English-language learners represent nearly one in 10 public school students nationwide. There is no question that ELL programs can strain limited school resources, but these children do learn English. And as early language learners, they also enjoy a wide range of cognitive benefits. Benefits that I wanted my own children to take advantage of because they do not live in a Spanish-speaking household.
So each morning, I cross the 鈥渂order鈥� into a foreign country to take my daughter to kindergarten. At least, that鈥檚 how I describe it. Passing by a vendor鈥檚 colorful cart of Mexican pastries, I say hola to the other mothers and make it to the classroom in time for a quick buenos d铆as to the teacher. Elsa drops her homework into the basket. This week, it鈥檚 the letter 鈥渄,鈥� so she has colored in a dinosaurio and dedo. I kiss her goodbye, and she joins the circle on the carpet to sing, 鈥淗ola, amigos ... 鈥� No English is used in the classroom, even for teaching academic subjects.
My daughter doesn鈥檛 attend a fancy international school or even an immersion program in a diverse metropolis. And we don鈥檛 live in a border state. We live in Wisconsin. I take my daughter across town to the Spanish barrio, where Spanish is the first language, and many of the elementary schools make it their mission to preserve the language and culture of the community. The same goes for the area鈥檚 day-care centers, although none touts itself as bilingual. Spanish and English are simply the languages of the families they serve.
This education strategy is not for the faint of heart. We have a freeway commute to school, test scores are abysmal compared with those of our neighborhood public school, and we aren鈥檛 part of the community by any cultural or socioeconomic definition. But the 5-year-old kids are still clean slates, and the teacher is part sage, part saint. Now that my daughter is bilingual, my heart swells with pride when her dolls 鈥渟peak鈥� to each other in Spanish as she plays. One day at Costco, we sat in the food court next to a Spanish-speaking family. She turned her back to us gringos and asked them in perfect Spanish how they liked their food.
Now that my daughter is bilingual, my heart swells with pride when her dolls 鈥榮peak鈥� to each other in Spanish."
You doubt that such an option exists in your city? So do my neighbors in our tony Milwaukee suburb of Whitefish Bay. There is a Spanish barrio everywhere, mis amigos. My daughter attends a charter school within the Milwaukee school district. An interdistrict-transfer program to encourage diversity allows her to attend school in the city, in much the way a minority student in an urban district can 鈥渢ransfer鈥� to a suburban campus.
I, too, would probably have no idea that such an option exists, but I have become an expert, unwittingly, in seeking out bilingual education.
It began with my older son in the course of our family鈥檚 corporate move to Mexico City in 2002. I was obsessing over the research on the early window of opportunity in childhood for language exposure. To my surprise, all the preschools were bilingual or English-immersion. We were in the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world, and I could not find a Spanish-speaking preschool.
I extended my search into the foothills of the Federal District, on the western edge of Mexico City. Bilingual education had not yet reached Cuajimalpa, a small town about an hour鈥檚 drive from downtown. I enrolled my firstborn. He learned Spanish quickly, even transposing Spanish verbs onto English: 鈥淗e pegged me at recess鈥� from the Spanish verb pegar, to hit, with an English past-tense ending.
We moved from Mexico to Miami two years later. (Milwaukee was still in the future.) Miami was full of bilingual schools, and, in turn, I was full of hope for preserving Spanish for my son and his younger brother. Until I met all the playground moms. From a cultural perspective, they were fascinating to me. Mostly Cuban and Venezuelan, they were effortlessly bilingual. They spoke in perfect Spanish to their kids, who answered back in perfect English.
These Latina moms lamented the fact that once their kids started school, they stopped responding in Spanish. Even those who attended the bilingual schools. 鈥淏ut they understand everything,鈥� they insisted. I heard this story over and over. And I didn鈥檛 want it to be mine.
Again, I searched for a preschool taught purely in Spanish, stocked with kids from Spanish-speaking homes so that English wouldn鈥檛 be an option. In Miami, I didn鈥檛 have to look as far as in Mexico. I traversed the historic neighborhood of Cuban exiles surrounding Miami鈥檚 8th Street, known as Calle Ocho. There were plenty of overcrowded day-care centers, with barren playgrounds facing busy streets, teachers screaming at the kids in Cuban Spanish, and television-watching as part of the curriculum. I almost gave up.
After visiting about 40 day-care facilities, I found a little jewel in the rough鈥攕till overcrowded and still with a lot of screaming in Spanish. But I saw some very special teachers, a quiet playground with a huge tree, and heard not a word of English.
Sunflowers Academy was the anti-Montessori school. Kids were marched in lines to the next activity and banished to the sal贸n de beb茅s or 鈥渂aby room鈥� if they didn鈥檛 behave. Rote memorization was the crux of the teaching philosophy. If it was writing time, everyone sat in their chair and wrote their name 20 times. If they got it right, they wrote their first and last names 20 more times. Everything was compared with 鈥渂ack in Cuba.鈥� A hot lunch with rice and beans was included, and the kids learned the Cuban national anthem.
Recess was every child for him- or herself. Each class of 20-plus kids fought over three tricycles, two swings, and one slide. There were no computers, watercolor paints, or parent volunteers. These kids learned to assert their rights, defend themselves, and ... gasp ... play independently and creatively. My coddled firstborn started at Sunflowers shy and finicky, but outgrew those behaviors quickly. The school definitely contributed more to building his character than I did. And those mothers in the playground? They would ask me, 鈥淗ow do you get your kids to speak in Spanish?鈥�
Such was the path we traveled to my daughter鈥檚 enrollment now at a Spanish-language charter school in Wisconsin. It hasn鈥檛 been an easy journey, but the advantages go beyond bilingualism. I see how well my children are performing in school, including my middle school son taking Spanish classes with the high schoolers. Numerous studies attest to improved brain-function skills in bilingual children, with the influence extending beyond childhood. A 2014 study, 鈥淧roducing Bilinguals Through Immersion Education,鈥� corroborated that the cognitive benefits of students in elementary school immersion programs mirror those of children raised as bilinguals.
But the kids aren鈥檛 the only ones who benefit. I get to practice my Spanish every day. I run my errands in the school community鈥攅verything from the tailor to the grocery produce is of better quality, at a lower cost in the barrio. And the PTA meetings host a full spread of tacos and chilaquiles. If you can find that in Wisconsin, you can find it anywhere.
