Interrogating Privilege : Reflections of a Second Language Educator

One educator reflects on the challenges in her second language teaching career. Teachers and students don't come to the classroom as blank states; they bring their identities and experiences into the classroom with them. Understanding the ramifications of social hierarchies and the interactions they produce is one of the challenges in second language instruction. This book of essays offers a personal look at the way that gender, class, sexual identity, and age affect the teaching and learning experience, especially for second language learners. In "Interrogating Privilege", Stephanie Vandrick, a veteran ESL teacher and researcher, reflects on her experiences in academia as a starting point for a socio-cultural analysis. The daughter of missionaries, she discusses her childhood in India to her work with immigrant populations in California, recognizing the potential colonialism in both. These and other speculative explorations make this a provocative starting point for discussions among teachers in training, while the frank assessment of institutional successes and failures will resonate especially with seasoned educators.