FbT Post #7: Closing-Up... For Now

Final Thoughts

Feelings felt: immensely grateful

My Fulbright research grant ended mid-July, officially marking a bittersweet moment for me. In August, I finalized and submitted my first set of educator tools & reference materials, per the grant terms – but I already have ideas in the works to expand on them in the near future.

This placement was the most professionally validating experience of my life, with the fringe benefit of becoming a personal adventure into new lands and new intellectual pursuits! After 26 years of motherhood & 13 years of teaching — pouring into others — for me, this was a renaissance of sorts! It brought out an energy, a curiosity, a sense of ‘why not try it?!’, that has always been at my core but had become somewhat buried under the responsibilities of adulthood…

Often we, especially Americans, think of cultivating personal interests and hobbies as being a bit selfish… something we might try to “make time” for, outside of our real jobs and family time. We feel tinged with guilt over taking that time. Jobs are allowed to beckon even outside normal work hours: email, text, voice message notifications are hard to ignore. In education, especially, there are even expectations to volunteer for unpaid duties and roles beyond our job descriptions.

However, US-UK Fulbright programme coordinators are incredibly supportive of developing one’s whole self. With time, funding, and encouragement to pour into my research *and* myself, I was able to start so many projects from my “someday” list (developing this website, creating educational tools, writing a children’s book, sketch-journaling, posting travel blog vignettes). My balance is back. I feel energized to continue these projects, alongside teaching and future Fulbright-connected ventures!

I can’t even begin to describe all the wonderful people I met during the placement. I found coffee “dates” (or tea, when meeting English colleagues ;)) the universal way to foster talk: During my placement, I enjoyed coffee with a young lady from Iran, another from Thailand... Croatia, India, Italy, Wales, Ukraine, Ireland, Hong Kong, France, the list goes on! Some of these meet-ups were purely for pleasure, but I was also able to talk with renowned experts on multilingual education — people I’ve admired and cited in my own research. By sitting down over a latté or a cuppa, I learned that they are regular, friendly people who just happen to cultivate brilliant ideas. This fall, thanks in part to their support, my classroom will be a stronger and more encouraging environment for multilingual development, not only in English but across languages.

For anyone interested in professional research, please consider applying (albeit extremely competitive) for a Fulbright of your own, as I was surprised to find out about the opportunities for mid-career professionals. I was pleased to learn of even more opportunities for alumni. Stay tuned!

Here’s a peek at my final product, a practitioners’ Toolkit: Components for Connection: Building Confidence for Students & Teachers in Multilingual Contexts