Shownotes
How do I implement equitable grading practices for my English language learners?
In this episode of Equipping ELLs, we are joined by special guest Esperanza 'Macky' Wickert, an expert in the field, who shares invaluable insights and practical strategies for fair and effective assessment. Discover how to navigate common challenges, ensure accurate representation of your students' abilities, and promote a more inclusive learning environment. Tune in for actionable tips and real-life examples that will help you transform your grading practices and better support your ELL students!
Resources:
Transcripts
Beth Vaucher
welcome, Macky, to the show. I am so excited to have you here today.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Thank you. So am I.
Beth Vaucher
This is going to be a really, really beneficial conversation. I know this is an area that, you know, I've done a lot of research on my own and haven't really felt like there's been a clear answer to the question about equitable grading when it comes with multilingual learners. And this is an area that you're really an expert in and would love to share with us. So I can't wait to dive in. And I know my listeners are super excited as well. So thank you for the time and joining us.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
It's my pleasure.
Beth Vaucher
Absolutely. So I would love to just hear a little bit about your background and your educational experience.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Well, I am a dual language learner. I grew up learning two languages simultaneously. Both of my parents were bilingual in English and in Spanish. And so going through, I always went to an american school in the military, so English was the language of instruction. But my parents and my family made speaking Spanish a very predominant skill that we needed to have to carry into the future. I went to Penn State University and I received a teaching degree in kindergarten elementary education. And this was in the, in the late eighties. And when I got out of school because I spoke Spanish, they plugged me into a bilingual classroom in the time and I knew nothing about being a bilingual teacher, but because I spoke Spanish and that was prior to the certifications, that's where I landed. And it, I'm not going to lie, it was a challenge. There were very few materials. It was a very difficult process because we were expected to do grade level instruction in a multi grade classroom. So I had first through 6th in my first year. So I had six science lessons and six math lessons and differentiation, even though we weren't calling it that at the time. Then the world of ESL changed and I became a. Full time ESL first grade teacher, which I absolutely loved. And late in my life, after 20 years of teaching, I became a professional development facilitator in my school district, working with teachers now to help them understand and learn how to teach some second language learners. And while I was doing this, I took a sabbatical and I got my master's at Kansas State University and got a master's in curriculum instruction. And I thought, this is it. This is now the piece. And I continued and I retired in 21, but I wasn't ready to stop. And so I started my own consulting company. And now I just, I work with districts and companies and organizations that still want support for their second language learners. But I take it. I know we support students, but my huge goal, the only way we can support students is by supporting teachers. So that's my passion, is coming alongside teachers to give them the tools that they can feel successful with their students. Because our student success, it's our success as teachers as well. So that's a little bit of what a great retirement.
Beth Vaucher
I love that you're still just making impact and that passion's fueling you. So that is really, really incredible inspiring. Thank you. Thank you. Well, today, mackie, I really want to hit on just the topic of equitable grading. I know, you know, before we started the conversation, I've shared this with my membership as well as I was in that situation when I was a first year ESL teacher working with newcomers who were in 6th grade. And when it came to grading time, you know, I said, well, here's her language targets. Here's what she's done, here's her grades. And the homeroom teachers looked at me like, there's no way that we will put that in the report card. She is getting f's in every subject. And it was such an intense conversation. I was not prepared. I had no. I was just so lost. I asked my supervisor. She really gave me no guidance. You know, it was just kind of like, what is that? What does this look like? How do we make sure that, you know, yes, at grade levels, they have expectations, but they're also making growth on that at their language level. So how, how do we make sense of this? Because it is a topic that I don't think many talk about. And I know as all of us as teachers really need to know this. We need to know how can we better support our multilingual learners in this way? So let's start with just defining what is equitable grading.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Well, for me, the equitable grading has to do with looking at the grade level, content and language. Standards. What is the standard? Because we're not dumbing things down. We're not diluting the content. So what is the standard? And how am I going to get students to demonstrate what they know, not what they don't know? So it's, for me, it's not, it's not a fixed, a grade is not a fixed value. It is something that we gather information from students and they show us some examples of their work. And it could be oral, it could be auditory, written, something to read. And understanding that that grade does not define their capabilities or intelligence. It's where they are at this moment. If I can't determine by the standards and accommodations and strategies what the students know, then I'm giving you a grade based on what you don't know. So I want to make sure that we are measuring what the students can demonstrate with our accommodations. And the problem, I believe, is ESL teachers have a pretty good grasp on this, but students spend a majority of the day in a gen ed classroom, so we're good with it for the 50 minutes or 40 minutes that they're with the SL teacher. But then the subjects that we need to work with are the content teachers to help them accommodate their tests. To understand that, I want to know what you know and. And f shows me what you don't know. Yeah. So it's all part of that.
