{Photo by: cdsessums}
I lived in Miami for almost 19 years before moving to Denver five years ago. While I had heard of several bilingual immersion schools in the area, Coral Way K-8 Center was not one of them. I guess some stuff only becomes important once you become a mom.
It turns out Coral Way is the oldest bilingual immersion school in the country, or so I was recently told by NPR’s education correspondent Claudio Sanchez, whose report about the school airs today. Sanchez’ story is part of a special series titled: Two Languages, Many Voices, which has been looking at what it’s like to be a bilingual and bicultural Latino.
I must say that if there’s one thing I miss about Miami is that it’s a truly bicultural and bilingual city. It may sound crazy, but it’s virtually impossible to go places and not be surrounded by Spanish and the Latino culture all the time: from the movie theaters to government offices. (I’ve always believed this is the reason why the culture shock wasn’t as strong when I arrived there from Peru as a teenager.)
And Sanchez wastes no time letting the listener get a feel for that. Soon after his story starts, you can clearly hear the principal of Coral Way go seamlessly from Spanish to English as she’s talking to her students.
Sanchez goes on to talk to a father whose family is monolingual, but whose child is in the bilingual immersion program. His reasoning is simple: academic enrichment. To him, the importance of Spanish is right up there with reading and math. If only more parents could think that way…
The report also includes the story of a bilingual and bicultural family whose three children attend Coral Way. Sanchez visits with them and one of the highlights of the interview is when he asks the three children how they see themselves. Their answers are the perfect example of what it’s like to grow up bilingual and bicultural in the United States today.
I had a chance to speak to Sanchez at length about this story in particular and the topic of bilingual education in general and I’ll be brining you more of that very soon.
Once you listen to the story, we’d love to hear what you thought of it. Did you know about Coral Way? Do you have anything similar in your area?
I made it a point to go visit Coral Way some years back while visiting my mom in Miami. Yes, its an awesome school. I was teaching as a first grade dual language teacher at the time. I remember leaving the school and thinking to myself, “Why isn’t the dual language program I am working in supported as strongly as the one at Coral Way?” Again, as I keep saying this in various blog postings, it all goes back to context. In Miami, speaking at least two languages (Spanish/English) is a highly valued commodity. In Kansas City, not so much. As for where I am living now, Austin, Texas, well…yes, we hear lots of Spanish, but one difference between Miami and Austin, is that the minority group that speaks Spanish has a highly stigmatized perception, unfortunately, therefore, learning Spanish, well, its not as strongly supported. It saddens me ;( I think we are making gains though, here in central Texas. Dual language education is breaking some new ground we will just have to keep advocating for it….hopefully in 10-20 years it will have a positive impact as Coral Way has had in their local community.
We have a (free) dual-language charter school near us called Ser Niños, and cannot wait for next year’s chance to hopefully get our son into it. Not only would it be a LOT of help for us in raising our son bilingual, it’s academically just an excellent school. This will all be especially important in his middle school years so we’re very excited that this school goes pre-K to 8th grade. It’s by lottery and we did not make it this year but will keep trying. There are just a very few dual-language programs in the Houston school district, despite our enormous population of bilinguals (in various languages!!!) What they call “bilingual education” here is actually not that. They take kids who would naturally be some level of bilingual, and within 3 years move them into all-English classes. Some of the “bilingual” program teachers even try to push parents to speak English at home. But the public dual-language programs that exist in our district all seem to be using some kind of lottery system to get in because of being so popular. That is a hopeful sign.
My best friend teaches at Coral Way. I think it is an awesome program and I’m even thinking about moving (from Miami Lakes mind you) so that I can be closer to that school. Gotta love that Miami is as bilingual as it is.
We have several public immersion programs in San Francisco – but they are hard to get into.
There are just a very few dual-language programs in the Houston school district, despite our enormous population of bilinguals (in various languages!!!) What they call “bilingual education” here is actually not that. They take kids who would naturally be some level of bilingual, and within 3 years move them into all-English classes.Thanks a lot for sharing hopeful sign..