In today’s increasingly unquiet, unstable and interconnected world, it is more vital than ever to engage productively with difference. There has been a great deal of scholarship on harnessing the language resources that multilingual learners bring with them to school, and we know this to be beneficial for these students. However, we also know that the devil is in the detail when it comes to bringing these ideas into the classroom.

As a bilingual teacher, researcher, and mother, I have long been involved in children’s language education, both in theory and in practice. Over the past decade, I have worked with children aged six weeks to eight years. Since 2019, my research has focused on bilingual programs in early childhood education. In 2025, with the birth of my daughter, this professional interest became deeply personal as I began raising a child in three languages: Chinese, English, and Greek.

Recently, Dr. Mobina Sahraee Juybari spoke with A/Prof. Julie Choi (ARTP Lab leader), Dr. Raf Cleeve Gerkens, Dr. Shu Ohki, and PhD candidate Melissa Slamet. The discussion offered insights into how plurilingual, arts-informed, and holistic approaches can come together to support learners across educational contexts.

When I first joined an English bridging program as a teacher in Australia, I quickly learnt the unwritten rule: real learning happens in English. Even a stray browser tab showing Chinese text could raise eyebrows. I knew this because a coordinator reminded me that Chinese text should not appear in a classroom computer's browser history. I am Chinese-born and raised, and I felt like an imposter, as if my Chinese-ness was a liability that needed to be carefully managed.

La Alabarda (the halberd symbol of Trieste, Italy) has featured as a sticker on every car I have owned. I expect the symbol, a white lance on a striking red background, would be unfamiliar to most motorists who view it on my back windshield.

A few years ago, a multilingual student shared their experience of school assessment with me during a research project: