Nearly each moment each day, I have thoughts and words swirling in my head surrounding the covid epidemic, its outsized impact on the black community, the lynching of George Floyd in a long train of murders of or threats to peaceful and unarmed black men at the hands of white police and white people. When …
Today I want to tell you about a group of people that inspires me… This last fall I had the great pleasure of teaching a 6-week foundational Spanish class specifically for office professionals of the Ritenour School District, serving the area of Overland, MO, northwest of the city of St. Louis. The first time I …
I want to share with you 5 reasons why I think teachers are exceptionally positioned to learn Spanish in comparison with your average profession. Reason #1: Access Reason #2: Extended Breaks Reason #3: Exemplar Learning Reason #4: Understanding of Persistence Reason #5: We need work life balance Let’s return to Reason #1: Access Teachers have …
*Names are changed in this story to protect the privacy of my students. On my last day with two fourth graders, they brought some of their artwork to show me as a follow-up to an article we read on the career of art therapists. As they showed me their art, I told them it was …
I will admit to you that there was a not insignificant period of time when I would converse in Spanish … you know, I would say something to someone else and be so proud of what came out of my mouth, and then … and then that someone else would answer back. At times I …
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to play the day. – E. B. White (author of Charlotte’s Web) The first time I saw this quote was on a friend’s Facebook wall when I was in college (back …
This week I arrived early to the local Lab Corp to get some routine lab work done. (Bear with me, here.) It was my second time in two months, so by this time I was no longer surprised by the electronic kiosk in front of what used to be the check-in desk with a friendly, …
“What is this?” I asked, pointing to the clock in the illustration of a pre-k classroom. (It was a kinder English proficiency test, if you’re wondering why I would be doing this.) “A time” he told me with great confidence. He couldn’t yet pull out of his brain the word “clock” though he has likely …
Have you ever said anything like … “I’m afraid of sounding foolish to parents when I try to speak Spanish.” “I’m afraid I won’t sound professional.” “They’ll think I’m an incompetent teacher.” If you have ever said or thought any of these things, I wrote this blog post just for you! I get it. Learning …
