01:11:50.000 --> 01:11:52.000 The passion we have for our students 01:11:52.000 --> 01:11:56.000 and the next generations that we will educate and graduate 01:11:56.000 --> 01:11:62.000 and the work that they will do in the many different walks that they choose to pursue. 01:12:02.000 --> 01:12:06.000 And that's what really drives a university experience. 01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:11.000 When I think about what attracts us to this opportunity 01:12:11.000 --> 01:12:16.000 every faculty member I've talked to, over the years I've been in higher education 01:12:16.000 --> 01:12:20.000 when you talk about what really drew you and what keeps you and what motivates you 01:12:20.000 --> 01:12:24.000 what takes you from the bad days to the good days and beyond 01:12:24.000 --> 01:12:31.000 it's that impact we have on other people and oftentimes the notion of making a positive difference in a walk of a student. 01:12:31.000 --> 01:12:36.000 Many of whom in our case are the first in their families to go to college and graduate. 01:12:36.000 --> 01:12:40.000 And how powerful is that in today's world? 01:12:40.000 --> 01:12:46.000 And we just know the power of the educated mind, the committed citizen, 01:12:46.000 --> 01:12:50.000 and the impact that higher education has in a civil society. 01:12:50.000 --> 01:12:54.000 I stand with you as honoring that work today. 01:12:54.000 --> 01:12:60.000 And I hope that you appreciate the work of our two honorees 01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:03.000 for teaching excellence and for scholarly and creative activities. 01:13:03.000 --> 01:13:06.000 Make sure that you talk to our honorees and thank them for the work they do 01:13:06.000 --> 01:13:11.000 and the example that they give us as colleagues. Thank you. 01:13:11.000 --> 01:13:14.000 applause