Professor uses video to advocate for female scientists

A couple years ago, a college student in Nebraska named Erin took to Flipgrid to talk about Alaskan brown bears. 

In a breezy 90 seconds, she broke down how climate change is affecting the food webs that bears eat. They used to eat fish in July and August, “because that’s when there are the most fish in the river,” Erin tells us, and then they’d eat berries come September, when the berries would start to grow. 

But because temperatures in Alaska are slowly getting warmer, bears are now eating the berries first, in July and August, which means there are too many salmon fish in the river, eating more food and making it harder for other fish to survive, she concludes.

And tenth graders in Germany are still talking about her video. 

Erin was taking a class on climate change with Ramesh Laungani, a biology professor at Doane University in Lincoln. To help his students better understand the content, he asked them to explain in a Flipgrid video scientific research papers – not for themselves, but for K-12 students around the world.

“If you can explain a concept to a seventh grader, you understand it, right?” says Ramesh, who also teaches classes in conservation biology and has training in plant ecology. “So a few years ago, I just put the call out on Twitter, saying, ‘I’m going to have my college students make these videos.’ 

The first year, he connected with a local school in Nebraska as well as another in Florida. But, the following year, he was making connections with K-12 schools all over the country and even worldwide, including a military base in Germany who was tickled to have exposure to American scientists. 

“The fact that these students are learning new science and learning about things they didn’t know existed, that’s the game,” Ramesh says. “Even if they go home and sit at the dinner table to say, ‘Hey, Mom, I learned about these bears and climate change,’ that now expands the reach of my students’ voices into dining rooms and living rooms of those families. Me being a scientist, I wish there was a way to quantify it, of course, but I can say for sure that’s transformative for me.” 

Ramesh is an impassioned scientist. If you’d like, he’d walk you around his campus to quantify the standing carbon stocks in the trees and soil – he’d give you hours and days and not miss a beat – but he also just wants you to enjoy whatever it is you’re interested in, and he wants his students to know that anything is possible. 

Ramesh has spent years beautifully humanizing the fascination of science, and his endeavor to create videos for K-12 students not only helps the college kids better grasp the textbook, it also helps them more easily talk about science in a way that is comprehensible, enjoyable and engaging. With his encouragement, they cut the jargon, explain it simply and are left empowered to learn more.

“Scientists oftentimes are characterized as bad communicators,” Ramesh says. “I’ve seen those who are unaware of the audience they’re trying to connect with, and that puts up all these barriers for the audience to access the science. 

“When I give my students that communication training, I’m able to evaluate a deeper level of their understanding. I can identify misconceptions easily because you can hear hesitations in their voices when they explain a topic, and you can’t identify that hesitation in a written response, right?”

Alongside tackling the ways in which we talk about science, Ramesh is keen to unveil the many ways we can work in science, too. 

A few years ago, a teacher in Rhode Island asked him on Twitter to make a Flipgrid video talking about his job. Months later, he was still creating weekly videos for her students that included open-ended science questions for them to chat about. By the end of the school year, he paraded his phone around campus introducing his colleagues so the students could learn about other types of scientists out there. 

“To me, there was an opportunity to help students understand just how diverse science could be,” Ramesh says. “I think students think of a biologist and have a picture in their mind that they work with animals or in the lab, but I’m always fascinated by the scientists that exist!”

Today, he’s still introducing the many different scientists in our world with the #1000STEMWomenProject, a platform that gives women 90 seconds on Flipgrid to explain their job and perhaps encourage a young student to consider something beyond just biology. 

“I want kids to learn about a reproductive neurobiologist, a cosmetic chemist or any other sub-discipline and realize that it’s something you could be or do,” Ramesh says. “And the motivation for the scientists is that they get that same practice as my students – explaining their science well and in a concise format.  

“That skillset takes practice, right? But both with the STEM project and my students, those connections happen through conversation, and it works. We had a seventh-grade girl who, at the end of a video we made about giraffes’ necks, said, ‘You know, I never really liked science, and I was never really good at science, but you got me interested now.’ My tear ducts were empty for six months! 

“I played that video for my students and said, ‘I want you guys to think about the impact you are having on students in classrooms wherever these videos are seen,’ ” Ramesh concludes. “As college students, you think about this as an assignment, but you have an impact well beyond the walls of this classroom. And that’s all empowered by Flipgrid.”

