Today's guest Okhee Lee is a professor and Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. She is a committed research, policy, and practice advocate who promotes STEM and language learning for all students, particularly multilingual learners. Lee was a member of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) writing team and served as leader for the NGSS Diversity and Equity Team. She also was a member of the Steering Committee for the Understanding Language Initiative at Stanford University. Her important work involves integrating science, language, and computational thinking with a focus on multilingual learners.
Okhee: When you do science, do you start with the molecules and atoms, or do you start with what happens to garbage? How do I sort the garbage? Everyday kinds of questions that students experience. Okhee: To be able to explain what is that stinking smell, now you have to know science to explain. It is not the words that matter. It's the ideas that matter. Brandon: Hey everyone. Hola a todos. I am Brandon Cardet-Hernandez and you're listening to Leading Multilingual Learning, powered by Medly Learning. In each episode, we're exploring the leadership, the ideas, and the insights shaping better education for multilingual learners. Brandon: And today, I am thrilled to welcome Okhee Lee to the podcast. Okhee Lee is a professor and Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at NYU. She is committed to advancing research, policy, and practice that promotes STEM and language learning for all students, particularly multilingual learners. Lee was a member of the Next Generation Science Standards writing team and served as leader for the NGSS Diversity and Equity team. She also was a member of the steering committee for the Understanding Language Initiative at Stanford University. Her work involves integrating science, language, and computational thinking with a focus on multilingual learners. And I am so thrilled that you are with us today. Welcome. Okhee: I'm so thrilled to be with you today. Thank you for inviting me. Brandon: Of course. So, you have this very impressive bio, and you've listened to other people tell you all of the things you've accomplished before. I love to ask our guest, is there anything not in your bio or intro that you wish more people knew about you or knew this part of my work and impact? Okhee: So people would know that I'm a scholar and people would know that I am, I try to be kind, but I hope that people know two other things. One, I would like to give for other people's children. And then two, I want people to know that I'm funny. Brandon: I've already seen that funny side of you. And of course, in our brief conversation so far and before we got to start recording, I got to see that generous side of you too. So I'm seeing both. Okhee: Thank you. Brandon: You're welcome. What brought you into this work, into leading work for multilingual learners? Okhee: Okay. So, I was in Miami, Florida for over two decades. And I studied Miami. I moved from Michigan to Miami and I arrived at the Miami International Airport and I saw "Welcome" in three languages: English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole. And I said, I'm not in Kansas anymore. And some people might think of it as a challenge or different, but I endorsed it as an opportunity to do something. And doing research in Miami, we're talking about the early 1990s, more than three decades ago. And doing work in Miami is working with children from diverse languages and cultures. It's a part of it. So when I did language and culture in science education, the reaction from people was, what do language and culture have anything to do with science? Because at the time, about three decades ago, science was perceived as universal, and science is a science and math is a math, and it has nothing to do with language and culture or anything else. So for that reason, I happened to be at the right place at the right time to start or be part of the work of thinking of language and culture as a part of science education. Brandon: I love that and two, you should know this. I am from Miami. And so any time someone sings my city's praises, I see you because it's my favorite thing about Miami is that you're right. You can be in the grocery store and it's just multilingual by design. Everything is available in multiple languages. It is a special place. Okhee: So for listeners, Brandon and I share two common places. We both lived in Miami and New York City. Brandon: This is true. True and two great cities. So today I'm going to explore with you three areas. I want to talk about science and language with multilingual learners. I also want to talk about justice-centered STEM with you and how we're thinking about language there. And then, as a researcher, I want to talk about a thing I am so focused on, which is this research-to-reality gap. What's happening at NYU and then what's happening on the ground. And so we'll dance between all of those things. But to start, I'd love to hear about your involvement in the Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS as most of us call it, in the early 2010s. Describe how the NGSS addresses all students and the work you were doing there for multilingual learners. Okhee: So, I just arrived to New York City from Miami for a personal reason. So I was starting over my life as an independent person, Okhee, not so-and-so's wife anymore, when my late husband passed away. So I was just settling down at New York University and I got a call from the group called, "We would like to invite you to be part of the NGSS writing team." And