S01E04. Blurring boundaries
In this episode of Optical Allusion, host Francine Watson speaks with three first-generation doctoral students — Ángel Bonilla, Zulekha (Zully) Khamisi, and Serena Camacho — about their transformative experiences co-creating a community project with school children in a local classroom. The discussion highlights the profound learning that comes from centering relationships, cultural responsiveness, and the interconnectedness of school and community. Through their reflections on bridging personal identity, academic research, and teaching practice, they explore how blurring the lines between educators and learners can humanize education and nurture belonging. Join us for an inspiring conversation about seeing the unseen and empowering student voices.
Transcript
[00:00:21] They've been our greatest teachers. During today's episode, we'll explore the importance of relationships and the community elements of their work and reflect on their experiences over the past year. Our first guest is Ángel Bonilla. He's a first generation student and teacher from Vancouver, Washington.
[:[00:01:01] She comes to WSU from Moi University in Kenya and the University of Oregon, where she was a Fulbright Scholar. Serena is starting her second year in her Ph. D. program and comes to us as a graduate from Eastern Washington University, where she received her B. A. in health psychology. Her professional interests include student health and wellness, teacher evaluation, and student advocacy.
[:[00:01:54] Well, thank you for having us, Fran. Um, I can start. [00:02:00] So, Serena here. My path, I guess, I started the Ph. D. program without an assistantship. We're in some, uh, peculiar times at WSU. So, I was learning to trust the process and go through the motions of being a Ph. D. student and finding funding. Uh, I don't know, Fran.
[:[00:03:00] Oh, Zuli here. So how did I find myself here? So, I was taking this class with, uh, Francine, Environment, Culture, and Education, and, uh, each other week, Fran will talk about how she's, uh, She's helping one of our former students, Shiari, in her fourth grade class. She's like, trying to help her to settle in as a new teacher.
[:[00:03:52] Thank you. Angel here. I got here, uh, on the teacher wave. [00:04:00] I am a teacher educator, um, in the secondary education program here at WSU. I'm a graduate of the secondary program, but my time in the field was not as long as I wanted it to be before I came back for To further my education. So I heard Francine was volunteering in a fourth grade classroom with a teacher now, but student who we've had a, we've sustained a relationship with, um, from early days in her career and hopefully, uh, sustaining that into as long as she practices as a teacher and as long as she's a person really.
[:[00:05:23] And I'm excited just to do a little reflecting, I think, on our most, our most recent endeavor, which, um, centered for sure in the class that we were in together. It was the environment, culture, and education class. And a true highlight for me was remaining connected to Shiri, who is a guest. We, we've had on the show too, and once a week going to be with fourth graders and talking to them about plants and all kinds of other wonderful little things.
[:[00:06:20] We use that Nature Culture Framework to really think about our Um, relationship to the more than human world and begin to think about ourselves as connected, right? There's some constructs that have humans and the more than human world separate. That's a worldview. We looked at the nature culture complimentary, right?
[:[00:07:11] I do remember the way you looked at me when I asked you to do it. Um, but beyond that first impressions, you know, maybe how that project is sticking with you. And then we'll talk a little bit about our greatest teachers, those fourth graders. Sure. So, I'll, I'll start the conversation. Um, I will forever remember.
[:[00:07:59] And that was to [00:08:00] share a environmental or ecological place that had meaning to me and not to my scholarship. And that was a tough one. I don't know if the both of you felt that way as well, but I had to do some soul searching. And I remember. I remember several conversations with Dr. Watson where I was like, tell me what to do.
[:[00:08:50] Yeah. Uh, one thing that I remember about the ecological self assignment is [00:09:00] it made me think about myself and, uh, the places that I've been and how I connected with them. And I remember talking about, um. a place where my, my dad was born. It's in Kenya at the Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzanian border next to Lake Victoria, that's where my dad was born.