As published for Microsoft Education.

Students excel in technology to make friends worldwide

In the cold snap of January two years ago, empowered by the fresh start of a new year, Nathalie Mathieu took a risk. 

For a private school teacher in Dijon, France, big change is a big deal, but after ten years of teaching English to high school students, she decided that her classroom and her entire perspective on teaching needed to look a little different anyway. 

“I had no choice,” says Nathalie, who also teaches higher education alongside her 100 English-learning students. “I was feeling great – I loved teaching and I loved my students – but I knew exactly where I was going. I was feeling too comfortable in giving the same kind of teaching for 10 years, so that’s when I knew I had to let go of everything and learn something new.” 

But for Nathalie, change wasn’t just for her. If anything, it mattered more that the risk was a collaborative effort with her students. So when she was introduced by a colleague to Microsoft digital tools to use in the classroom, she immediately looked to her kids for approval. 

“I spent weekends over several months learning about Teams, OneNote and Flipgrid,” she says. “But I was discovering them at the same pace as my students. We were learning together. I was completely honest and just said, ‘You know what? I’m going to try something new with you, and we can help each other. You can tell me if you like it or not, and I’ll tell you the same,’ and now we’ve all become more self-confident because of it.”

Nathalie says the students continue to surprise her with how well they use these tools in the classroom, and she’s also surprised with just how deeply they needed the invigoration. 

“I have to be learning new things, so we don't get bored in class,” she says. “You will face obstacles along the way but stepping out of your comfort zone is a great, great thing to do for both the teacher and the students. I have completely changed everything about my teaching practice.”

Making New Friends From Anywhere

Nathalie respects how difficult it can be to switch toward a different teaching method. Change is scary, especially when what you’ve been doing works. But on the other side, Nathalie is anew. She’s wild with enthusiasm when she shares how her classroom has changed, where she’s been and who she’s all met. Both she and her students have friends across the world.

“We’ve had such a great adventure with GridPals,” says Nathalie, who completed a couple different projects this past year with a high school French class in Ellicott City, Maryland. “Her students first chose topics like sports and holidays, then Mrs. Ghezzi had the idea to start a topic on America and France in a Box.” 

The students would talk about which objects they could put in a box that represented their country until the American students decided to send an actual Christmas gift box to their GridPals in France.

“The reaction from both the students on her side and on mine when we received the Christmas boxes was really great, just such an awesome experience,” she says. 

It’s a moment that continues to be matched, day after day, because Nathalie asked herself what’s possible. 

“For us, Flipgrid is not just about learning how to speak English, it’s learning about the culture of another country and sharing feelings of joy with students and teachers who are living thousands of miles away,” she says. “This has been so much change from what we’re used to doing, but so rewarding from the very beginning.”

As published for Microsoft Education.

In school, culture matters more, says teacher in Ohio

It’s a chilly Friday morning in the fall in Columbus, Ohio. 

For “Buckeye Nation,” this means there’s a football game tomorrow. At school, the students are wearing their scarlet and gray, the “Buckeye Battle Cry” is playing on the loudspeakers in between classes, and teacher Randall Sampson is marching down the hallway with his fists up. He chants loudly, “O-H!”

The students bustle around him. You can hear the shuffle of their feet, their lockers slamming shut and that squealing team spirit chatter. They respond to him immediately, “I-O!” 

Randall repeats himself – this time maybe walking a little faster as he bobs through the happy students, cupping his mouth with his big hands, raising his chin and deepening his voice – “I said, ‘O-H!’ ”

“I-O!” They cheer back. This goes on for at least a minute more, until each student retreats to their next class with a big smile on their face. Randall’s smiling, too. 

College football means a lot to families in O-H-I-O, but for Randall, those Friday mornings aren’t about the chants or a fight song or what you wear to school. It’s about the experience for the kids. 

“Every day’s not going to be peachy,” says Randall, who’s been in education for nearly 20 years. “But at the end of the day, these kids aren’t going to come back to talk about the Pythagorean theorem lessons they learned. Their best memories are going to be about the people who love them. 

“So tell me, what do you truly believe in? Your content? Or your culture?” 