typically I would give about a day or two before making a decision. But when I got the call, I was just thinking that it is a national initiative and I was committed to bringing research, policy, and practice together. And it was the right thing to do. So I thought, I'm going to go into the dark place of policy, not the more safe place of research. So I decided to jump into the dark side of policy and I gave the response of, of course I would be honored to do it. So that's how I started. Now, I was also very fortunate that because I was a part of the science standards writing team and I was leading the diversity and equity team, I also got invited by the Understanding Language Initiative at Stanford. And Understanding Language Initiative was an attempt to bring policymakers, practitioners along with researchers across language in relation to the content areas of ELA, math, and science and social studies. So I just happened to be at the right place to see the connection between the science standards on one hand, and then language initiative on the other hand, as two policy initiatives. So I was the connecting tissue of all three. I was doing research and I got involved in policy in science and policy in language. Brandon: That's incredible. And yes, a dark side, I've also taken a stint in the policy space, but one that has incredible impact. And so it's beautiful to see how it all comes together to serve kids. Okhee: Incredible impact. And if anyone is wanting to make an impact, it's a policy that impacts the system. Brandon: Yeah, it is. And we need more people who understand the complex needs doing that policy work so that they're building the right system impacts. Brandon: There is this common instinct in schools to prioritize English language development before giving multilingual learners access to rigorous content. And I get the instinct from teachers to school leaders, there's this sort of, "They need the language first," sort of saying that sometimes falls into our buildings. You've spent your career arguing the opposite. So why is science actually one of the best contexts for language development in your opinion? Okhee: All right, so I will go back to the science standards and Understanding Language Initiative, between the two. So I would like to communicate with the primary audience of language educators that the contemporary science standards have flipped from knowing science and reading science books to doing science and engineering as scientists and engineers do. So when you think about what engineers and scientists do, they have a question they would like to find out because they have something that they want to explain why something happens and how we make a solution for a problem. So what it used to be is that students traditionally had to learn science. This is a science that scientists and teachers told the students to learn about. So remember reading about molecules, reading about atoms. And for some students who are interested in science, they will say, "Yes, I'm really excited." But most people, "I don't see why it matters to me." So it completely flipped that. It is not a fancy idea for students doing science or engineering. In fact, 49 states except for one have all agreed on taking this contemporary approach. So if anyone is visiting a classroom, we are expected — I'm not saying we should, but we're expected — to see students explaining why something happens, like what happens to my garbage? Or why does it matter if I drink tap water or bottled water? Or I go to the drainage and I see lots of plastic. Why do we have so much plastic and what happens to plastic? These are the phenomena that students care about, that they see in everyday life. So when they do science, they have a question, I want to figure out. And I would like to, once we know what happens to the garbage, I want to do something about reducing the garbage. So in the current thinking, students are doing science and students are doing engineering as they explain. So it's thinking, it's doing, it's a doing. Not just hands-on. But it's a phenomenon. It's an engineering, how to make it work. And when you think about that, so here comes, when you do science, do you start with the molecules and atoms, or do you start with what happens to garbage? How do I sort the garbage? So these are the just everyday kinds of questions that students experience and to be able to explain what is that stinking smell, now you have to know science to explain. Brandon: Yeah. And you were drawing from language and developing language all the while. Okhee: That's exactly. So it is not you need to know the particles and the gas and there are microbes causing banana to decompose. No. It's a smell is something, it's made of something. But why we cannot see? Because it's made of little, little, tiny things. And how do you call them? Particles. Okay. So guess what, gas is made of particles of a banana. And when it disappears, why does it disappear? Because it is decomposed. When you explain like that, it is not the words that matter. It's the ideas that matter. Brandon: And the words start to then connect and make sense and grow and expand as a result. Okhee: So the language in the service of doing science. So the idea is not learning science and applying or learning language to do. Instead, it's a doing science and then learning science along the way. It's not learning the language in abstraction or in the void. Instead, it's using language because I need to communicate my ideas to explain why. Brandon: What an empowering shift for young people. Okhee: That's expected of pretty much across the entire