Lyn Scott, Ph.D., a native of the rural Midwest, is a credentialed dual language teacher in Massachusetts and California teaching in two-way immersion and transitional bilingual education classrooms for over two decades. As an elementary teacher he joined colleagues and parents in restructuring their neighborhood public school into a multi-aged, dual language immersion public school. Inspired by the work of Paulo Freire, he immersed himself in the Brazilian culture early in his teaching journey, reflecting on adult literacy pedagogies relevant to the dual language development of young learners in American schools. Lengthy experiences in Taiwan, China, and Sweden stimulated his curiosity in national language policies impacting language diversity, schooling, and migration. His advocacy for linguistic human rights includes all students having access to education in their home language in addition to English and other languages. His doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Berkeley, investigated language policy in Mexican American homes in Arizona and California. Since 2012 he has served as a faculty member of the California State University system, currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Cal State East Bay. He is past president of the California Association for Bilingual Teacher Education and co-author of Community-Owned Knowledge; The Promise of Collaborative Action Research published in 2022. He is biliterate in Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, and English and conversational in Mandarin Chinese.
