S11/E8: Student perspective for improving school experience for children of immigrants with Falmari Rojas-Barrios.

Highest Aspirations

Welcome back to Highest Aspirations, an education podcast focused on providing educators with inspiration and strategies to help multilingual learners achieve their highest aspirations. In our last episode, we spoke with Dr. Joanna Dreby and Dr. Eric Macias about the work they are doing facilitate meaningful discussions among undergraduate students on immigration at the University of Albany and how some of the strategies they use might work in K-12 settings. In this episode, I spoke with one of their students about how the experience impacted her and shifted her academic trajectory. Falmari Rojas-Barrios is a graduate student who worked with Dr. Derby and Dr. Macias. She joins us to share a student perspective on how access (and lack thereof) to EL services impacted her K-12 experience, the challenges she and many young people with immigrant parents face in sharing their migration experiences, and some recommendations for how schools can better support the many students who share her experience.

We will be featuring Dr. Joanna Dreby and Falmari Rojas-Barrios during our 4th annual IMPACT conference. This is a free, virtual event that takes place on December 4th, 5th, and 7th. You can find more information and register by visiting our EL Community at www.ellevationeducation.com/elcommunity.