nation except for one. So we used to think of that science because science is hands-on, children are doing tactile, hands-on is language, reducing the language load, so our students are learning. So we think of science as more of it's visual, it's hands-on. Yes, they are, but what is really conceptually more important, beyond the science, is that when you think about that you are figuring out math ideas, you're figuring out the ideas in social studies, or figuring out in science, it's learning about communicating ideas and language is in the service of communicating ideas. Brandon: I'm thinking about and just for folks who are listening, part of what we're talking about is the work that you did with SALE, Science and Integrated Language, a year-long fifth-grade curriculum funded by NSF. Each unit is anchored in a local phenomenon. We're talking about garbage or there's disappearing salamanders, tap water versus bottled water, falling stars, all of these things that you're really explaining. We're developing language by explaining our thinking behind the broader process and what's happening in each of those ecosystems. Does that feel right? Am I doing a good job? Okhee: That's wonderful. You get it right. Brandon: I got it. Science classrooms, and just so folks also know, and they should really check this out, award-winning SALE garbage unit, which we were sort of referencing, has become one of the ones that folks talk about the most, right? Where there's this process of doing, saying, and producing that's very different than what we see in more traditional science curriculum. Science classrooms involve a lot of modes beyond text. That's what makes that learning environment so special: observation, drawing, modeling, augmentation, gesture, all of that with their peers. How do those multiple modalities change what's possible for a student at an early stage of English proficiency compared to a class that's heavily text dependent like their English class or their social studies class? Okhee: All right, so you asked a multi-pronged question. It has multiple components. And I wanted to say thank you for SALE. I have to admit for the listeners that I'm a lady who talk trash. So bear with me. I talk trash. But because I talk trash a lot, I wanted to say that I just recently received something called, it's a long, International Society for Design and Development in Education Lifetime Achievement Prize for doing the design around the SALE and curriculum. Congratulations. Thank you. It is an international society and I am going to Warsaw, Poland to give a keynote next summer. It's something. I make this statement not because of me, but it's a team's work and it's how the field of science education, the contemporary approaches, have been recognized for making an impact. So that's the reason. So let's talk about the garbage, the stinking smell of a garbage. So I am going to invite the audience to come along with me, all right? It's the first day of fifth grade science. Brandon, you are a fifth grade student. You come to school and you come to science class and then you see heaps of garbage from school lunch. Now, what would be your reaction? Now knowing that you are a troublemaker, a trailblazer, you're going to say, "Cool, what are we going to do in science? This is something different. I just had a lunch from my cafeteria." And then other people may say, "Yikes." Okay. But whether it's excited or yikes, we got them. Something different. It's something different. So we have to be all the safety of the gloves and not edgy in class and all that. So I just wanted to be sure about the safety issues. So the first task, and come along with me, is we are asking fifth grade students to sort the garbage into groups. With gloves on. Gloves on and then tongs. Okay. Now what would you do if you're sorting the garbage into groups? Typically you would do... You're picking out the types of foods that are like each other, maybe cans with cans and paper with paper. Do you think a fifth grade students will do the same just like what you said? Maybe, there might be some squealing too, like this is disgusting. So fifth grade students typically would do, here is food and here is non-food. Yeah, that makes sense. It's a binary. Binary, they will start that, food and non-food. Now, if you are a language person, you may say biotic and abiotic and say it doesn't matter. That's the language. No, it's food we eat and we don't eat. That's the purpose right now. It's okay. So now within food, how would you sort all the food materials? Maybe things that were like vegetables or fruit, maybe peels and then all the other stuff like the meat and the Different categories, you can think of that way. You can also do something like drinks and bread. Yeah. Yeah. Now in terms of non-food items, how would you sort the non-food items into subgroups? Paper, plastic, aluminum, right? You're doing great. Welcome to the fifth grade. I'm so ready. So students are just doing sorting the garbage into groups. What are they doing when they're sorting the garbage? Are they doing it randomly or are they doing something systematically? I think there's some real systems happening or starting to emerge. Right? Okay. Now when students sort, are they doing some sort of analysis? I'm sure. How could you not, right? So they are analyzing the qualitative, the qualitative. So they are doing analysis. And when they're doing, let's say liquid, I mean the drinks and solid, you can say that's the context to think about, here is the liquid and here is a solid items. And then you say that the banana has a very nice smell. Is this something