The More She Longs for Home, the Farther Away it Appears: A Paradox of Nostalgia in a Fulani Immigrant Girl’s Life

Nostalgia, which is derived from the Greek words nos (returning home) and algia (pain), refers to longing for the loss of the familiar (Kaplan, 1987). The loss of our connection to the familiar is a painful experience as such loss is connected to a fundamental loss, the loss of ourselves. By losing a connection to familiar people, objects, and places that continue to remain the same from the past to the future, we also lose the continuity within ourselves. And this discontinuity of our past, present, and future selves creates anxiety within us (Milligan, 2003). The painful experience that accompanies the loss of the familiar and the severe longing for the lost was originally viewed as a type of depression, which required psychiatric treatment. However, increasing mobility and changes in modern society have made nostalgia a more typical experience for many. Nostalgia is a relevant experience particularly for immigrants who live away from their homeland

Becoming Co-Witnesses to the Fukushima Disaster in an Elementary Literacy Classroom

This study explores what challenges fifth and sixth graders in Pennsylvania encountered as they exchanged letters with children in Fukushima and read a testimony of the Fukushima disaster written by a child there. Trauma theory and seikatsu tsuzurikata, a Japanese traditional critical literacy approach, were used in designing the project and in interpreting children’s engagement with the project. The children demonstrated signs of emerging empathy for children in Fukushima. However, the unspeakable nature of the trauma experience, students’ discomfort, and a pressure to read and write in a structured manner to prepare for the statewide exam posed obstacles for their development of empathy. Despite the challenges, some children acknowledged the importance of recognizing others’ feelings, including pain, no matter where they live. In order to prepare students as empathetic citizens of human society in an increasingly globalized world, the author urges educators to introduce testimonial readings from across the world in elementary classrooms

A Pedagogical and Postcolonial Response to Antonia Darder’s and Ward Churchill’s Talks

This is a response to Ward Churchill and Antonia Darder’s keynote speeches at the Post-Colonial Special Interest Group’s reception at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Education Research Association Conference in New Orleans