Wow, what a crazy week I
have had since my last post. I hope to provide a blog post every other
day, sorry for such a long break between the last one and this one. It's
the world-wide-web but it isn't always so "world-wide" accessible.
Hopefully I have it figured out now though. :-)
When I was offered the
opportunity to participate in this exchange, I asked for a day to think about
it before I accepted. Luckily for me, the offer came on the Thursday
right before the Fourth of July weekend. This gave me until Monday to
consider such a significant and life changing decision. So, obviously my
favorite question for anyone I bumped into was, "I'm thinking about moving
to Spain for a year, do you think I should do it"? It made for fun
conversation, everyone had an opinion and a few told me what they thought in no
uncertain terms. I can't think of a single person who flatly said,
"no, don't do it". Nearly everyone told me it was an exciting
opportunity that I couldn't refuse.
I remember one instance
where Amanda (my wife) and I were out with a couple of our friends at a pub in
Marquette Michigan. I made polite conversation with a woman at a nearby
table and then of course the second thing out of my mouth was "I'm
thinking of moving to Spain...". At the end of the conversation it
was decided that either I love my children and will be moving to Spain or I
will be staying in the state and clearly then do not love my kids. This
was all in good fun but it stands as an example of how people thought about
this amazing opportunity. All of these conversations seemed to end with,
"how could you not?" or "you have to!" It was good
advice and I knew I had to jump at the chance.
So, here I am... en
Espana!!
The people here are
amazingly friendly and welcoming. Without their generosity, settling in
here would have been impossible. As I meet the people of Buitrago and the
greater Madrid area, I find they are curious about how I came to be here.
Buitrago is a village of approximately 1,500 people so my wife and I
along with our tres ninas (three girls) tend to be noticed wherever we go!
One of the most common questions I hear from the people I meet... well, I
should clarify that. The most common question I UNDERSTAND from the
people I meet is, "Why (por que) did you decided to come to Spain,
especially given that you speak so very little Spanish"?
It's a good question.
I hope I have an equally good answer.
Generally I guess the
answer is "growth". Change brings challenges and through
challenge comes the opportunity to grow. Short jokes aside, I hope that I
can grow through this experience both personally and professionally.
In terms of my personal
life, I wanted to open up the world for my children, to see that it's a big
place, full of opportunity and adventure. It is a world full of people
who speak different languages from us, who have a different culture from ours
but in the end are not so different. I also wanted to show them that
while it might be scary, you have to “jump in” sometimes in life. We
can't always know the answers, we can't be certain that the landing will be
soft so waiting until things are perfect before we jump might mean that we
never get in at all. For me, the opportunity presented itself and I
jumped; language deficient and all.
In terms of my professional
life, I have always thought that my ignorance of other cultures was a
significant issue for me. Interlake High School, as well as all of the
Bellevue School District, is a diverse place with a mix of cultures from around
the world. Even though these students come to us from many different
countries, they have one thing in common, their family moved from the world
they knew to a new and different place. They
may be the first generation to live in the states or perhaps they are several
generations beyond that, either way at some point they had to adapt to living
in a new culture. I hope that through my
experience this year, I will better understand and relate to these
students. I already feel more capable of
sympathizing with those students who enter my classroom unable to speak more
than a couple of words of English. In
addition, the opportunity to observe other teachers and other systems of
education allow me to reflect on my own practices and where I can improve as an
educator.
Thanks
for reading, I promise I will post pictures on my next by Wednesday!
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