Mr. Matthew Freedman of Newburgh Free Academy, North Campus in Newburgh, New York has received a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching grant to Finland from the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Mr. Freedman is an English Language Arts teacher. As part of this program, Mr. Freedman will be moving to Finland with his family in mid-December and will return in June.

Mr. Freedman is one of approximately 35 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad through the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program in 2018-2019. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement and have demonstrated leadership potential.

Mr. Freedman’s Inquiry Project is entitled: Social Literacy and Teen Immigrants: Using Technology to Bridge Cultural and Linguistic Gaps in L2s. His topic focuses on immigrants and social literacy. Specifically, Mr. Freedman will be focusing on immigrants who are new language learners, their language acquisition, and the social product of language. Mr. Freedman plans to focus on three areas: understanding social literacy through a focus on policy, better understanding how to teach to absorb a growing refugee population, and then taking his learning and bringing it back to a committee.

This Inquiry Project will explore how immigrants, specifically upper secondary students who are digital natives, use technology as well as educational and welfare supports, to not only learn a new language, but use language as cultural and linguistic bridges between their new homes and their transplanted native communities.

Upon completion of this project and time in Finland, Mr. Freedman will return and utilities his research and findings to discover solutions regarding the disconnect between transplanted native communities (e.g. our Latinx community) and educational institutions (e.g. NECSD). The solution, in Mr. Freedman’s opinion, is multi-disciplinary and student-led.

Mr. Freedman is the second Fulbright recipient in recent history. Mrs. Christine McCartney, teacher at Newburgh Free Academy’s North Campus, received the honor in 2012.

Mr. Freedman received letters from NYS Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.  

More about the Fulbright award:

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Fulbright Program is funded through an annual appropriation by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations in foreign countries and the United States also provide direct and indirect support to the Program, which operates in over 160 countries worldwide.

Since its inception in 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 380,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, professionals and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Fulbrighters address critical global challenges in all areas, while building relationships, knowledge, and leadership in support of the long-term interests of the United States. Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many fields including 59 who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, 84 who have received Pulitzer Prizes, and 37 who have served as a head of state or government.

The Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program sends U.S. teachers abroad and brings international teachers to the United States for a semester of independent study and professional development focused on sharing international best practices and developing students’ global competence. Based at university-level schools of education or other educational institutions in the host country, participants complete an inquiry project, take courses, share their expertise with local teachers and students, and engage in action planning to implement what they learn on the program when they return home.

For further information about the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State, please visit http://eca.state.gov/fulbright or contact the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Press Office at ECAPress@state.gov.