Randall was raised in Pretoria, South Africa, where he spent his days around family dinners, going to church and playing with his cousins. 

“Everybody has a life story and a pathway they follow, and, for me, experiences were very rich,” Randall says. “I had family. I had people. We’re all a tight-knit community, and we played like kids do. Regardless of how difficult any situation might have been, we had that human connection, and those positive experiences far, far outweigh the negative.” 

At the age of 8, Randall and his family immigrated to the United States, where his mother would work as a nurse in Ohio. He remembers flying into New York City, when he awoke to the pilot on the speaker, “Ladies and gentlemen, look out to your left window. There’s New York City.”

“It was like a storybook,” Randall recalls. “I woke up, I looked out, and you could see the Statue of Liberty. I got out of that plane as a kid and I said to myself, ‘I’m here. Let’s go. Let’s make it happen.’ ”

Years later, the stars are still in his eyes, and his ambition fires more than ever. Randall is the kind of educator and the kind of human that changes people. 

For years, he worked both as a teacher and as an administrator for K-12 in the Columbus school districts. Randall was the one who knew everything about the kids, asking about families and initiating conversations in the hallway. He would sit with the students during in-school suspension, order them pizza and not let them leave until they felt loved, cared for and good about themselves, no matter what.

He would pass around a WWE wrestling belt as a reminder that all students are capable of success, achievement and support, and he was the teacher who showed the teachers what it meant to respect others, merely by being himself. 

“You got to be the person who takes some kind of action,” Randall assures. “So that’s what I do.”

Impact on students is ‘a long game’

Today, Randall owns Liberty Leadership Development, where he coaches teachers and studies data to close achievement gaps and boost graduation rates. Always with a keen focus on human interaction, he reminds fellow educators of intentional behavior and caring relationships above anything in the classroom.

“I always want to show folks that you can make an impact, but it’s a long game,” he says. “It’s like running a relay race. If I’m a fifth-grade teacher, I’m going to give those kids as much as I can during my time with them, but then I’m going to trust that my colleague in sixth grade is going to take the baton and keep running. 

“We’ve got to keep mentoring all the way through and building culture all the way through – truly honoring every kid, connecting deeply with every kid and empowering them.”

Not only did Randall grow up in Buckeye Nation, he played college football himself and then coached young kids every summer through the NCAA, so he knows the value of working together, and he sees the same system of success in education. 

“We’re very optimistic here – we got United States ambition! Big games, big hopes, but sports really do teach us the value of teamwork,” Randall says. “Every play in football, for example, is 5 or 6 seconds, but then you get 30 seconds in between, and those 30 seconds are about communicating the plan, executing the plan, holding hands and everybody aligning. If somebody tells you you’re misaligned, you’re okay with that. You want to shift and make it right for your team, right? 

“So what are we doing in education if we can’t tell a teacher, ‘You need to realign’? We need to always be checking in with each other, leading by example, believing in our kids, and we need to be here for the right reasons.

“What does that look like for you?”

Immigrant educator supports students with infectious energy

So much about learning is first finding that desire to connect to something. 

We grow only when we want to, when we feel empowered to do so and trust that whatever change is to come will make us better, stronger and happier. And, both for children and adults, it’s the relationships along the way that sustain this momentum. It’s the people who help us. 

Manny Curiel is a helper for the ages. Knowing that growth is possible in all of us – no matter who we are or where we came from or what we do not yet know – Manny celebrates learning every step of the way for you. He does not settle for reluctancy or complacency or fear. Instead, he revels in the journey with dance moves, neon colors, snapping fingers and a big, big smile that captivates you so deeply, you forget that one time you thought you weren’t good enough and instead rise to the occasion because you know people like him are on your side. 

“Let’s do this!” he says, when you’re already on your way. 

With relatability, honesty and a disco ball inside his heart, Manny makes people feel better about who they are and excited about who they can be, and it’s because he believes in himself first, then he believes in everyone else, too. 

“I enjoy making people happy,” says Manny, who first taught early elementary and works today as an EdTech specialist in Houston, Texas. “You know that excited feeling you have when you’re getting a present? I feel that way more in giving than receiving. It’s so rewarding to help someone realize they’re capable of doing something they thought they were not able to do. 

