Sheila Shannon has taught in the SEHD for over 30 years. During that time she has combined teaching, research, and service to resist the inequities that Latinx students and their families and communities face. In this work she seeks to hear and share their experiences, voices, and hopes and dreams. She was a bilingual teacher on the border near El Paso in the early 80s. In 1982 the Supreme Court decided in Plyler vs Doe that all k-12 public schools provide all children free and equal access to education regardless of their own or their parents' immigration status. Texas schools at the time argued that they could exclude these children because they spoke Spanish and they didn't know what to do with them. This argument, despite the fact that the Bilingual Education Act had passed in 1968 AND I was a bilingual teacher at the time with a BS and an MA in bilingual education from a Texas university!
Gracias to all my teachers including my first teacher, my father, Joseph J Shannon.