or nothing? It's something. But if it's something, what is it? Gas. Yeah. You already did the three things just by saying liquid, solid, and gas. So much language in that moment. Okay. Now you can also say that when you have food and non-food, how do you sort, you say, what is similar and what is different between the two groups? And you're going to say, the food you can eat and it's, but plastic and paper you cannot eat and it's a solid and all that. And then you say, how do you sort them based on what? The features. And how do you call them? Properties. Oh, we sort the garbage materials into groups based on properties of materials. So the word is needed to explain, but the word does not come first. Now here's a dramatic example though. When students sort the garbage, do they need the language to sort the garbage? Not entirely. No. No. Not entirely. No. What is doing the work of sorting? Your mind. Yeah, of course. So if you are learning English as an additional language, all you have to do is let the hands do the work. Yeah. But there is a processing that's happening, there's an organizing that's happening, there's a synthesizing that's occurring. And you're right, the language isn't the first thing, but the next step starts to become language in that process. Yeah, thinking is the first thing based on. And so now you can see that you just did a sorting without ever using one word of language. And when they are arguing, say, "Put it there, put it over there, not here." That's all they need to communicate because they are using very everyday language. And then this is where you can see that gestures and using hands, because gestures and hands are not just accessories, gestures and hands are doing the work of our thinking. Yeah. And then you start from very simple language and then you say, "How do you call them? Patterns. How do you call them? Properties?" Because you need the language to communicate eventually. But it starts from ideas. So why you said about the non-linguistic modalities. Yeah. Also the visuals, we call it visuals, but visuals really include what, drawings and charts and computational models and gestures and all of those are non-linguistic modalities. So I think there is a bit of a misnomer when you come to content areas that it's not using, it's not just the language, it is communicating ideas and communication involves linguistic and non-linguistic modalities. In fact, when you come to a subject like science or math, you cannot do without using symbols and tables and charts and data as non-linguistic modalities. Brandon: They become these perfect practicums for language to also emerge. Okhee: Yes, and you can think of science as a medium to learn language. But I give credit to WIDA 2020. I know that you've had Tim Boals as a guest and we have been working together and we Tim, thank you. We have been thinking together and working together. Tim, I apologize that I critiqued the ELP and ELD standards, the previous version, because it was lacking. Since we're talking about now science and language, for example, science, science has one science standard with all the states with some varying degrees of adaptations. But it is a one framework, one conceptual grounding that the science education community agrees on. But in language education, I learned through my realization that the language education does not have a consensus. We have multiple theories and we have six sets of ELP, ELD standards. And one main limitation of the previous ELP and ELD standards is that when you look at the fine print of ELP, ELD standards, it will say something like that the science standard or a standard expects all students to do argue from evidence. But then in fine print, it said level one student labels a couple of words. Level two proficiency students describe using phrases. Level three students do something, categorize, using sentences. Level four students analyze using a couple of sentences and possibly a paragraph. Level five students do evaluate until they exit to argue. Now when you think about it, the content standards are expected of all students. But then according to that framework of ELP and ELD standards, level one student is expected to do less in terms of cognitive function, but also the amount of language and basically the language proficiency was equated with a cognitive ability based on Bloom's taxonomy of 1958. It is an appropriate and interesting critique. So I made a critique because being a leader for science standards, I was making science standards accessible to all students and I was studying the ELD and ELP standards and I was realizing, I don't understand this. How come that level one student like me would be sitting and labeling, and then you level three would be describing in sentences, and Maria level five would be evaluating in paragraphs, when all students are supposed to do the argument from evidence. So I realized that at the time, however you call English learners or multilingual learners, succeeded despite the contradiction. We expected less. So when WIDA 2020 came out, I was really excited because it turned things around and I thank... You were heard. Yeah, I thank you. I mean thank you for the field. So now I can say that WIDA 2020 is almost like a mirror image of a science standards. So just like a science standards, expect all students to be like a scientist and engineers, doing science and engineers to make sense of, to explain. And WIDA uses multilingual learners that is beyond English learners in the federal regulation. Now science would say that it's not knowing science or knowledge of, instead the contemporary thinking is