“Whenever teachers tell me they’re not tech-savvy, I say, ‘No! That’s a choice you are making, so get that out of your head, and let’s get this together.’ I believe in teachers so much.”

Empathy Guides the Teaching

Manny moved from Guadalajara, Mexico, to Houston on a Sunday in 2001. He was 20 years old, could not speak any English and immediately began work as a sous chef. As soon as he transitioned into education, he knew he would take his own growth experience to empower not only his young students, but their families, too. 

“I loved that I could help my community,” says Manny, who used to meet with parents at their homes, attend birthday parties and dinners and still receives texts and pictures from former student families today. “When I came here, I could not even have a conversation, and that’s the story I would tell my students. I always put myself as an example and would say to them, ‘I know you can be somebody in this country, so you have to learn the language,’ and then they were successful because they had a reason why.

“You have to take the time to hear your kids and be there for them and push them – you need to get them pumped! Making a connection with them will always give you more bang for your buck, and once you do, I guarantee you, you will see that they are the most amazing people.”

He has the same hope for adults. In presenting new technology, writing a blog and updating his YouTube channel for his many districts today, Manny focuses on simplicity and relatability the same way he did with his students. 

“My English is not the greatest, and I ramble a lot, but I always tell teachers, ‘My videos are not Hollywood production! We just need to convey a message, okay?’ ” he says with optimism and bravery and charisma that stays with you. With teachers like Manny, you remember how good it feels to surprise yourself. 

“It’s hard to acknowledge that there are better ways to do what you have done for so long, but I value and honor the fact that so many teachers right now are willing to step out of what they believe. I always remind them, ‘You are a good teacher, and you have got to believe that you are a good teacher! So what is it you need to get there? How can I help?’ That’s when I feel like I’m making an impact.”

Sioux Falls poet embraces dual identity

I am a privileged white woman in the middle of America, where I walk safely to my car at night, fit in most everywhere, and usually get the job. I also live with you in a progressive community, where we push boundaries and put up a fight at city council meetings and honk when we see a fellow Rainbow Buffalo pass us by on Minnesota Avenue. What could be wrong here? I fool myself when I see a little less oppression where I live and think we’ve met equality in my country. Yet I still couldn’t possibly walk comfortably in a minority’s shoes when he is ridiculed at the grocery store or attacked in a park. I wonder, could I rip the tape off my mouth and defend myself as much as they have to? Would I cry in private because it’s become too exhausting to teach the ceasing of hate? 

Here we have Angelica Mercado-Ford, a small and ferocious Mexican American activist in Sioux Falls who does not cry. Her family has had to hide in their home only to open their doors and choke on injustice another day, but her throat is clear. Mercado-Ford is ten years younger than me and yet is teaching me that the greater group of people who suppress a lesser group of people are also the only ones who can save them. 

So she comes to America for partnership in making sense of her dual identity, only to thwart the discrimination her family warned her about. But she still mustered one step farther than her ancestors, and she is running. 

My supple tongue speaks for two, she says in her poem “Tongues” as she strives today to honor both her parents’ sacrifices and broach her own isolating experience. When Mercado-Ford moved to Sioux Falls eight years ago, it was through art and poetry that she urged her community to better understand the life of an immigrant: a “journey toward becoming,” she says. It was in her writing that she raised her fists.

“There was something in me that needed to come out,” she says, “and I didn’t know about it until it did come out.” 

In America, migrant dreams are flightless birds.

In America, you, the migrant, cannot dream, lest you are dead.

This is what happens, you see? 

When the world becomes devoid of empathy, 

Filling in blanks with new names of the murdered, 

Of the lost, 

Of the forgotten. 

To the ones in power: We demand action. 

Words mean nothing

When Claudia cannot read, cannot see, cannot live. 

When motherless children have dreams

Of light-up sneakers,

And survival. 

Ejected from courtrooms, 

For their profane silence

When their mouths have yet to hatch the word ‘mama.’ 

– an excerpt from Mercado-Ford’s poem, “Freedom is a Fleeting Thing”

Mercado-Ford wrote her first book of poetry in 2019, an effort that still finds itself in the hands of seekers nationwide. Before publishing, she was invited to host an art installation featuring her work at the Washington Pavilion, which was the first bilingual exhibit for the venue. Mercado-Ford was also the first Latino woman to host a solo show.