Beth Vaucher
Can do added assets based. Exactly, exactly.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
So, but just as here's an example, in all my years of, of doing, coaching and professional development, there was a student who was still an ESL student, probably a level three, approaching level four in language, and she was going to be receiving an f in biology. So I went to the teacher and wanted to know, you know, what is it that you've gathered to reflect the grade of an f lower than a 60%? She started to show me the work, and the student was missing classwork, the student was missing homework. Yet on every single assessment not accommodated assessment, I might add, the student had an a or a very high b.
Beth Vaucher
Wow.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
So we, we had a conversation about, you know, what is it that you're grading? Yeah. Are you grading the content and the standards or are you grading some of those personal development issues like turning in classwork, participating in class, doing homework? And did you have a conversation with the students say, hey, you know, I see it's two weeks now and you haven't turned in any homework. Can you tell me why? Because I would like to support you or what is, you know, are you not understanding something but not consistently just giving zero, zero, which gives you a failing grade. So to add to that, here is another example. I think examples make things.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah, it really brings it to life.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
So if you look at 15, and this is just for the sake of argument, let's say there's 15 things that you're grading in a quarter and they're all weighted the same just for ease of, of the conversation. And it is in a project and homework and tests and assignments and writing, et cetera. And let's say the student starts off with a 100 and then gets a 95, then has a 98, takes the first test, gets a 97, but then doesn't turn in one of the assignments. That average is now from a 97 average to a 74.
Beth Vaucher
Wow.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
It takes another, another ten to twelve assignments at the a level to recuperate that a. So what are we, what are we grading? Yeah, we need. Let's look at the standard. Can the student identify the parts of the cell? Can the student do the multiplication in a word problem? If we are grading the standard and accommodating those needs based on language, then we can give a grade for what the student knows, what they can demonstrate.
Beth Vaucher
That was a long, hey, that's really, I mean, that's a question I think we need to keep coming back to, though, is what are we grading? You know, and that's where I think the power behind language objectives where you can say, okay, they're going to orally do this. I remember when I was teaching first grade and we moved from, you know, I was in the suburbs of Chicago where there was a lot of paper and pencil tests and all of that kind of, here's our grades to. Then I taught at an IB school here in Panama. And it's not like that at all. It's. Very, you know, summative assessments and very open ended questions, inquiry. Um, and so at the end of one of our units, we had on animals and habitats, one of our students who was, you know, he had a lot of special needs. He very. He didn't speak very often. He couldn't write, he couldn't read. And they had to create an animal out of clay, and then they had to describe the animal and their characteristics and the habitat it lived in, and if it changed the habitat. And this student produced the most incredible animal, he could tell me all about how it had venom and spikes and used all of this vocabulary that I had never heard him use. He could tell me all about the habitat. I mean, he went on and on, and the whole class literally kind of sat there just shocked, and were so. They celebrated his assessment because he was able to show so much. He, you know, and I always come back to that because I think if I had given the whole class a paper pencil test, tell me, what's the biggest animal all this? You know, things that you can now easily google. And he would have failed that. It would have shown. He did. He didn't know anything. But because of this way of assessing, it opened up so many different things that I realized he had learned so much during this unit, and he had been listening and understanding so much more than I gave him credit for. And that has stuck with me because I realized, how much do we put the students in this box and then grade them on that? When really, when we open it up and really get clear on what are we assessing, we're able to see so much more that they know, which really, in turn, helps them to build confidence, helps them to see absolutely what they've learned and feel excited about that and not feel defeated and like they're not enough and that they're never going to do it and give up. Um, which brings us into, you know, really in that inclusivity and assessment. Let's. Let's talk about that for a second. What does this look like of just really being thoughtful in the way that we assess and looking at how we're bringing in that inclusivity into our assessments?
