Ilana Umansky, Class of 1987
We talked to Ilana Umansky, Class of 1987, who shared about her travels with her new Eurovan Camper and experiences teaching in the College of Education at the University of Oregon.
What is your role at the University of Oregon and what fueled your interest in this work?
I am faculty in the College of Education where I direct a master’s program in education policy, teach, and conduct research on how education policy shapes the opportunities and outcomes of multilingual and immigrant-origin students. So, I study policies like California’s ban of bilingual education and then later ban-reversal but also federal law around the responsibilities schools have for students who are developing English and how those play out in different contexts and for different students. I became interested in this subject through an interest I had in learning how education systems worked in other countries, and how education systems change as wider politics change. I can trace some of this back to Berkwood Hedge where I remember learning and singing songs about Nicaragua’s revolution in my classrooms in the early 1980s. I appreciate that my teachers at Berkwood Hedge were socially and politically engaged people who saw part of their work as educating us to be engaged in the world as global citizens.
What have you learned through this work?
I’ve learned that there are countless committed and talented educators working to support multilingual and immigrant students in US classrooms and that, in part thanks to them, so many brilliant kids are growing up flourishing. But I’ve also learned that equity and educational justice for these students also depends on fair and functioning systems, structures, rules, and practices. Multilingual students currently face enormous hurdles in schools due to the fact that systems and rules are designed around the notion that their multilingualism is a problem to be overcome, not a gift to be nurtured. In my work I’ve found that multilingual students experience high rates of exclusion from core content instruction in school, and that when in content, they are often relegated to low track and low status classes. I’ve found that their home language is rarely supported or developed in school, they are under-identified in Gifted and Talented programs, and that they are often segregated into schools and classrooms with concentrated poverty and comparatively low academic outcomes. As a result, this talented group of students, often living in communities with incredible ambitions and cultural and familial resources for their children, are far too likely to struggle in school, drop out or not advance to college.
Where are you planning to travel in your new campervan?
My husband is a bass player whose work takes him far and wide. I think his adventurous lifestyle is part of what drew me to him initially. But with my work at the University, and our two kids, my life is not nearly so adventuresome. During the campervan craze of the pandemic, I started imagining myself being able to go to the beach for the weekend, or explore Oregon’s high desert, or hidden hot springs and waterfalls. So, I don’t have ambitions to drive across the country, or drive to Chile or anything like that. I want to explore Oregon and the beautiful Pacific Northwest on little getaways.
What are you hoping to experience or gain from your travels?
I want to feel free and independent in my little campervan, like I can drive away on a Friday after work and come home on Saturday if I want to. I want to learn how to fix at least some of the little things that I know will keep going askew in a nearly-30-year-old vehicle. And I want to keep myself and my family rejuvenated and inspired by all exquisite beauty that we are so fortunate to co-exist with.
What lessons did you learn at Berkwood Hedge School that you still use in your everyday life?
I was at Berkwood Hedge from Kindergarten in 1980 until graduating 6th grade in 1987. It’s hard to know exactly how all of those years shaped me, but I do think that a strength of mine is that I value and live a balanced life. I work hard and am very passionate about my work, but I also love to put my work down at the end of the day and try a new Samin Nosrat recipe, laugh on the phone with my mom, listen to a concert, take a dance class, or walk up into the woods. I think Berkwood Hedge valued and cultivated this balance in us as students. We were new people in the world, and our teachers cared about our sense of self, our values, our engagement with each other, and our footprint on the world, along with our academic learning. I have many wonderful memories from those years, Joe’s Mr. Popper’s Penguins stories, writing instructions to an alien on how to put a new roll of toilet paper into its dispenser, and visiting the Ohlone shellmounds. I am grateful to Berkwood Hedge for all of these experiences!