“I featured poems in Spanish and in English so my parents could experience an art exhibit in their language for the first time,” she says. “It was so successful that they extended the show for a whole month. The community showed up.”

Her book is titled “Todo Revoluciona”: In it, her subtlety reminds us that, despite how much we may resist, everything changes, ideas transform, and humans evolve. We are not silent – as some people need us to be in order to participate in their own convention. Mercado-Ford speaks over this. She uses her fear to fuel her fury as her family watches on in worry and in frustration. Before she fought the world around her, she also fought inside her own childhood to deter conformity, and her book reflects as much. 

I have tasted autonomy,
and I know
I will never go hungry again. 

– an excerpt from “Todo Revoluciona”

It’s valiant that Mercado-Ford would not give up on her mission, even without the initial support of her family, but the demand to do so began early in her upbringing in small-town Fremont, Nebraska, where she and her family emigrated from Mexico. But even a resting place that could fulfill the “whole immigrant dream” was poisoned with its own anti-immigrant rhetoric. So they fought for their rights without hiding their homeland – her father in “cowboy boots, the kind that make him look hombre” – and Mercado-Ford brought that unabating retaliation to here in Sioux Falls, where she implores her community now to overcome the same “dissolution and disappointment” she faced growing up. She knew contempt at home and then everywhere else, and she wanted less of it. 

“I’m proud that my family’s cultural traditions were very strong and alive, but I feel like I created Angelica here. I didn’t know who I was before this,” Mercado-Ford says. “I knew I needed to get out of there for my own survival. People were not accepting, I felt isolated, and my escape was education. 

“I needed to take my power back.”

Her family comes to the art shows and commends her beautiful work and has grown as she grew, too, but breaking those family expectations was at first taxing, and she admits she felt defeated. It was so much pressure to put on one person, forcing conversations at the family dining room table.

“We talked about what it means to be a queer, Mexican woman in America,” Mercado-Ford says. “We also started conversations about my mom’s role as a woman in the household. She never thought about anything more than what role was assigned to her, but she’s not just a mother and a wife.

“My mother always told me, ‘People will treat you the way they perceive you,’ and we always kept up with that. But I said to my parents, ‘I’m doing this to better myself.’ ”

Her family wanted her to be more brown, and her America wanted her to be more white, but it’s ok to live in the in-between and not be like everyone else, she says. We are all “in the gray,” and that doesn’t make one person less than another.

“There have been tough times where I put in so much of me, and it feels like no one sees,” Mercado-Ford says. She writes in her book, In my chest, a storm is brewing, but you will only see the sun. “But I read this quote once, ‘I don’t want to die on a day I went unseen,’ and it always resonated with me because I just want to leave a footprint that I was here.”

Today, Mercado-Ford teaches at Washington High School as the head debate coach, where she reminds her students that “any little thing they build upon can mean hope and liberation.” This optimism floods into an entire community who’s listening to her, too. 

“Growing up as a new American, I could not imagine a path toward ‘greatness’ … without a profession deemed serious or noble by my family and peer groups,” says Ngoc Thach, a Vietnamese American entrepreneur and marketing executive in Sioux Falls. “I never felt like I was enough, but (Angelica) acted as a beacon of truth and hope at a time when I couldn’t spare any for myself. 

“She is a voice of peace and power.”

Mercado-Ford says “confidently” that she does not face adversity in Sioux Falls the way she once did. Here her advocacy is not ignored, it multiplies. She came here to “feel seen” but stays here to discipline us, enough to mature our meager marches into a sprint until our queer Latino poet in the Midwest is no longer fighting alone. 

I am immune from her ache, but I am not unable. Together with the roar of Mercado-Ford and the voices she is giving us, we become the safe space. 

One day a new dawn will come and I will meet my people face to face and we will both know home and we will not worry about crossing over to the other side. – an excerpt from “Todo Revoluciona” 

As published for Sioux Falls Live.

‘Shared history’ compels work

When Patrick Hicks was eight years old, he sat on the floor of his living room in Stillwater, Minn., and wrote a short story about World War II. Using a beat-up IBM typewriter his parents bought for him at a garage sale, the typeball would pivot before striking the paper, darkening with one sentence after another as Patrick The Kid shared a universal story with curiosity and ease.