that it's using knowledge to do something. It's knowledge in the service of or knowledge in use. WIDA 2020 follows the same philosophy that it's not the language of or knowing language or what language is. Instead in schooling, it's using language in the service of what? Learning science. Yeah. Or using language to do something, using language in context. So you can see that this is why I say doing science and using language and then learning language and I mean learning science and learning language. So the point that you are asking, I was saying quite a bit, so you can see that how the two content areas, especially science that I can say, and language are going together. But this time, not just doing the hands-on thing, but it's a thinking part. It's students are doing science and students are thinking about how to communicate their ideas. Brandon: Yeah, it's such a respect to how we actually process information and then move that processing into language. Okhee: Right. I mean even adults, what am I going to say? If I don't have an idea, I have nothing to communicate. What am I going to say? And how am I going to organize ideas? And now, how am I going to communicate? Brandon: There's something very tender about the patience and really seeing that there is a full process happening that's more than just word to meaning. Okhee: It's organic, right? Because I have a reason, reason to communicate. And that also is a very much an asset-based approach. So why is that? We just said that we don't say Okhee or Brandon doesn't speak English, not to mention read or write. Forget about that. So she cannot participate because we are going to use words and language. Instead, we are saying that Brandon brings ideas about garbage. And you can participate. So you're part of sorting the garbage. At one point in the garbage unit, go back to school, okay. Now I'm not going to ever use the word conservation and all the big words that fifth grade students will learn. But instead, you open landfill bottle. And after some time, students are going to measure the weight of open and closed jars. Now Brandon, I'm going to ask you, what would be the weight of the open landfill bottle? Less than the closed one? Why? Because the closed one is holding air? It's holding it, right? Yeah. Okay. So let's say that you are a language learner and I am very articulate in English. So I can say that I see the water drops there overnight and because there are water drops and there is a condensation and it's a new substance, and therefore the weight should be more in the closed system, and it sounds so scientific. Brandon, what would you say? I might start dozing off. But if you would like to communicate your ideas and you just don't quite have English language yet, what would you do? All you have to do is the same. Yeah. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out, the same. Or you could even draw that just the same, closed. So I dominate language over you because I know all the expressions and words, but my idea, not quite have merit. But you, learning English at even at the beginning level, you can communicate with gestures of the same, nothing gets in, nothing gets out. You can draw, you can measure the weight and you can show the data. Now why is that an asset approach? Brandon: I'm letting you show up with what you have. I'm seeing you as ready. And from that asset lens, and I talk about this a lot Okhee Lee, this is where we start to really bring belonging in. And I will feel part of this community. I'll take the intellectual risk that is required to speak a language that you're not totally fluent in. I'll start taking that risk because I feel part of this space. Okhee: Because your ideas matter. So we take merit of ideas, but not the accuracy of language. Brandon: Yeah. Oh, I want to really hold this and I hope our listeners are really hearing this. Merit of ideas, not accuracy of language. That is, it is in that space, that if we're holding that space, we're able to develop language probably faster because we're creating the conditions for that to take shape. Okhee: And belong. I have ideas. So I would have considered that this is where the policy comes in. Okay. That in schooling, it used to be that literacy dominates and still dominates. Yeah. And the prominent literacy scholar, David Pearson, you say along with Nel Duke and others. Okay. And they would say that literacy should be a buddy, not a bully of content areas. A buddy, not a bully of content areas. Tell me more of what that means to you. So literacy should be in the service of learning content, not literacy as dictating whether you're ready to learn content or not. And it's because it's a traditional approach of we are reading about science and you are learning science. So you should know how to read, you should know how to write. So the literacy used to be a barrier and it's a particularly the case of for multilingual learners. Instead, we are saying that it's the idea that you bring that matters. And then you belong. Yeah. And there's this process of doing science. And it's beyond hands-on. It is making sense of. Brandon: 100%, the whole process, all of those things, the cognitive process. Okhee: Yes, and based on the experience, this is what we mean by local. Why local? Because I have to have the experience to be meaningful and compelling. Otherwise it's abstract. Brandon: I'm going to ask you a question about something that's quite possibly some of your more recent work, or maybe your most recent work funded by NSF, which is a justice-centered STEM education for multilingual learners in middle school where you used