The Question...

Somewhere at the beginning of building LSLP, in those moments of doubt that sometimes happen in the journey, Polina asked Raúl a question, "Are you doing this for the glory, or because it's the right thing to do?" Building and nurturing the #LSLPLegion has been, for all of us involved, doing the right thing for the right reasons. We care about our students and our communities, we wish to make a difference from the arenas where we operate and we want to help build a better world, starting from the places we live and teach.

And then... every now and then... when we do things for the right reasons... people notice...
And sometimes... they also recognize what you do as something worth celebrating...

This is one of those moments...

About the Divergent Award

The Divergent Award is an idea from the Initiative for Literacy in a Digital Age at the University of North Dakota. This award recognizes individuals, publications, and organizations devoted to promoting new ways to look at literacy today, ingrained in principles of equity and social justice. The Divergent Award for Excellence in Implementation of Literacy in a Digital Age specifically recognizes the work of schools, research teams, and grassroots organizations in the promotion of literacy practices in their communities.

LSLP, a Divergent Community

We are honored beyond belief to be part of what has become one of the most recognized awards in literacies research today. Here's the moment of the official announcement:

And here is what the awards committee wrote about LSLP as grounds for the award:

LSLP brought together experienced faculty researchers from Colombia and around the world, along with veteran teachers and prospective teachers to build interdisciplinary, transnational scholarship that is transforming classroom instruction and impacting learning. This band of doers, thinkers, researchers, and writers is actively engaged with researching, presenting, and publishing interact with second languages as communicative and semiotic resources to create a multiplicity of languages and meanings. Dr. Mora and his Research Team have been conducting critical digital literacy work on gaming, multimodal pedagogies, and immersive world theorizing for the past five years. Situated and anchored within the Global South and framing their work around power and inequalities, we need to acknowledge this important work and the obvious gaps in research and theory within Global South contexts. 

(Well... LSLP has been around for ten years... but yes, most of our impact, both nationally and globally has been in the past five years!)

It is the last sentence which gave us goosebumps: We appreciate the acknowledgement of our work as an example of the groundbreaking research from and in the Global South (our idea our very own Dr. Berry talks so much about). We are one example of the amazing grassroots work happening in different universities and schools in Colombia. We are proud that our teachers are taking these ideas and theorizing with their students in their classrooms, right where theory belongs, if we are to listen to Paulo Freire's propositions. Yes, we publish and present and write, but we know that all that rings hollow if our students aren't learning better, becoming better, being better.

For us literacy has been something we are, not just something that we do (recalling some ideas from The Handbook of Critical Literacies). We don't need awards to remind us of why we do our work every day... but awards like this do provide a nice way to renew our goals and find new strength to return to our classrooms and keep making a difference.

A Brief Thank You Note From Dr. Berry

I often like to say (as we did in our first manifesto) that, "It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a Legion to build a field." I believed in the idea that "literacies in second languages" wasn't just a name, but a project, an agenda, an academic effort worth pursuing and fighting for. I have been fortunate to find allies and co-conspirators in different places. Some of those have been colleagues who are also friends (like the ones in our #lslpworldwide page) who have given us wisdom and comfort to keep moving forward. We are #globalacademics and we are honored our words have been taken so seriously in different circles. This award is the reaffirmation that we need to be louder in our advocacy efforts.

But, as I said, even if this was my idea, only when the students and teachers in the research lab rallied around the idea of the Legion, this took on a life of its own. This Divergent Award is a collective effort, a team effort, a community effort. It is the unwavering belief from 42 active researchers and at least 17 others who have helped build this dream. LSLP became more than a "research lab", it's deeply intertwined with eacn our lives. LSLP, for each of us, is something we talk about with pride with our classmates, our students, and our colleagues. It is something that has made it to dinner conversations with our parents, our siblings, our spouses, and our children (I've felt it first-hand when I've met my students' families, how proud they are of their child's/parent's/partner's participation in LSLP and how "Dr. Berry" isn't some stranger, but someone they know a lot about!). They have joined the Legion and they have believed in this project for as long as they were part of it (and I'm sure they're still rooting for our success wherever they are because our success is still theirs too).

So, to all of the researchers who have been part of LSLP, to all my students here who have trusted me as their mentor, their teacher, and their friend, all my love and gratitude for dreaming with me today, tomorrow, and always. This is your moment, this is your dream, this is your Legion for We Are Legion.

Acceptance Video