This fervor never let up.

Next month, the U.K. celebrates Remembrance Sunday, when veterans march past the London War Memorial to pay their respects. In February, we honor Black History; in March, it’s Women’s History; and in May, we mind Asian American and Pacific Islanders. 

To us, this is an improved awareness of the past resurfacing itself. But to local author and educator Hicks, it has become a life’s work.  

“I was always a big reader,” he says. “My mom is an immigrant from Northern Ireland, so she gave me a lot of children’s books she grew up on. I read everything by Enid Blyton. How does this woman I’ve never met control my mind? I wanted to copy that.” 

To this day, many of those worn stories from Stillwater are still here, packed into shelves in Room 111, where Hicks sits as the Writer-in-Residence at Augustana, a university he’s called home for over 20 years. 

On a bottom shelf rests a few books on Winston Churchill, gifts from his Irish grandfather he no longer has use for, “but I’m not going to get rid of them.”

Writer Joan Didion once said that “character is style,” that who we are and what we think about is reflected in our success, and this is how we know Hicks. As a third grader, with an entire future of possibility and plans ahead of him, he instead thought about what happened before him, immersing himself in James Joyce’s “Ulysses” while his friends played sandlot baseball on a sunny Sunday afternoon. 

And we are all better for it. 

This month, Hicks launched his third novel, “Across the Lake,” a fictional tale based on the Holocaust about an all-female concentration camp: gender, violence, and survival, all recurring themes in his writing. 

To Hicks, we are not immune from the historical subjects in his books today. He writes not only with concertedness and the same interest he had as a young boy, but to “cast a light on a part of our shared history”: If it happened then, it can happen now. If it happened to them, it can happen to us, and there is bravery in that “clarion call” Hicks bellows through his books.  

“We’ve seen a substantial rise in fascism in our own country just in the past several years,” Hicks says. “That’s deeply worrying to me.” 

Even though the characters in his books are made up, the experiences are not: a cloudy day in Auschwitz, a pregnant woman in Ravensbrück or the reek of the gas chambers in Majdanek all happened to someone a long time ago.  

“I’ve spent 15 years writing about the Holocaust,” Hicks says. “I’ve visited 12 concentration camps, interviewed survivors. It’s taken such a toll. But I am really obsessive about my projects. Darkness just engulfs me, as it has to if I’m going to write authentically. To try to portray that monstrous darkness as anything other than that would be a crime against historical accuracy.”

To re-enact, he reads. “The Commandant of Auschwitz: An Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess” and “Hitler’s Furies” by Wendy Lower introduced him to his characters in the novels we read today. 

“I become really close to them – the good ones,” Hicks says. “Eli Hessel, the main character in ‘In The Shadow of Dora,’ it saddened me when I had to say goodbye to him. He was such a good guy. My main character in ‘Across the Lake,’ Svea, bad things happen to her, and she’s such a good person.”

But if not for fictional characters Eli or Svea or even Hans in “The Commandant of Lubizec,” we might not know the truth. 

“I don’t know exactly where the desire to write about the Holocaust came from, but sometime in the late ’70s, I saw this documentary on PBS showing the British footage of Bergen-Belsen: the bulldozers pushing the bodies into mass graves,” Hicks says. “I was just stunned at that monumental injustice, even at a young age like that, and the feeling has never left me.”

But sometimes, it must. Hicks says, “for his own mental stability,” he plans to take a break from writing about the Holocaust and is actually heads down on a book of nonfiction about his home state of Minnesota. There will still be history, but this time there will be humor, too. We can expect it later next year. 

There’s also his devotion to poetry, a subtle departure from the haunts in Nazi Germany. Not one to stray from his first love, we read about history in his stanzas alongside love letters to Europe, but here the words are mostly light, not dark; mostly playful, not scary. 

When I imagine how my parents met
in a Montreal bar, on a Wednesday in 1967,
I worry that it might not have happened –
that they might have turned from each other
to unconsummate me. 

Nonexistance begins when
my father walks to the restroom
his stylish lambchops blinkering his sight
and my mother drops something on the floor,
lipstick perhaps. They never make eye contact,
and I am blinded,
unloved. 

