I would’ve loved nothing more than for Vanessa to have the opportunity to attend a dual language immersion program. Unfortunately, the options are few and far between in Denver, and after much debate and consideration, my husband and I decided our neighborhood elementary school was where our daughter belonged.

While I get a bit jealous every time I hear the amazing stories coming out dual language immersion schools, I’m convinced we made the right decision. Since Vanessa started Kindergarten last year, I have seen my daughter flourish in ways I never imagined. She has learned how to read and write. She has discovered math and science and believes both subjects are fun. Her curiosity has grown tenfold and her love of books has solidified. She has made a lot of friends and is excited to go to school every single morning.

But the one thing that has amazed me the most is to see my daughter become fully bilingual thanks to the amazing work of all the teachers she’s been lucky to have so far. You see, Spanish is the only language spoken in our house. It’s truly the only language my kids are exposed to when they’re not in school. While I like to say I’ve been raising bilingual children since they were born, I’ve been actually taking care of only one language: Spanish. And so, for all intents and purposes, my daughter owes her English — and thus, her bilingualism — to her teachers and her life at school.

Read more: My Bilingual Daughter’s First Year in an English-only School

I wholeheartedly believe that most teachers are unsung heroes. I owe some of my major accomplishments in life to a handful of exceptional teachers I was lucky to have along the way. Vanessa is only 6 years old, but she’s already been blessed with two dedicated and caring teachers at her elementary school who probably have no idea that Vanessa’s proficiency in English has been mostly their doing.

Whenever possible, I try to tell them how grateful I am for their selfless work. But in the wake of the unfathomable tragedy that struck Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, I’m making a concerted effort to thank them for being so instrumental in my daughter’s bilingual upbringing… and so much more.

Have you thanked your child’s teacher lately? 

{Photo by  www.audio-luci-store.it}

Photo credit: Pip R. Lagenta

I went to a British school back in Peru where I was taught the majority of my courses in English. The school has been around for a very long time (1938) and even my mother and her sisters went there when they were little. It has a great reputation and it’s undoubtedly responsible for my being bilingual since it was there where I learned English in a formal setting.

When I attended the school in the 1980s, there used to be an unwritten rule that they would only hire teachers from Great Britain to teach us English as in Language Arts, as they call it here. Although, if memory serves me right, all the other courses I took in English were also taught by British teachers. My mom says it was the same during her time there.

I never ever had an American teacher — they worked at the American schools — and now that I think about it in a more critical way, I imagine the whole point was that we’d learn to speak English as its spoken in Great Britain. The school’s goal, as stated on its website, is “to provide an integral education based on the best aspects of the British and Peruvian educational systems.”

I understand things have changed at my old school and while they still hire the majority of their English teachers from Great Britain, they do hire English-speaking Peruvian teachers, including their own alumni. I guess they’ve taught them well.

So when I first heard about a similar practice at a bilingual private school here in this country, I didn’t give it much thought. I thought it was the same thing reversed. But the more details I learned about this school’s particular situation, the more disturbed I was by the whole thing.

Apparently the school tries to hire only Spaniards to teach in their Spanish program. Although they won’t say this out loud, this school seems to think the Spanish spoken in Spain has a higher status than the Spanish spoken in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world. In fact, the person from whom I learned this information told me that her child’s teacher makes sure to correct his students if they don’t use the correct Spaniard version of a particular word. This person also told me that in terms of teaching students about the Spanish-speaking culture, anything coming from Spain is predominant.

Now, I’ve nothing against la Madre Patria. In fact, it’s one of my favorite countries in Europe and their food is out of this world. But I do have something against the notion that the Spanish spoken there is somehow “better” than the Spanish spoken in Latin America.

While the concept that there’s one Spanish that’s better than the others is nothing new*, it truly doesn’t belong in a bilingual school. Any school that’s teaching its students Spanish should be concerned with their teachers’ capabilities, experience, quatlifications and education, not their nationality. Just because a person was born in Spain doesn’t automatically make him the best Spanish teacher.

(*If you speak Spanish, particularly if Spanish is your first language and you grew up in Latin America, you’re probably familiar with the competition that exists regarding who speaks the best Spanish in the world. While some people immediately assume it would have to be the Spaniards, time and time again Colombians come out on top. I’ve no opinion one way or the other, but I do have to admit that I’ve yet to meet a Colombian who didn’t speak proper Spanish.)

I’m really bothered by this notion at all levels, but mainly because it once again undermines the status of Latinos in the United States.

What do you think? Should bilingual schools hire only Spaniards to teach in their Spanish programs?

Photo by woodleywonderworks

When my husband and I met our daughter’s preschool teachers during orientation last year, we made sure we let both of them know we were raising her bilingual using the mL@H method. We explained that although, at first, it would seem as if Vanessa was not very verbal, the truth was that her vocabulary was much more extensive in Spanish than in English, since we only speak to her in the former. We just wanted to make sure that they knew what was going on, but we also wanted to gauge their understanding of bilingualism and their attitude toward it and the fact that Vanessa’s first language is Spanish—after all, not everyone, including educators, seems to understand or believe in the tremendous benefits of bilingualism.

Luckily, both of them were completely interested and asked several questions about the subject. The lead teacher congratulated us and lamented how she wished her father had taught her the Navajo language so that she could’ve felt more at ease when visiting his side of the family—not to mention being able to communicate with her great-grandmother. Now, not a day goes by when I’m not greeted by one of them blurting out a Spanish word or phrase they learned from my daughter! In fact, the lead teacher is so supportive that when she mentioned I might want to start teaching Vanessa how to read (because she’s shown such a genuine interest in it and letters and sounds), she actually did some research and one day showed up with a few bilingual books she’d purchased for the class, which she thought would be perfect for Vanessa and let us take them home with us. Although I so wished I had found a bilingual or Spanish immersion preschool for her, I have to be thankful for the fact that, at the very least, her teachers understand and support, as best they can, our choice to raise her in two languages.

If you’re children do not attend a bilingual or immersion school, I suggest you raise their educators’ awareness about bilingualism (and multiculturalism) in order to make your goals more realistic. We’ve always advocated for as much support as possible from as many resources as possible in order to be successful in raising bilingual children. Remember that teachers tend to spend more time with our kids than we do, but more importantly, they can be incredibly influential in their lives and the way they perceive things. So having them on our side is extremely important.

It’s a great idea to share with your children’s teachers the reasons why you’ve decided to go the bilingual way. If they seem to be unfamiliar with this topic or don’t sound too enthusiastic about it, maybe you can explain some of the benefits—not everyone is aware of them—or help dispel some of the myths. Another way to raise awareness is to volunteer to read to the children in your native language. I recently did this at my daughter’s preschool and I can’t tell you how rewarding it was. In fact, I promise to write about it soon! I chose a bilingual book—one embedded with Spanish words—and I think it was a hit. Not to mention the fact that it allowed me to show Vanessa how much I value our native language helping me create a perceived need for it.

The more awareness we raise regarding bilingualism, the better off our children will be!