Dilon Goncalves, Journalism & Mass Communication BA 2019, has received a 21-22 Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) award to Estonia! The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides grants for individually designed study/research projects or English Teaching Assistant Programs.
During their grants, Fulbright recipients will meet, work, live with and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences. The program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. Through engagement in the community, the individual will interact with their hosts on a one-to-one basis in an atmosphere of openness, academic integrity, and intellectual freedom, thereby promoting mutual understanding.
Upon graduating, Dilon worked as a program coordinator for the Feerick Center for Social Justice at Fordham Law School. With guidance from his colleagues, he helped form a committee of experts and stakeholders throughout New York City and they published a policy brief advising the New York City Department of Education Office of Student Enrollment on equitable educational practices. Dilon also helped develop the Center’s first civics education pipeline program for 7th and 8th-grade students.
Dilon’s interest in education began while attending middle school in Chicago. “What drew me to this field of study was experiencing first-hand the lack of equitable education that I received because of my family’s background. Meanwhile, my counterparts at predominately white public schools had more resources and better facilities. The expectations for them were to attend selective high schools and universities. My classmates and I were held to much lower standards. The teachers didn’t fail us, the U.S. educational system did,” said Dilon.
These personal experiences motivated Dilon to continue learning more about how these inequalities arise with the hopes of one day being involved in minimizing and ultimately, eradicating them. Although Estonia is a country that differs greatly from the U.S., the educational system in Estonia is significantly more equitable and people from different social and racial backgrounds are oftentimes afforded the same opportunities through this system. Therefore, Dilon is eager to learn from this experience and hopes to be able to one day apply this concept in education to his community. Upon completing his Fulbright assignment, Dilon hopes to attend law school and continue advocating for educational equity.
“I believe we can live in a world where every student has access to quality education. If it exists right now for certain students in certain communities, then it should exist for students that look like me and students from other marginalized groups, regardless of the neighborhood they reside in,” adds Dilon.