COVID-19 as a case study. Tell me what justice-centered means to you in this context. Okhee: So the NGSS were cruising along starting from 2013 and states adopted the standards and made adaptations of the standards in their own state context, fine. And then what happened? COVID-19. And the world were impacted. And so my realization at the time, even as an NGSS writer, is that when we think about the garbage, tap water and bottled water, they are relevant, but they are not like challenges to society. COVID-19 was a world pandemic. And then came the awareness of climate change, pollution, sustainability, health inequities, all those inequities that are just societal challenges. So that came to be my humble realization that science and engineering and STEM education should go beyond explaining but solving the problems that impact all of us, particularly minoritized groups. Brandon: I love this. When I was a school leader, we built this, and I was a turnaround principal, we built a J-term. This sort of fifth quarter that we broke apart the weeks in the school year where our students did a project we would call "Be the Change." And it was very local, deeply justice-centered work that could live across multiple content areas. So that might be that we were in the South Bronx, so a real analysis of the air impacts because of the Bruckner running through their community, a big highway that has led to one of the highest youth asthma rates in the country. And really thinking, well, what would it take to shift the emissions and how could you still keep that highway and change that experience for the community? Or there was a series of stray dogs in the neighborhood and there was this analysis the kids went out and did this really interesting project where they were counting the number of dogs to then design what the animal shelter would look like to be able to have the capacity. So they had a camera with a tracker where they counted and they did this entire, it was numerical, they were researching where the space was that they would build this and it was amazing. The projects out of it I could spend a whole, I could spend hours with you telling you some of the cool stuff that the kids did during this work, but all of it... When was that? 2016, 2015, 2014, yeah. So you are, you are a pioneer. You're ahead of the game. I I wasn't thinking of that community-based and justice-based until the COVID happened and whoops, we are in a, again, we're not in Kansas anymore, globally speaking. You and I both love to do work where we are having impact, where there is an ROI on our time where if I do this, it's going to lead to something. And it may be slow, it may be fast some days, I go backwards before I go forward. Kids are the same. The same. So you just said that they found a problem that they are committed to. That's a problem. It's the same idea of science standards. There is a phenomena problem that I want to solve. Now this is just a challenge in the society. It's a bigger challenge, right? That's one. You just said something about that they are collecting data. Yeah. Now if students you are doing it, they will use some computational model to see why it happens, to explain why. And then they will do if it's a problem, where it's affecting more minoritized groups. And then what am I going to do to solve this problem? Engineering. So you just said about asking the question like a scientist, and you are collecting data like a data scientist, you are using models to explain like a computational thinking, like a computer scientist, and then you are solving the problem just like an engineer. And all that happens through language. And then it's about the assets and you're communicating. You just said it. Yeah. And it was the most powerful learning experience. I recently, I will tell you this, had lunch with one of my former students who is now in graduate school in business school. You look like a spring chicken. Thank you very much. And he and he was a middle school student of mine, so I had him when he was, I ran a 6-12. And he was visiting Boston, coming through and reached out to me, also how lucky am I that kids want to circle back as adults to tell you about the impact you've had. And he talked about one of those projects. He was like, "In seventh grade, we did this thing." And he joined a group that was assessing in the highest concentration of public housing, the number of places within these units where women, teen girls could get access to sanitary solutions and products. And they took the data, they looked at sites, they went to every building, a real analysis of the lack of access that women and girls had in their neighborhood. And he was like, it is one of the things I remember the most. That's exactly, that's the impact, right? So you can imagine at least from the garbage unit, students are going to say, "That smell of a garbage that we did in science." They will forever remember. And when they do the COVID-19 or pollution or the community projects that you did, they are going to say that we learned that some groups were really impacted by the COVID-19 and other groups and why. It's not fair. So that's impactful learning more than learning the language or learning science concepts. And then they are in a constant state of dialogue. So once you're energized by something, you are looking for words to express that excitement, that joy, that connection. And that was amazing. I remember watching kids try to talk about the thing they are doing because they thought it was really cool. You just said not teaching the vocabulary, front loading or pre-teaching, but it's a language