– an excerpt from “Lipstick Traces” by Patrick Hicks

Even though his office space at Augustana is no more than maybe 12x12, Hicks has two desks, two computers. On one he writes poetry, and on the other, he invents characters. I don’t know whether this is intentional, but the fiction-writing desktop is in the corner – in the dark and with his back to the door – and the other, the one on which he waxes poetry, sits right next to the light of the window, where students walk by and he gets a sure glimpse of the weather that day. In which space do you think it is easier for him to write? 

In many ways, Hicks is two writers for us – a dual personality he must succumb to, two different places he must go – but he is connecting us all the same. 

While his poetry can validate the universal experiences among all of us today – buckling in and tightening the car seat, riding on trains, traveling, and funerals – his fiction reminds us that, no matter how many generations have come before us, we haven’t changed as much as we might think. “There is still work to be done,” he writes in “Sitting on the Berlin Wall.” 

He has a masterful responsibility as he encourages us to weep and remember, understand and participate. In the dark and in the light, from his courageous quests to your reading nook at home, Patrick Hicks is steadfast in teaching us and then showing us the way.

As published for Sioux Falls Live.

Meet Rhode Island English language educator

Luis Oliveira arrived in the United States from Portugal at the age of nine. 

At the time, he thought of himself as a pretty good student. He was eager to learn and excited to start anew. But then he arrived to his first day. 

“I went from doing a really good job in school to having no confidence and feeling like I was stupid,” says Luis, who now teaches English language learners in Rhode Island. “And the reason I felt this way was because I couldn’t verbally express myself.” 

Luis recalls a math class in which the teacher was going over times tables. She had different problems up on the board and was asking the class for answers. 

“A lot of students were struggling,” he says. “I knew the answers, I just didn’t know how to say it! I was so frustrated that I got up and went right to the board to just write them down myself. I learned English pretty fast after that.”

Years later, he remembers that child vividly as he guides his students today. 

“Just because a student isn’t able to communicate does not mean they don’t have anything to say,” Luis assures. “We just have to find a way to bring their voice out.”

Advocating for Students, Teachers and Families, Too

Luis has been teaching at Middletown High School in Wickford for nearly 30 years. As a former Spanish teacher, he now works with English language learners alongside his role as an arts director, covering electives for the district and offering help as a tech coach for teachers as well. He discovered Flipgrid about three years ago during a professional development session. 

“I fell in love with it instantly because, right away, I saw how it could be used with my English language learners.”

His students responded likewise. 

“With English language learners, they don’t want to stand out,” Luis says. “They don’t want to be in front of the classroom until they’re comfortable with the language. But Flipgrid allows them to record in a quiet place alone. They can stop and record again, delete and start over until they feel comfortable enough, eventually giving them the confidence they need when they do have to finally get up in front of the class with everybody looking at them. I remember what that was like getting up in front of my class before I was ready.”

Luis says it’s the oral learning that has prevailed because he’s given his students an opportunity to see for themselves what they can achieve. 

“My students never believe they are showing improvement, so I use Flipgrid’s MixTapes feature all the time to say, ‘Look! In September, you were doing your video completely in Spanish. You couldn’t even speak in English. But, three months later, your videos are all in English!’ The proof is in the video.”

Luis has been training teachers, too, and even helping families acclimate to new technologies amid remote learning. 

“For many of these children, their families work in the restaurant industry, and, in many cases, restaurants are closed. Even under the best of circumstances, they are at a disadvantage,” Luis says. “So I have a phone log. I make a lot of calls to parents and deliver hot spots and laptops. I reach out in any way I can. I’ve been using Immersive Reader so families know where to pick up grab-and-go lunches.

“There were folks who did that for me a long, long time ago, and it’s why I got into education. We just have to think outside the box to fix any problems our kids are facing, so that’s what I do.”

Luis is resourceful, warm, persistent and kind. He empathizes with his students in a way that helps them feel a confidence in themselves without even knowing yet what’s possible. They keep going because he keeps going, and that little boy from Portugal should have known those steps toward the chalk board were for the millions of other children like him to follow.

“I am always thinking of the students’ needs and helping them where they’re at,” Luis says. “I am a very strong advocate for my kids – for all kids.”