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Well, I think the first and foremost is you have to know who's in front of you, and it's not just, you know, what's your favorite color, and, you know, those very nice things to know and use to teach. But where are you from? How do you do certain things in your home or your country? What's important to you? What. And I know there's a lot of research that's now saying that this doesn't matter. But I think in language development, knowing a student, if they're interested in art or interested in music, we can use that to help develop some of the language. Obviously, the expectation is to work with students so that they can be auditory learners. And speakers and writers. So they have all of the tools, but how do we start to get them to include them in the conversation? Hey, you know, if you've got a kid who lived in Mexico by a volcano, knowing that when you're doing that in the lesson, he's going to have a different perspective, he can probably sometimes be the teacher, whether it be in pictures or in his native language, which using native language is another way to include students. And today with Google Translate, if you don't have a student that can translate for you, which I know sometimes is a difficult thing, kids don't always want to do that, but we have tools, right? We have tools that we can help to communicate. I speak very little French, and the teacher last year had received a student who spoke French and didn't know what to do. And so I sat with him one on one, and I asked him some questions about himself. He answered some of it, I understood some of it. I had to look at my. My translator app, and. But we were able to communicate because I got a really good. In a very short amount of time, I got an understanding about him that the teacher had not yet discovered, and it helped us to enter into the learning. So number one's got to be, you have to know the student in front of you in more than just. I'm six years old, I'm ten years old, and. But where is it that. Who are you? Where are you from? What's important to you? How can we meet that with the academics? Also, in part of the inclusion, the linguistic inclusion is depending on your level of proficiency, how do I let you use what language you have in your native language plus the language you're learning or the ability to point and draw.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
To assess. So for a student who is just entering the language, we need to have different accommodations to find out what they know than a student who is near proficient. So allowing native language, getting to know the student, allowing them to do that, translanguaging while they're involved in the lesson and accepting it, cognate. Cognates are such a big, especially from Spanish, romance languages, to English, cognates are a way for students to feel included because you might hear a word and go, oh, I know what that is. Because in my language, this is what it sounds like, too. And anything that they can connect in the brain, then that's the building block for the rest of the learning. It's got to make sense in their being for that to happen. Yeah, I love that. There's one thing I want to.
Beth Vaucher
Okay, go for it.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
So we have to be aware of, obviously, vocabulary, but idioms and idiomatic expressions and things that pertain to culture. Okay. So there was a teacher who was trying to accommodate a math test for a student, and here in Pennsylvania, everybody goes to New Jersey for vacation. It's just like the thing to do to go to the shore. And so the word problem had to do with renting a bike at the boardwalk. So all of that was understandable. But part of the language was there was a flat rate for 3 hours, and the students were getting the problem wrong, and the teacher couldn't understand, and, you know, so we brought the kids in and said, okay, tell me. Tell me what you see in this problem. Why is what. What are you having difficulty with? And they show you how they worked it out, and if you talk with them, they will. They don't know what flat rate is, because on a bicycle, a flat is a tire that has no air.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
So we have to. It's. It's looking outside of yourself and what, you know, and what somebody else may not understand. And that takes some thinking. Yeah, that takes some thinking.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah. Wow. That is an interesting example. I love that. Yeah. I've had a few situations like that, too, where I could see, oh, this word in this context probably is being read very differently than how, as a native speaker, I am interpreting. And so I think that does take a lot of thinking and practice, and I think it takes a lot of vulnerability, because I think in our schools now, I think if we're willing to think it through and ask somebody and say, hey, does this story problem make sense, or could there be some things in here that might confuse a multilingual learner and really putting ourselves out there? I think if we can create that atmosphere in our schools where people are open and willing to do that, that's when we learn together, and that's where the power happens.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Yep. And the kids will tell you if they talk you through the problem. You can see, oh, you didn't understand flat rate. Let me explain quickly. It doesn't take a 20 minutes lesson. Let me explain quickly what a flat rate is.