[:[00:10:01] And it was mind blowing what they know about Africa. I was, I was overwhelmed, like they knew so much, they were so excited, and I felt like That was one moment that I connected very, very well with the students in this class and It was really special to be a parent in class and to teach my, my daughter and to have her friends look up to me and, uh, ask me questions about my favorite place, about my culture, and about the spaces that I share with.
[:[00:11:01] The ecological self, struggling to remember the task, but what I remembering is the outcome, which helped me discover how. How abstract and how the way the water falls and the water goes everywhere, that is how our thoughts and our connections to people happen in this world. So in that ecological self, it was framed as a bibliography.
[:[00:12:08] Um, and I remember how Abstract assignment was so I had to match Francine's abstractness. I had to analyze my connection to the water and what it means to me and what it has meant to the people who have been here since time immemorial. Um, so really. Um, really making meaning of how the water falls and when it snows it packs and the snow is always going to melt and the water is going to find where it needs to go.
[:[00:13:23] Like, we were all from different parts of the world, but we connected to a place that had water. Like, and I felt like that was powerful, that we all connected to what we call, like, source of life. Yeah. And, um, it was, it was mind blowing for me when I realized like, wow, we all connected to water, the source of life, and some of the things that we take for granted, like I already knew who I was as a [00:14:00] person, but I've never really looked at how do I connect to the places that I hold dear and why do I connect to such places?
[:[00:14:36] that we worked with in Mrs. McNeil's class, right? And, um, you know, we're doing a kind of a part one and part two, I guess, you know, because what we've learned from those fourth graders could, uh, really take up an entire season, I think, if not more. But I just wanted to ask, you know, the question that we have a little bit of where we've been together as a [00:15:00] group and how working with the fourth graders, it was and is so life giving.
[:[00:15:27] And there, you know, we used metaphor and a lot, we use metaphor a lot to try to understand the experience we're having. So there's another riff on optical illusion, right? Alluding to water and flow to help us make sense of things. So just if maybe each of you Could give a reflection on the bridge work between being in a doctoral program where there's a certain kind of vibe on campus, there's a certain kind of vibe in our classes, and then there was this invitation and she already [00:16:00] created the space for us to be a more formal part of her classroom by.
[:[00:16:39] Yeah, and we'll, we'll pause there for today. I would, yes. So, uh, unlike the, my two, uh, coworkers, I guess, sitting next to me, I have no classroom experience. And so when the invitation came to visit Sherry's [00:17:00] classroom, For me, that was a no. I instantly was like, Fran, uh, give me an assignment that puts me behind the scenes.
[:[00:17:46] Uh, I didn't realize was a passion of mine until working on this project. It's engaging me in community. I started volunteering in my, my daughter's school. We're in Spokane, and [00:18:00] so I'm not here in the Pullman School District, but I, I'm in the classroom every day now. And I'm in the lunchroom, and the stories I can tell, and the love that has grown for being around kids.
[:[00:18:40] And my background in advocacy, I feel like the two align for centering students and their, their interaction with the knowledge and formation, as well as like, just centering them as humans. And I think that that's kind of maybe. [00:19:00] the point in my scholarship that I'll probably find a little more focus in.
[:[00:19:35] S. in 2021 and, um, I came to WSU in 2021, not to the U. S., and, um, I came with my daughter at that time. She was seven years old and, um, she joined elementary school and it was just one year after COVID. So she had missed out a whole year of classroom instruction. [00:20:00] We didn't have online schooling in Kenya. So she missed out a whole year of classroom instruction, and she was a little bit behind.
[:[00:20:39] And, um, when this chance came in that I'm able to volunteer into their class. I feel like, um, this was my turn to, even if I'm motivating her or I'm, I'm encouraging her from, the home setting. I also do that in class. [00:21:00] And, um, she kept on asking me, Mom, when are you coming to our class? Other parents are coming to class.
[:[00:21:41] And even though I was there for a very short period of time, I felt like I made a difference. How, um Her reading improved. She, I think she tested out of the help that she was getting and [00:22:00] I felt like it's it's because we brought community to her because we centered We centered the students curiosities.
