Piensa Globalmente : Actúa Localmente
THINK GLOBALLY : ACT LOCALLY
As a high school Spanish
teacher during the day and Advocacy Project coordinator after hours and on the
weekends, I am a member of my Baltimore community and my Baltimore City College
High School family, a school community with a proud strength in heritage and
tradition. I am a teacher who strives to connect with my students and provide
them with every opportunity at success that I lacked as a student and young
adult. My passion is in building my student’s aptitude in the second most
commonly spoken language in the world, not only through rigorous classroom
instruction, but also through practical application of skills in our local community
and on a global level. With a current
Hispanic population of 17% in the United States and a projected population of
29% by the year 2050, I passionately believe that my students must become
bilingual students that can apply their speaking and listening skills in
Spanish for future success and access in a global workforce.
Growing up in a low-income
community in Salem, Oregon and attending my community’s public schools, I was reminded
daily of the difference in the quality of education that was offered in other
schools in my community and state. With few Advanced Placement courses offered
at my public high school, there were not many opportunities offered for
advancement for a motivated student. I was a student who always looked for a
challenge, but was very rarely offered the chance to further my education through rigorous
course offerings. Although I didn’t find the challenge I sought my public
school education, I sought to challenge myself in other ways outside of school
through extracurricular activities such as orchestra, swimming, cross country,
and the study of a foreign language.
One of my biggest dreams
as a student was to become a bilingual citizen, both for my personal sense of
fulfillment and sense of duty to community. As a young child, inspired by Greek
mythology, I was interested in learning Greek, but growing up in the Willamette
Valley, quickly saw the prevalence of Spanish-speakers in my community and
realized the urgency for our community to have aptitude in the Spanish
language. Attending a middle school in Salem with a 51% Hispanic
population, I was inspired and hungry for the hard language skills of speaking
and listening, but was not supported in this dream, with Spanish teachers who
taught in a traditional textbook method; these methods primarily focused on the
soft skills of writing and reading. Through teachers that provided access at
the University of Oregon, I was able to take a teaching fellowship in Madrid,
Spain, and through teaching in an underserved community in Legánes, a suburb of
Madrid, I was able to acquire the Spanish language in a way that I was unable to
achieve in the classroom in Oregon.
I have made it my mission
to provide my students with the best possible preparation for Baltimore’s
influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants. With Baltimore’s current 6.7% Hispanic
population growing at a steady rate due to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake’s
political culture of welcoming immigrant policies, my students must be prepared
to interact through speaking and listening with native speakers, not only
through their language skills, but in their cultural awareness and understanding
of Latino culture. With this in mind, through two years of intent research and
reflection I have adopted and trained over 50 hours professionally in the
TPRS/CI method as well as developing and leading the Advocacy Project at
Baltimore City College High School to prepare my students with the best
possible preparation for today’s global workforce.