Beth Vaucher
Right.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
And so the students will tell you if you look or converse with them where, where the gap, the confusion was.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah, absolutely. Now I think it'd be helpful, Mackie, if you could walk us through maybe two or three ways that you can accommodate a grade level assessment, because I know that that's where really, it can be really tricky for an ESL teacher or homeroom teacher of just what does this look like practically? Okay.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Well, I can think of an example that I did recently with a third grade teacher who wanted the student to take a math test. So before the test, we looked at the test together and I asked her to look at some of the problems and I asked her opinion.
Beth Vaucher
What do you think?
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
How do you think we could change this in doing that, instead of me, the ESL person, giving you the material, that's accommodated. I'm not going to be with you all the time. I always like to have a dialogue with the teacher that's giving the test because they know what they've taught, they know what the expectation is. So we removed some problems that were culturally bound for a newcomer student, and we restructured the problem. But the word problems, what we did was we included pictures over the words. We, we put suggestions as to what you might do here, like you might want to add with a, with some visuals. And during the test, one, she read one of the problems. There were two word problems. At the end of the test, she read one out loud with the student individually and let him do the next one who had the, it had the same accommodations, a different problem, so that she could see, you know, this is what we did together, even though you did the work. But I kind of talked you through the accommodation here and now you're going to do one that I'm not going to talk you through. And then she could see that what they work through he could now do on his own. Yeah, but so she had formulas, she had a word bank. And it just depends on the assessment.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
I think reading is probably the most difficult area to. Assess because it, it's expecting kids to read. But if you don't speak English, you cannot yet read. And if you do read, you're probably literate in your own language and you're transferring that knowledge, but you're word calling, you're not really reading. So for newcomers, I suggest like read the test to them and translate it. If they look like they're a little confused, offer them again. You have to know your students.
Beth Vaucher
Where are they?
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Let them pick a point to a response, reduce the number of responses to two. And slowly, as we move forward, you can add more because all of the scaffolding accommodations, we're not doing them forever, right? We're doing them as a stepping stone to get to the next level. So we're not going to go backwards and always make things so easy. We want students to grow. So translating, making sure that students can show you if they're entering the language, can they point to something?
Beth Vaucher
Can they circle something?
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Can they build something? If they're moving up on the language proficiency, can we give them a formulaic expression, which is a big old fancy expression for a sentence stem or a sentence frame? And I can give you the beginning language. And now can you dive into a little bit with what you have? Can I offer you a word bank? Use these words within this, this paragraph that you're going to create anything that is going to let you know that, hey, I learned this content, I understand the water cycle, but I just don't have all of the words yet. Yet. That's the key word.
Beth Vaucher
Wow, super helpful. I love just those ideas. I think are going to be extremely helpful for the listeners to now start to put into place. And I think, you know, a big reason behind equitable grading is really because we want our students, exactly that. We want them to know, hey, you might not be able to communicate yet or write yet of what you've been learning. That doesn't mean you haven't learned anything. And so we want to showcase and give our students that confidence. And that's, you know, what I talk about a lot is just the language learning journey is a lifetime. It's a long time. I mean, I'm sure you've experienced that, too, where you hit a point where you feel good and then you realize, oh, there's still so much more to get to the next level of language learning. Even when you're fluent, there's still more things we're learning. And so that's so important that on this level, Long journey. We are taking the opportunities to help our students see and celebrate the successes of where they're growing and how they're growing. And that happens through that equitable grading piece. So how can that, you know, how does it impact our student motivation and their engagement when we move into this focus? You know?