[:[00:22:34] These students were sharing with us what they already know, and we centered on their curiosities. We made them feel that, um, Um, what they already know, it's important to ask, and we use those funds of knowledge to help them learn. And I felt like I was just doing it for fun, but I feel like it really, really helped me to see, um, where I want to go with my [00:23:00] future research, whether I want to center on, um, students from different cultures who find themselves in the U.
[:[00:23:38] Is, uh, culturally inclined, and sometimes the way we expect them to react is different from what we're used to because that's how they are culturally taught to behave. So when we Um, we, we remove ourself from this spaces where we are so quick to think, Oh, this student behaved like this in class and this is [00:24:00] disrespectful from my culture.
[:[00:24:33] I approach this from three different dimensions. The first one being as an inner child, I did not enjoy or even experience educational moments like this, that we. Experienced as learners and teachers when we went to go visit with the fourth graders once a week. The second dimension I approached this [00:25:00] from is as a teacher.
[:[00:25:38] So we have an expectation of teachers and people being culture responsive, period, in society, um, especially in 2024. But when you try to be a teacher educator and asking students to be, or in going. People who are going to become teachers, to be culturally responsive [00:26:00] themselves, a lot of the times, examples and checklists are asked for.
[:[00:26:41] One of them being centering the students as knowers and tellers and asking them the questions to build the curriculum from, rather than give the curriculum to them like a banker to someone who is asking for the money, really. [00:27:00] That is all so powerful and inspiring. You know, I, I, I think another conversation for each of those lines that you've shared, um, is definitely going to happen, but what I, I, you know, I want to just say I was, it was really amazing to work on the Learning in Places project with you, with you all because, you know, I think what's being asked for in schools and community is You know, the kind of depth that we experienced was the kids sort of ran circles around us and it was it was more about You know more about the the The nature of moving away from like teacher centered right to really setting up spaces where there's more of a free flow of ideas and story right and I really believe that the [00:28:00] That's what, what I recall in, in being, being there is like, there's sort of the lesson plan laying out, asking for the student's stories, but the power is in the listening of those stories and building the next steps from there.
[:[00:28:41] Right? And I think you all really supported, um, this wonderful experience. And they lit up when we came and we, we all were delighted to see each other week after week after week. So I'll say a couple of things, maybe just to close us and if you have any final final [00:29:00] words, awesome, but I, I really want to say thank you all for being willing to step into this unknown right at one level or another.
[:[00:29:34] But this small, like relatively small, right? Like one classroom partnership, but with such dedication, uh, it's sort of, how many, how many of us does it take to support, you know, 19 fourth graders? A good number, right? They're brilliant. So, um, this kind of hidden in plain sight opportunity to help us think more deeply was there.
[:[00:30:22] Um, but, you know, blurring those lines is about really developing those authentic relationships. And, um, I'm just grateful that you helped us get a, get it off the ground, which I, I could do in a little way in the fall before you joined, but I couldn't, I couldn't do what we did this spring with, um, learning how to teach learning in places or learning how to be with that.
[:[00:31:11] You're a very identity of what a teacher is and isn't. Um, got kind of troubled through this, um, and then Zuzula, you know, what I really heard is, you know, In, especially in culturally responsive teaching, like reclaiming the, the authentic relationships that come, come with raising our children, right, in community and, um, are, are the ways that we can just open up, you know, in, in social and emotional learning, they talk about in Washington state in particular, a big thing is that children feel the permeability of their classroom and home, that the, it's a, it's a free flowing space, not, you know, Their experience at school ought not be radically different, right?
[:[00:32:32] Thank you. Teaching is, um, it's about really humanizing education and we know everyone belongs, but setting up those structures and ways to express ourselves so that feeling of belonging, you know, that are, that you kind of described with, with Ari, right? Like her academic success, success really rooted in a connection, right?
[:[00:33:15] We'll see you next time.
