A Tale of Two Pencils: A Bilingual Ed Teacher Stands Up for Her Student
It was windy and cold that December day. It had to be 29 degrees outside, I thought, but I’m no weather girl. Some misbehaving high school student had just pulled the fire alarm and the football field was filled with coatless teachers, students, and a grumbling staff. The class huddled together like Antarctic penguins seeking [...]
Losing the Bilingual Battle Where it Matters: With My Own Daughter
I am sitting in the North Charleston Coliseum in South Carolina ensconced in a piece of pure Americana. A CNN debate between the Republican presidential candidates is unfolding beneath a sea of cardboard red, white and blue stars and stripes. “I favor English as the official language of government, and I think that creates a [...]
10 Ways to Educate Kids About Hispanic Heritage Month
Hispanic Heritage Month is the perfect time to jumpstart your child’s education on Latin America. While the contents of this article are written for homeschooling familias, parents with children in a public or private school will find this a useful after-school or weekend project.Here, then, is a brief description about the month-long celebration—and 10 ways [...]
I Wish I’d Learned Spanish
“Agua,” my mother said to me as she held out a glass. She refused to release it from her grip until I relented, but I walked away with a dry mouth rather than say the word “water” in Spanish. I was about 5 years old and quickly learned the comeback that was my only sure [...]
Teaching English, Latina Style
My tenth-grade students sat in the darkness, their eyes fixed on the grainy black and white photograph magnified on a screen in front of the classroom.They considered the four figures frozen in time: a man with an insouciant grin, a woman with a pearly smile, a curly-haired girl wiping her nose, another staring defiantly into [...]
How Knowing Spanish Helped Me on My SATs: Can it Help Your College-Bound Child?
My junior year of high school was exhilarating. The light at the end of the tunnel started to twinkle. Freedom seemed so near. The prospect of college was right on the horizon, and then, just as it seemed that I was ready to sail into the sunset of independence, I was hit with the sobering [...]
A Child’s Education Begins at Home
I didn’t mean to become Mommy Maestra. I sort of fell into it when my husband and I found ourselves in a bit of an educational dilemma.We’d recently moved to rural North Carolina from Texas after my husband accepted a new job. With two young children, ages 5 and 3, we were faced with the [...]
The Benefits of Bilingualism
If you were raised in a bilingual home, you probably already realize the advantages of knowing more than one language.Learning a second language at a young age makes it easier to learn new words, increases brain flexibility, and is correlated with higher achievement in school. It also can create a more lasting connection to one’s native [...]
