Group Reflection by Zoe, Christy, and Lauren

The Campano book club members created a plan for our inquiry as a group.  We decided that each member would read the book in its entirety, and created a timeline for reading each section.   We briefly discussed each part when we met as a group on Wednesdays.  Because our school experiences vary and our schedules were so different we thought that a blog would be a great way to share our responses to the reading and also report on our inquiry work with students.

As the semester progressed, we found that there were themes throughout the book that were deepening our understanding of what it means to be an immigrant student and what it means to be an immigrant student's teacher.  Because the themes were woven in and out of each chapter, we decided that each member would focus on one theme and explore it through Campano's views and our own school experiences.  On the blog, you can find our work related to themes.

Because we were spending so much time reflecting on the work of Campano and our own teaching of immigrant, migrant, and refugee students, we wanted to ensure that some time was spent discussing other members' perspectives and responses.  With the challenge of our schedules, we decided that after posting our own reflections, we would be sure to read other members' postings and respond with wonderings and comments to create a rich, online dialogue.  By putting this response process in place, it jumpstarted our face-to-face conversations each Wednesday, opening us up to discuss other topics in response to postings, book quotes, and/or class experiences.

Overall, our group feels that this was a successful way to keep track of our learning and inquiry while reading Campano's book. We worked together well and really challenged one another to look deeper at our views of power, privilege, and perspective in response to school policy and our teaching of immigrant students.  Each of us feels that our ideas and views of students has changed because of this inquiry book club.  We have recommended the book to colleagues and administrators, thought more about our own personal biases and "What the teacher didn't know" and discovered ways to stay informed as teacher activists.