Educators ‘co-pilots for life’

Early on in their marriage, Omar Lopez would walk into the garage to find his fishing lures color-coded. Again.

His wife, Fely, would then sneak around to tackle his office desk next, organizing paperwork and color-coding his folders there, too.

“I wanted to ‘fix’ everything for him!” Fely says. “I would organize his classroom the way it was perfect for me. And I’d be so excited and proud, like, ‘So, do you like it?!’ And he’d say, ‘No, no! This is not the way it goes!’ So now, I’ve learned to appreciate his own way. At least my desk is still neat!”

They smile at each other so big, her small hand on his big shoulder, with all the inside jokes and fond memories over the years and a respect for one another that could rule the world. 

“She’s linear and very organized, and I’m more abstract,” Omar says. “She sees long-term, I see short-term. Everything has to be just right for her, where I’m like, ‘Okay, it’s going to get done, but slow it down.’ Our energies are very different – she’s literally jumping all over the place, I’m more reflective – but we complement one another perfectly.”

With all the affection and all the passion anyone could muster in a day, Fely will get your attention, and Omar will make you stay. They are two fellow teachers in La Joya, Texas, who have been married for nearly 20 years, and if you’ve yet to meet them, any student will tell you this is true: Their love – opposite personalities and all – will inspire you to love that big, too.

Co-Pilots for Life

Omar and Fely met in an English class at a community college. Fely had recently moved to the United States after completing her education in Mexico, where Omar had grown up until age 10. After a year of dating, they decided to marry. 

“We told our parents on a Sunday night, and we got married Wednesday of that same week,” Fely says. “When we decided to get married, we had nothing. We only had money saved for a wedding dinner for our parents, and we didn’t even have a table for our apartment. Do you remember, Omar?” 

He nods slowly and warmly. “It was a folding table and folding chairs,” he says. 

“But we were super happy with it! And we worked very hard,” Fely adds. “We had my outline with all of our goals, and we accomplished a lot, little by little. We’ve been co-pilots ever since.”

Today, they are both educators at Irene M. Garcia Middle School, only a mile from where Omar grew up. He teaches eighth grade, and she teaches teachers as an ESL strategist. They both lead with empathy, warmth and, above all, passion.

“We have a lot of emphasis addressing the ELL population, because we see a lot of what we struggled with ourselves as far as the challenges,” Omar says. “We always start by looking at the strength and the value of each student and just help them do better. We know that everybody’s got something to contribute.” 

The Motivator and the Enthusiast

Fely speaks emphatically about the importance of building relationships with students. She addresses them as her “mi vida lindas,” jumps onto the tables to share her enthusiasm and looks up to them with a kind of confidence that leaves them all feeling invincible. 

“I remember my first year of teaching, my mentor said to me, ‘You’re not supposed to smile to the kids. They need to see you as their teacher,’ but I’m always super excited about teaching!” Fely says. “Unfortunately, a lot of these kids don’t see that smile at home. So, I think that affection and advocating for relationships is our responsibility. If you don’t love your kids, they’re not going to learn from you.”

“She will do anything possible to give these kids what they need,” Omar adds. “She’s passionate. She loves unconditionally, and there’s not a single student who doesn’t feel that.”

For Omar, Fely says he’s the motivator, the former coach who arrives rationally but always with the goal in mind. 

“I’m the crazy one, I’m the dreamer, but he’s very Zen, and the kids see that,” Fely says. “He has this ability to read the kids right away and to teach in different learning styles because he knows that not all of your kids learn the same way. So he adapts, and everything is about teamwork. 

“I will observe Omar talking to the kids as if he were on the field – motivating the students but from a very realistic point of view,” she adds. “He brings that Friday night football atmosphere to the classroom every day, and it’s beautiful.”

Of course, that teamwork exists at home, too. They both completed their master’s degrees while raising children and are now eager to get their doctorates together. Whatever kindness exists in their teaching, it began in the home, and it’ll end there, too.

“We’re always helping each other, pushing each other, pulling one another up and sharing ideas, but we do this for our children,” says Omar of their two boys. “It’s always about showing our kids the value of hard work, family and togetherness. Everything we do is together, but I can’t see it any other way.

He says it sweetly, with absolute conviction, and without breaking a glance from Fely, his co-pilot for life.