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Category: Bilingualism

Do You Feel Like You Have Two Lives to Live?

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 when Facebook was shiny and new and only for .edu e-mail addresses).

This quote struck a chord in me then, and does so still today.

How many times have I had thoughts like …

  • To lesson plan or feel the soil between my fingers in my garden?
  • To read that professional development book or go for a walk?
  • To stay home and work or go out with friends?
  • To organize my basement over break or travel?

The list goes on.

When I think about this quote in terms of what I do today, it made me realize that in our profession language learning is one of the few things we can do that enables us to do BOTH better.

I cannot think of many other things that, if we dedicate our time to learning a new skill, both helps us do great things in the world that truly change it AND helps us enjoy the world, making our heart sing that joyous song it does when we are truly happy.

Speak Spanish, and you can be more effective at your job, which happens to be one of the most important jobs in the world.

Speak Spanish, and you can get incredible personal satisfaction from the relationships, cultural experiences, and travel opportunities it opens up.

Here are some of the examples from my own life:

  • It allowed me to teach literacy through traditional Mexican songs and poetry, connecting my students to a heritage their parents had lost. One grandmother wrote me a letter to express her appreciation for bringing her culture into her granddaughter’s classroom.
  • Speaking Spanish allowed me to travel through Costa Rica by myself after completing a job there. I had a long conversation on a bus ride with a man who was a lawyer, helping indigenous peoples defend their land rights. It was one of those travel experiences I will never forget!
  • It opened the opportunity for me to teach students on the border, whose educational opportunities aren’t typically very ample. My students made significant growth in both Reading and Math, and got an education they may not have gotten in just any  classroom.
  • I was able cross the border for a weekend, get a manicure, eat some delicious food, and experience life as others on the border between countries and cultures.
  • I am able to communicate with families who haven’t experienced being able to communicate with their child’s school in the past. When I called one father to tell him his 5-year-old son was running he fever, he expressed his gratitude for 5 minutes, saying before he was never able to understand anything his children’s previous schools said!
  • I am able to keep in touch with friends I have made in other countries, and relish their friendship. Whether it is my friend in Nicaragua literally protecting the safety of revolutionaries to my friend in Costa Rica who I’ve watched grow from an insecure teenager in a rural town to a professor of the University of Costa Rica, all these people enrich my life and who I am as a person.
  • The simple act of learning Spanish allowed me to be more on-level with my students’ parents. I taught their children, and they could teach me some things in return.
  • And again, the process of learning brings so much fascination into my daily life and awe at even my own language, as I learn to think of and see things in a different way.

In what ways does Spanish, or language-learning improve your ability to impact the world? How does it improve your ability to enjoy the beauty in this world?

Today I was Reminded of the True Gift of Bilingualism

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, or maybe not so friendly, secretary on the other side of the counter.

(So much for humans there to greet you before they prick you with a needle, to at least say “Good morning. Can I help you?” )

So this time visit, I just walked right up, unfazed, and confidently tapped through the letters of my name and confirmed my insurance details. Then I took a seat, amused by how much I enjoyed the serene landscape photograph on the wall of this bland medical lab. (Thrilling blog so far, right?) 😉

Within 10 minutes, I was one of three people waiting.

Walk in. Tap the screen. Scan your license. Silently sit. Wait and avoid eye contact.

That was pretty much the drill.

A few minutes later, an elderly woman walked in, got halfway to the kiosk, and stopped, frozen, staring at it. “That’s pretty much what I did last time,” I thought to myself.

But then I wondered if she might need help using it — comfort with electronics is a generational thing after all.

But in the next moment, she plopped her large faux leather purse on the armrest of the chair next to me and began to sort through the large abyss inside, presumably looking for her insurance card, ID, etc.

“Okay, she’s got it,” I thought, and promptly spaced out, probably again staring at the landscape on the wall.

One person got called back. Then another. Soon, it was just the two of us.

“Excuse me,” she said to me, bursting the bubble of early morning static in my head. “Can you help me?” she asked with an accent. By the sound of it, I guessed she was Bosnian. (Bit of trivia: St. Louis has the largest population of Bosnians outside of Bosnia itself.)

Of course I could help her! So I jumped up, with a smile, unsure whether she required help due to language, literacy, or familiarity with touch-screens. So, I just dove in, tapping away at buttons.

“Do you have your driver’s license?” I asked her. “What?” she asked. I slowed down and repeated myself. She produced her driver’s license and handed it to me so I could scan it. Now I had to select the reason for her visit today. “Why are you here?” “What?” she asked again.

Darn it, just that quick, I reverted to my normal speech patterns and forgot to slow down for her, so I tried again. She got it.

For a moment, I got embarrassed, really worried that she would be hesitant to share with a total stranger the reason for her visit today. Normally that sort of thing is private!

Yet a language gap prevented her from checking herself in, and forcing her to share private information with … not even the secretary behind the counter who knows everyone’s business, but a random woman in the waiting room: me.

It was all done in a matter of two minutes. As she sat down she smiled at me and in a thick accent, carefully choosing her words, she said, “Maybe next time.” I’m thinking maybe next time she will understand how to use it perhaps?

We both sat down and resumed our obedience to the waiting room silence, though this time slightly uncomfortable with it, I believe both wanting to say something to the other, but knowing the language would be difficult, we simply waited with bowed heads in each other’s presence.

This had me thinking, not just about the need to keep human beings in jobs to interact with other humans. (Electronics make a lot of assumptions about the people walking through the door.) But it also had me thinking about language.

I am endlessly grateful for my Spanish.

If this woman had been a Spanish-speaker, I would have not only been able to help her. I would have been able to say, “Claro que si!” Of course I will help you! I would have been able to chit-chat and put her at ease. I would have been able to smile and talk with her once we sat down, making us both feel better about our morning, ourselves, and our neighbors.

Which is priceless.

In this case, I was able to help. I was able to communicate through facial expressions and body language. I am grateful for that. But I also felt limited. I felt I couldn’t be my full self with this woman… and that bothered me.

It reminded me of the true gift of bilingualism, in my eyes:

the ability to be our full selves with others around us, to serve them fully, to connect with them fully, to smile together with the joy of having passed through the conventional barriers like a spirit through walls.

I love hearing from you, too. What do you think is the true gift of bilingualism?