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Well, you know what? Sometimes I think people forget about this and they just say they don't care. They don't care about learning or they don't, you know, it doesn't matter and that's not the case. Yeah. I think while you are learning the language, you need actionable feedback.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
I need to sit with you and say, you know, I noticed that every time you write the word said, you write sediment. I think you're trying to say this, are you? Yes, miss. I'm trying to say that yesterday. That's what so and so said. And you have to come alongside and say, all right, well, let me show you. You have absolutely the right word, but this is how we write it. And these are some other words that have similar sounds with these two vowels. And can you write me a sentence now that uses the word said? Because we use them in dialogue when we talk about. So you're giving them lots of language. You're giving them examples. And then to make sure that they understood, you can't just say, did you understand?
Beth Vaucher
Because they're just going to say yes.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
So how about now you give me an oral example and then let's write it down because what you can say, you can write. So I want that those two things go in tandem. Students need to know where they are on that continuum, whether it's content or whether it's language. During the language, the federal language test, kids will say, I didn't know I was ESL. What do you mean? What does this mean? And nobody sat with them and said, you know, right now your speaking and listening are very high. The areas that you need to improve on together, you and me, are the reading and the writing. This is where you are in the reading. So this is what you can do. I'm going to push you to the next level and make you take what, you know, apply it to this higher level of language. They don't. We just expect them to understand.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
And it's that, that ability of, of receiving actionable feedback and then self monitoring. Where am I? What do I still need to do? Can we give them a checklist that says, you know, I have in my speaking I am able to do this, this and this, but this one I need to improve and I'm going to do that in my small group work. Or, you know, can they come up with some of their own goals? Can we put some of the responsibility of learning to the students themselves so that that's how you get the motivation, so that they have a vested interest in it as well?
Beth Vaucher
Yes.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
I also think a huge part of that motivation is choice, giving students a choice as to how they're going to be assessed. And then people say, well, then they're always going to choose the same thing, or then you orchestrate it so that you can give them a choice of three things and maybe they're the three areas that, you know, that they're going to be able to be successful. And then the next time you give them choice, it's just a little bit out of their comfort zone. We're always pushing.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
If we always stay, if we want to become a great tennis player, you don't play me, you play Carlos Alcaraz.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
You want to be better. You want to play somebody better than you because if you're always at that same level, you're never going to, to move. Yes. And in the beginning it's hard because he keeps smoking you with his serves right, but pretty soon you're swinging. You're like, oh, my goodness, I returned one and it's the same thing with the language. So we can't stay in what we know. We have to push the two students to the next level and get their input, ask them what they need and do that self monitoring, obviously by themselves, but we need to take them through that. We just can't throw it at them. They, they need a little bit of development in that area in order to be able to monitor themselves.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah, I mean, that was, this whole episode is just so filled with so much helpful information, and I really appreciate that what you've just walked us through because, you know, I think where there is that sentiment or that backlash of we're just dumbing down curriculum or, you know, that's kind of what people go to and really hitting on that point is we're not, we're not bringing them to this level so that we can dumb it down. What we're seeing where they're at taking what they know and giving them those building blocks to move forward and continually wanting to push them to the next. Level. And that really can only happen, though, when you know your students and when you clearly inappropriately assess them so you can see what is it that they know and now what's the next expectation? And I think that's really, you know, my heart, too, is like, we can't. Our job as ESL teachers or teachers in general is not to use scaffolds so that our students become dependent on us. Our job is to show them how to use these scaffolds and continue to push them forward so that they can take on those scaffolds themselves. They can take on that responsibility in their learning. You know, and that's really what we want to push them to, is that that motivation, that that desire for them to do it on their own. And that's where they're going to have huge success.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Right. Because we're. We're lighting a fire in them. We're not filling a bucket. We're lighting a fire. And so if we give them tools and strategies that they can then use themselves when they come across new information, they'll be equipped.
