Cross Case Features: Teachers

Emery Middle School: Language Arts

Lisa Caballero, Language Arts

Lisa Caballero describes herself as is a middle school teacher by choice. When she saw the advertisement for the NCTA seminar, she was intrigued by its offer of instructional content about Asia, the availability of textbooks for teachers, and Asian resources for the school. Thinking that the Asian content and resources could provide a focal point for renewing the curriculum of the school, she convinced five other teachers to apply for the seminar. She has incorporated Asian content in her classes and used about half the lesson plans she received in the seminar follow-up sessions. She and some other Emery participants would like to use the Asian content and resources to restructure the curriculum at the middle school.

Franco Diorio, Literature

Franco Diorio, a Literature teacher, took the seminar because many of the students in this district have very little chance to be exposed to things outside their own unique culture and climate. He said he thought infusing his teaching with this new information and interesting content would help students improve their test scores.

Barbara Holladay, Literature

Barbara Holladay has been able to use everything she learned from the seminar in some way in her literature classes. She took the seminar “because [the students] don’t know about anything outside of their own neighborhood—no experience outside of it. And I’d never been introduced to Asia, so it was interesting for me.” After the seminar, she and several other Emery teachers continued their professional development in Asian studies at a nearby university.

Ben Myers, Special Education Language Arts

Ben Myers, who teaches special education students, says he began the seminar with a negative attitude about Asia. But gradually his attitude changed. Now he has more interest in newspaper articles that relate to Asia and has noticed items he can use with his special education students. Although he expressed concern that the seminar did not directly address the special needs population, he discovered that one student who seldom reads books had completed an entire book about Korea (Lost Names, a book that participants learned about in the seminar).