GLP Executive Director Angela Jackson (second from left) and GLP Board Chair Justyn Makarewycz (far right) with event attendees at My Dream Speaks |
GLP Students:
Our
students, whose voices are the most important here, experience learning a
second language as a way to excel in their current academic subjects, to
interact in new ways with their peers, and to realize their capacities for
affecting change in their own communities.
GLP Parents and Educators:
The
parents of our students and their teachers situate the importance of foreign
language learning with other stakes in mind. Knowing a second language is a way
for students to empower their local communities in the short and long term.
Because teachers and parents have a more intimate knowledge of the kinds of
struggles with self-conception and self-confidence that some of our students
who live in neighborhoods plagued by systemic inequities confront, what knowing
a second language means carries a different but no less important kind of
weight for them.
Corporate Sector:
GLP Students at the My Dream Speaks Benefit |
I
have found that those who work in the corporate sector tend to view the
importance of world language programs as a means for students to become
competitive in an increasingly globalized workforce.
Social Entrepreneurs:
Social
entrepreneurs situate the importance of language on multiple registers—students
who know another language can help to create and lead business practices that
are more socially responsible and oriented towards a more multicultural
audience.
So
what does this mean for initiatives that seek to expand foreign language
opportunities to young people? A guiding
question for me has always been, how do we get people with such different
backgrounds, priorities, and interests to coalesce around something like world language
education? What I have found in my experience, whether it be in organizing a
major fundraiser, a small luncheon of business executives, or a day of
celebrating the Chinese New Year in the classroom, is that these different
interests do not have to be antithetical to one another. In fact, the
differences are productive—they enable new kinds of relationships between
people you would hardly see interacting with one another—hedge fund managers
with the local school principal, media executives with NGO program directors,
parents with leaders of government initiatives on language. What they all have in common is that they
value a second language. The relationships they produce have only helped GLP to
continue to make the case that language is indeed a means towards multiple
kinds of ends.
To see more photos of GLP's My Dream Speaks Benefit Reception, click here!
To see more photos of GLP's My Dream Speaks Benefit Reception, click here!
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