becomes a part of their discourse, the ideas. It's exactly it. My heart is breaking because we are approaching time. But I want your thinking on one thing before I let you go. Actually two things before I let you go. The first one is this, you have been widely recognized and awarded by institutions across research, policy, and practice. It's clear that your commitment to bringing all of this work together is deep, right? You have 140 plus journal articles, a number of books, you've written national science standards, you've influenced the development of WIDA 2020 as you know, and obviously just developed incredible curriculum. I'm curious from your lens, how do you think about developing general agreement around the sort of research, policy, and practice? How are you think you've touched all of it and how are you thinking about what we need to do to get better in bringing it all together? Okhee: Thank you for your kind words. My first thinking that I hope that educators do more, including going into the dark side of being a principal and being a superintendent, as well as doing research in policy or making an impact policy is that the developing a consensus is really important. One example that I can say is that at least in science education community right now, research impacted policy of science standards and then 49 states adapted or adopted the standards and then those standards have become materializing in classrooms. So the consensus is really important. So I would say that that's one step and I use science as an example. And this is why I'm imploring the language education community to come to a consensus of the L community is dot, dot, dot. We can argue and we can bicker within the family, but when you are outside the family, we, the family is dot, dot, dot. That's what I would like to ask any community but in this case, the language education community to come up so that it's not multiple standards or multiple views all coexisting but something that is synthesized. That's one. But once you have a consensus, then it's the education system whether it has the capacity to implement or not. And I could say that science education that community has built the consensus that the researchers and policymakers and practitioners are all excited about, but I'm not sure whether the education community has the system. And especially if it's ambitious. So when people ask me about, "How can you change the education system?" And I apologize, but I would joke at the time that, "But I'm not Betsy DeVos, I'm not the secretary, I cannot change." So those are at least some of the components that I can think of. Brandon: And then, I think kindly, it's knowing that if you're building something where there is no capacity for implementation, we continue to allow this gap of research to reality to exist. So there's something maybe it's about also building things that are realistic that we know we can get implementation to happen. Okhee: Just like what you said about your community project with your students many years ago in 2015, that's 10 years ago. And the students still remember. So when I have this conversation with you, at first when you say that when I said doing science and using language in the service of, it's a little bit, "Huh, you have to know language." But now you are saying about the experience that you have and you say, "Of course, because it is compelling to the students. It's about the local, it's that involves the family and themselves and community." And then they remember and they use language and non-linguistic to communicate ideas. That's exactly. So you have an impact. And the audience who is listening to this podcast will say, "Wow, Brandon did it a decade ago." Oh. Okhee is doing it now. No, no, no, we're all doing it together. But that's the impact that you're making. Brandon: Thank you. That means a lot. Before I let you go, I am curious, what is something you're learning from right now? Okhee: In terms of my personal growth, I follow my late mom and my late husband who I think are still guiding me. So that's my personal guidepost. And in terms of professional, I am always amazed by practitioners who are making a difference in the field. The research is much more conceptualized. I mean it's hard to implement. But just the everyday practice of, especially when you think about the changes in the education system, practices through the pandemic of COVID, and then the political unstability, and then the forceful coming of AI, and it's changing so fast. And I I really respect and admire the people who are making the difference on a daily basis. Brandon: I appreciate that. What a beautiful way to end. It has been such a joy to get to chat with you. I think you are a gift and a light and I'm really excited that I got to meet you and have this conversation. Okhee: It has been a pleasure to meet you, Brandon, especially your community projects with the students a decade ago. That really impresses me. Brandon: I love that. I'll send you some more after this about it too. Where can people find you if they want to get in touch? Okhee: I'm at NYU, my personal website, and publications. Good, they'll search it out. And also invite me to give a talk. I'll be happy to give and I don't charge. Oh. Okhee, you're about to get some emails. I made a mistake. As long as travel expenses are covered, I don't have a fee. I'll be happy to communicate anyway. Brandon: Thanks everyone for listening to this episode of Leading Multilingual Learning and thanks Okhee for the great conversation. We'll see you all next time on Leading Multilingual Learning powered by Medly Learning.