Beth Vaucher
Absolutely. I love that idea of just doing a checklist of here's the things I can do when it comes to speaking. Here's my one goal. Here's how I'm going to do this, you know, and that does continue to help them see that it is. I mean, anybody who's learning another language, when you begin, it feels like I'm never going to get past the simple vocabulary. And so we really need to kind of put the blinders on to help our students see that. Here's your next step. Here's your next step. And then they look back at the year and they say, wow, look at how far I've grown, you know? And. And it happens in those really small steps that we help encourage them.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
And I think, you know, a visual to help capture summarize your statement is when. When we just have all of this language, it's like a big spotlight. It just shines on everything, and it can be overwhelming. But if we have a laser focus, we're only looking at this part of language right now. We're focusing on using past tense verbs, or we're focusing on compound and complex sentences. Instead of looking with the spotlight at all of the language that has to be learned, we're gonna spot. We're gonna laser focus on this part of the language. And I think that that can help, you know, using the visuals like that for students can help them understand the fine points of language.
Beth Vaucher
Yes, absolutely. Now, Mackie we're running out of time, but I want you to share with us and just share advice you have for those teachers who maybe are finding themselves in a similar situation, as I was of, you know, trying to do these equitable assessments and grading and feeling good about that in my own classroom. But when it comes to report time and working with the homeroom teachers and having those conversations, you know, it's really. Really kind of hitting a brick wall. So what advice do you have for those teachers of how to start those conversations, how to get to a point where you know, or even practical of what does that look like? Then when it comes to report time, how do you, you know, assess and share reports that are equitable but also what's allowed by the state, I guess.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Right. And so it, this also, it's another, another part of getting to know. You get to know the teachers that are in your group. If you service 8th grade, get to know the teachers where your students are headed and collaborate with them and create, do some planning together the most. Something else that we don't talk about is begin your planning with the end in mind. What is it that my students are going to do? Oh, they're going to write a five paragraph essay, because, you know, that's a very american constraint, that five paragraph. Oh, yeah, we're going to write a five paragraph essay about X, Y, Z. And students are going to have to use this vocabulary. And the ESL teacher gives her knowledge and says, hey, can we focus also on making sure they're using two compound sentences and a complex sentence which fits into, especially science areas? So what is the language that you want to focus on for this assessment? What is the content that you want them to demonstrate to you for the assessment? And then how am I developing my lessons? From the very introduction, from building background and prior knowledge all the way through, how am I doing my formative assessment? As we're going through the lesson to say, I see about 60% of the kids aren't understanding this. Tomorrow I'm going to revisit this with another example and make sure we practice it. And so we're doing these mini assessments along the way to make sure that we're hitting everything we want them to do. So when it comes time to the assessment day, we've gathered assessments along the way to tell us we still have to do this, the student still has to do this. And then affording them the opportunity to demonstrate what they know. Given, given some choice, it might. Some students might want to do a five paragraph essay. Maybe somebody else wants to interview somebody that can give the information and something like a podcast.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
But I want to leave you with this thought, which is very controversial for teachers. And the thought is, if I am not able to show you yet what you wanted me to demonstrate, can I do it again next week without receiving a detrimental impact on my grade? You know, if. If I can show you two weeks later because my language jar is a little fuller or I have a better understanding. Am I meeting. Am I meeting the grade level content and the standards? If I'm showing you today that I understand it, should the fact that two weeks ago I was still a little bit cloudy, bring my a down to a c if it's what I know. Look, I'm telling you now, this is what I know. And I tell students, it's not how you start, it's how you finish.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
So I know that's a little controversial,
Beth Vaucher
but, I mean, I know my answer, but, you know, I just think at the end of the day. Yeah, exactly. We have more topics. We barely even hit the surface here. But, you know, at the end of the day, for those of us who are advocating for the needs of our multilingual learners, I think this is a really important area that needs more attention to and really just, you know, how many students can we think of that are making that progress, are excited, are engaged, and then an assessment comes and they just get so defeated and they, you know, they start to give up. And this is kind of my issue with the access testing. It's like, or whatever state testing. You see these students who are doing amazing and these 7th graders and 8th graders and they know, oh, I've done this test. I've. I can't pass out. And it. There's such a, you know, it's just such a negative thing on these students. And so if we really are supporting and advocating for our multilingual learners, what's. What do we want for them? We want to continue to help them grow in all domains. We want them to grow in their knowledge. And that happens when we can support them in this way of really making that the focus of our assessments and not, not defeating them. So this is.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
This is our charge.
