Article: Gisèle Sogas Spanish teacher Red Oak High school.
“El arte supremo del profesor es despertar el placer por la expresión creativa y el conocimiento”, Albert
Einstein.)
( “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge”,
Albert Einstein.)
I was born in the Principality of Andorra, a small country between France and Spain. The first official
language is Catalan, with French and Spanish also as official languages. Because I was born in Andorra, I
was raised as a tri-lingual child, which helped me to be able to learn more languages while I was growing
up.
I studied in the Andorran school system; in which the classes were in Catalan, French, and Spanish. At the
age of four we started learning English. At seventeen I started to learn Italian and Latin in high school, and
when I was twenty-one, I started to learn Swedish.
This multilingual immersion fueled and developed my passion for foreign language learning, as
well as the cultures and literature associated with each language and the important role that
education, multilingualism and multiculturalism play in influencing and shaping identities. As one
of the Spanish teachers in Red Oak High School, I try to incorporate that in my classroom. My
teaching philosophy strongly encourages the study of foreign language(s) in order to help
students make connections outside of their own culture and to relate to the world around them.
After completing my first Master’s in Barcelona, Spain in the field of English Philology and
Literature, I decided to move to Madrid (Spain) and complete a second program for a Master’s
in the field of International Relations within the European Union. I then decided to apply for a
Fulbright scholarship and ended up starting a third Master’s in Education at the University of
London (United Kingdom). I am now working on my PhD dissertation about North American
studies, which I do hope to finish sometime soon. After living in Spain, The United Kingdom,
Ireland, Northern Ireland, Malta and Andorra I knew it was the right time for me to live and work
in the United States. I always wanted to see how the educational system in the United States
works as compared to the European system, which is more lecture based, whereas in the United
States it is more interactive. After teaching for four years in Madrid, I decided to apply for “The
Visiting Teachers in the USA and Canada Program”. This program is an international cooperative
program supported by the Ministry of Education/Embassy of Spain and several departments of
education and school districts across the United States and Canada. This program offers United
States and Canadian school districts the opportunity to recruit bilingual teachers from Spain to
teach at elementary, middle and high school levels. As I visited already both the East and the
West coasts in the United States, I wanted to apply for the Midwest. I really wanted to learn, see
and be part of a real American community. I did research about each state available in the
Midwest and decided to apply for Iowa, as it is one of the healthiest and safest states in the US.
After a long process that started in December 2012 and many interviews, I got the job as one of
the Spanish teachers in Red Oak High School. I cannot be happier in Red Oak. I love the school
district, the high school, my coworkers, the staff as well as the students. I do know I would not
have been able to go throughout the whole process without Mr. Sherman’s and Mrs. DeBolt’s
patience and help. I cannot thank them enough. I am very glad I came to Red Oak, not only for
the opportunity to grow as a teacher and learn new teaching methodologies, but also to be part
of such a lovely community and school district.