Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies
Professional Development Workshops for Educators
PIER- Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies
Caribbean Connections: Dominican Stories
November 19, 2005
Yale University
In this one-day workshop, participants will explore the exciting new publication, Caribbean Connections: The Dominican Republic and its Spanish companion reader, Conexiones Caribeñas: la República Dominicana, selección de lecturas en español, co-edited by Annie Gallin (former PIER-Director, Latin American and Iberian Studies), Dr. Ruth Glasser, Dr. Jocelyn Santana and Dr. Patricia Pessar (Yale University). Through scholarly presentations, group discussions, and hands-on activities, participants will learn about the following topics: 1) the history of the Dominican Republic and its long and often complicated relationship with the United States; 2) the migration process and the creation of Dominican communities in the United States; and 3) issues of identity, language, race, gender and education of Dominican immigrant students. The workshop will close with an examination of four lesson plans from the book, all created by Connecticut teachers and, if time permits, a merengue dance lesson!
Caribbean Connections: The Dominican Republic and its Spanish companion reader are designed for 9-12 grade and community college educators, but we encourage all to attend this exciting, fun-filled day of learning about the Dominican Republic. The books were published in July 2005 by the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies and Teaching for Change.
Program
8:30-9:00am
Registration
9:00-9:15am
Introduction to the Caribbean Connections project
Annie Gallin, Spanish/French teacher, Poughkeepsie Day School, Poughkeepsie, NY
9:15-9:45am
Brief history of the Dominican Republic
Ruth Glasser, Urban and Community Studies, University of Connecticut Tri-Campus, Waterbury, CT
9:45-10:30am
History Timeline lesson plan
Ruth Glasser
10:30-11:30am
Dominican migration to the United States
Patricia Pessar, Anthropology and African American Studies, Yale University
11:30-1:00pm
Facing the Realities of Identity, Language, Race, Gender, and Education
Jocelyn Santana, Curriculum/Instruction Specialist, New York City Public Schools
Francisco García-Quezada, Spanish teacher, Fieldstone Secondary School, Thiells, NY
Eduardo Genao, Principal, Sports and Medical Sciences Academy and former Local Instructional Superintendent in NYC
1:00-2:00pm
Lunch
2:00-3:00pm
Small Group Work
Exploring the Lesson Plans of Caribbean Connections: The Dominican Republic
Trujillo on Trial
Elise Weisenbach, Spanish teacher, Branford High School, Branford, CTDominican Baseball
Lola Lopes, Spanish/French teacher, Hop Brook and Cross Street Intermediate Schools, Naugatuck, CTInterview with Pedro Tavarez
Annie Gallin, (created by Elise Weisenbach)
3:00-4:00pm
Group Discussion of Lesson Plans and use of book Caribbean Connections: The Dominican Republic
Annie Gallin
Location:
Yale Center for International and Area Studies
Luce Hall, Room 202
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06520
Sponsored by the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies, the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, the U.S. Department of Education through a Title VI National Resource Grant and an International Research and Studies Program Grant.
Continuing Education Units (CEUs) will be awarded for a 6 hrs. workshop(s)/ (.6 CEUs); CEU’s will be submitted when the Professional Development Workshops for Fall 2005 come to an end in December.
Presenters:
Annie Gallin is the co-editor of Caribbean Connections: The Dominican Republic (Teaching for Change, 2005), a bilingual curricular resource that provides an overview of the history, politics and culture of the fourth largest Latino community in the United States. From 1998-2003 she developed the Outreach Program at the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies at Yale University. As Director of the program she wrote curriculum materials, organized summer institutes for K-12 and community college educators, led study tours to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and taught Caribbean dance in schools. She currently teaches Spanish and French at Poughkeepsie Day School in Poughkeepsie, New York. She holds an M.A. in International studies (Latin America) from the University of Connecticut and a B.A. in Romance Languages (French and Spanish) from New York University.
Francisco García-Quezada, known to his students as “El Profe” is a secondary and junior college instructor of Spanish and Latin American Studies to native speakers of Spanish, (Fieldstone Secondary School, Thiells, NY). This is an honors track program designed to enhance the knowledge and skills of students in their native language. He provides a parallel native language arts curriculum that meets the current New York State Education Standards for the new English Language Regents.
Recognizing first hand the needs of newcomers to this country, and the need to connect to their cultures of second generation Latinos, El Profe develops strong ties and mentoring relationships with his students. He creates and implements an acculturation component that helps the students become more familiar with their new community while maintaining a sense of cultural identity. Starting with play, and experiential activities, El Profe follows an adapted rites of passage program that helps his students create an atmosphere conducive to learning.
He earned a BA from St. Thomas Aquinas and continued his graduate studies at NYU and Cornell University in Curriculum Development specializing in parenting and health related education. Always yearning for knowledge, he received training by the New York City Bar Association, Project Adventure based in Massachusetts, the National Institute for Social & Emotional Learning based in Colorado, and the International Center for Cooperation & Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, New York.
He completed a Masters of Education in Administration and Supervision from Fordham University and is completing post graduate studies for a Ph.D. program in Counseling and Personnel Services, also at Fordham University.
Ruth Glasser received her Ph.D. in American Studies in 1991 from Yale University. Since then she has worked on publications, music festivals, museum exhibits, documentaries, curricula and other projects related to the Puerto Rican and Latino communities of New York, Connecticut, and other parts of New England. She is the author of My Music is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and Their New York Communities, 1917-1940 (University of California Press, 1995) and Aquí Me Quedo: Puerto Ricans in Connecticut (Connecticut Humanities Council, 1997.) She currently teaches in the Urban and Community Studies Program at the University of Connecticut Tri-Campus.
Lola Lopes graduated from Southern CT State University in 1974. For the following ten years she enjoyed and learned a great deal by working first as a bilingual psychiatric counselor at the Yale Mental Health Center in New Haven, then as a bilingual vocational counselor and TESOL instructor for the city of Waterbury, CT. Since 1984 she has taught French and Spanish, grade level varying from 6 through high school, for the Naugatuck School District, as well as ESL in the Adult Education program. She currently teaches introductory French and Spanish, grade 6, in the same district.
Patricia R. Pessar is Professor (Adjunct) of American Studies and Anthropology at Yale University. She is the author of When Borders Don’t Divide: Labor Migration and Refugee Movements in the Americas (1988); Between Two Islands: Dominican International Migration (1991); A Visa For a Dream: Dominicans in New York (1995); and From Fanatics to Folk: Brazilian Millenarianism and Popular Culture (2005). Her teaching and research interests include transnationalism and globalization, gender and ethnic studies, and migration in the Americas. She is currently completing a new book entitled Gendered Migrations and Geographies of Power: A Critical Feminist Engagement with Migration Studies.
Elise Weisenbach, Spanish teacher, Branford High School, Branford, CT Elise Weisenbach received a BA and a MA in Latin American Studies from Tulane University with concentrations in anthropology and history. She studied and researched in Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia and has traveled to a variety of other Latin American countries. She received a MAT from Quinnipiac University and currently teaches Spanish at Branford High School. Elise has volunteered at the Yale University Peabody Museum of Natural History and participated in many YCIAC Outreach Programs.
Jocelyn Santana, Curriculum/Instruction Specialist, New York City Public Schools