Beth Vaucher
It is. I love this. I love that you just gave us so much wisdom today. So thank you so much, Mackie. I hope to have you back on again and we can continue this conversation. Please share with my listeners where they can find out more about you.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Well, you can visit my website at hopeful ecs.com. and if you would like to participate in an. All inclusive experience. We're having an academy in August in Reading, Pennsylvania, and it is a week long preparation, sharing, exchange, creation of ideas and materials and strategies to take us from understanding the student to creating with the student, creating opportunities for thinking, listening, speaking, reading, and writing, beginning with the end in mind assessment, and finally, creation of materials for the following school year. And that's called the LSR Academy. Um, it's, uh. I'm just. I'm all about building bridges. So it's designing and building bridges, um, for multilingual learners in the educational landscape. And it's for anyone. It can't be all about the ESL teacher. Yeah, it's for anyone who engineers a path for the second language learner in schools.
Beth Vaucher
Wow. Sounds incredible. We will put a link to that in our show notes so people can go check out your website and check that out as well. So terrific. Thank you so much, Mackie. I really appreciate it. You as well. All right, bye bye.
Okay. Wow. That was so amazing. I could keep talking to you all day about this topic.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
So, yeah, if we could. Now we just have to keep talking to the right people. Right. Because I know we believe in it.
Beth Vaucher
Yep.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
But, you know, it's.
Beth Vaucher
It works.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
We just have to be patient. I tell. I tell people my experience in first grade was a challenge, and I didn't know what I didn't know. I call it the DK. DK. I didn't know what I didn't know. And, you know, in January, you had to refer kids for retention. I was like, oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Okay. I can't retain half my class, but I would have, like, seven or eight kids in January who I'm like, they're not gonna make it every year. I started to notice that by April, everything I had done had not been in vain. But what I had been doing was filling a big jar with an eyedropper. Every day.
Beth Vaucher
Every day.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Finally, that drop in April made it overflow, and the light went on. And then usually it was like, one or two kids who were retained and not a class full, which is where in the beginning, I was like, this is crazy. They're not learning. But that's why, I mean, we have to give them time. Yeah. And. And it's just. That's why I love being in the schools with the teachers, because I have those real life examples like, show me these kids grades.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah. I love that.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
You know, let's. That practice. That breaks my heart.
That breaks my heart. And, you know, yes, the accommodations take time, but you know what? Your doctor takes time with you when you're sick.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Granted. I'm not saying please don't worry.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah, yeah. No, don't worry. Language is not a safe test. I understand. Yeah, yeah.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
If the doctor takes time to make you better, why can't we take. And I know teachers are overworked, but if they could just collaborate.
Beth Vaucher
Yeah.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
And I know it's so easy to say, and it takes time. Takes years. I'm working with the one school district I'm hoping to start my third year and just chipping away at myths and revealing realities and, you know, this is your world.
Beth Vaucher
Yes. Well, the work you're doing is really important, so keep doing it, and let's stay in touch and see other ways that we can collaborate together, and that would be great.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
Good luck to you and congratulations on all your success. I. Like I said, you inspired me.
Beth Vaucher
Well, keep going. It takes time. On know. It takes time. Good things take up. Yeah. Don't give up. You're doing Beth. All right. Talk to you later, Mackie.
Esperanza "Macky" Wickert
All right, bye.