Most crucial language lesson

“We screw up royally by making people feel they don’t have a mighty important role in contributing to their children’s education,” she says. “Don’t do it by assimilating children into a language in such a way that they’ve got to put aside their native language to succeed in school. We do that at our peril.”

“What do teachers need to know?” she asks. “They need to know how a language is learned, what role they’ve got to play in supporting it, how languages work and how they differ. It’s akin to a school of medicine turning out doctors who’ve never had a course in anatomy. You just wouldn’t do that.”

-Lily Wong Fillmore, San Francisco Chronicle (July 18, 2004)

Meaningful Moments (aka riding a rollercoaster without a seatbelt)

There is a high that comes from meaningful, purposeful self-exertion. Call it adrenaline, a runner’s high – whatever you want. It is found in that moment, whether at 3AM or 1PM, when you are simultaneously exhausted and exhilarated; eyes are demanding to be closed while the mind is saying, “Yes! Keep going!” It is in these moments when I am most glad to be a new teacher; when all the tension and stress I experience feels meaningful and purposeful. I am driven to live in those moments.

And yet there are times when stress is all but meaningful and compelling. I recently experienced this when I was on the verge of my very first “teacher cry”. I had expected that time to come as a result of being aggravated over a child’s behavior, or because of those ever-frequent, gut-sinking moments when you see your inadequacies. Nope. I was blind-sided — It was because of another teacher.