Growing up, my dad had very clear expectations for what books my brother Connor and I
could read. When my mom would be at work, leaving him to put Connor and I to bed, he would
only read us books in Spanish. My dad’s dream was for his children to grow up learning both
Spanish and English and eventually spending a year attending school in Spain while staying with
our family there. My dad traveled a lot with his family as a kid, studied abroad in both high
school and college, and spent three months backpacking through Europe after he graduated
college. All this traveling inspired my dad to raise his children to be aware of the world outside
of the United States, and he started this love of culture in my brother and I with our Spanish
children’s books. My favorites were about a dog named Spot; including: ¿Dónde está Spot?
(Where is Spot?), Spot Va a la Escuela (Spot Goes to School), and Spot Va a la Granja (Spot
Goes to the Farm). Eventually, Connor and I started to read the books by ourselves and
continued to learn about the world in different ways. One way my parents introduced the world
to us is by sitting us down and telling us about the country that they had just taken a trip to. My
dad traveled a lot for work when I was young and my parents would take lots of trips together, so
Connor and I learned about an array of places. Then when I was in seventh grade, I got to have
my first cultural experience.
Christmas Day, 2008, my brother and I had just finished opening all of our presents.
Since we were on a Christmas high, neither of us heard my dad the first time when he announced
that he had one more present for the both of us. ‘A ping pong table,’ was my first thought, since
Connor and I were going through a ping pong phase at the time. To my surprise it was not a
pingpong table but, instead, plane tickets. Instead of reading under the heading labeled
Destination and figuring out where we would be going, we both just stared at my dad blankly. It
was then that he said that in March we would be going to Madrid, Spain and Amsterdam,
Holland for Spring Break. My parents had told us so many stories about both of these places, and
I could not contain my excitement about getting the opportunity to experience them first hand.
March 19th finally arrived, and I was prepared for the eight hour flight to Paris, then the
one hour connecting flight to Madrid. Take-offs usually make me nervous, but this time I was
too distracted by the images in my head of what Spain was going to be like. I had seen pictures,
heard stories, and talked with my family who lives there all about it, but now I was going to see
it for myself. Nine hours later, we touched down in Madrid and I was equally exhausted and
exhilarated. Connor, on the other hand, was mostly just exhausted. Since he could barely even
function from teenaged sleep deprivation, my plans consisting of adventures and exploring were
put on hold so he could take a short, one hour nap. The rest of the ten days spent there flew by
and consisted of the royal palace, museums, a Real Madrid game, mountains of delicious food,
and, of course, lots of shopping. We spent the next four days in Amsterdam, which was equally
as wonderful and beautiful as Spain, and I left Europe with a view of the world I never had
before.
It was three years later when I was a Sophomore in high school, that my dad announced
that we would be going back to Spain. Since we went as a family, my dad had gone back two
more times to visit his family there, but didn’t take the rest of the family along. When he said
this, I assumed that the “we” meant him, my mom, my brother, and I, but to my surprise, it did
not. This time just Connor and I would be going. At first when he said this, I got extremely
nervous about traveling to a different country just the two of us. Then, he filled us in on how our
school has a Spanish foreign exchange program and my Spanish teacher just called to inform my
parents about it. How this exchange worked is we would host two Spanish students in our house
for ten days in September, then in June we would fly out to their small town on the northern
coast of Spain called Foz, and spend ten days with their families. After our stay in Foz, we would
go to Madrid, Sevilla, and Toledo for two more weeks learning about the culture and expanding
our language skills. My Spanish students arrived in the fall, and the ten days they spent with us
included a lot of shopping at Mall of America, a Jason Mraz concert, a trip to an apple orchard, a
high school American football game, and lots more. The language barrier was existent at times,
but both of my students were pretty good at speaking English. At the end of the ten days, we said
goodbye to our students with lots of hugs and sad faces, but in nine months we knew we would
see each other again. Those nine months flew by and before I knew it, I was standing at the
airport with my family, teachers, and the rest of the kids participating in the exchange. Three
planes, a train, and a bus ride later, we were finally in Foz. The week and a half I spent in Foz
was unforgettable. The northern coast of Spain is the most beautiful place I have ever seen and
the laid back Spanish culture made me despise my American “go, go, go all the time” lifestyle.
Daily siesta time at three o’clock? Yes, please. Eventually, our tens days in Foz had to end, and
our goodbyes to our students this time were filled with tears and promises of returning. The rest
of the trip we traveled around central Spain attending flamenco shows, visiting museums, and
learning as much of the language as we could pick up on. I am far from a fluent Spanish speaker,
but I learned so much more from being surrounded by Spanish all day long for a month than I
ever did sitting in a classroom.
After returning to the United States, I was preparing to start my year as a Senior in high
school. This meant figuring out which college to attend, what I am going to major in, and the
most terrifying, what I am going to do for the rest of my life. At this point I had absolutely no
idea what I was planning on doing career-wise. I liked children and Psychology, so when people
asked I just told them Child Psychologist. It wasn’t until March of my Senior year that I finally
figured out what I wanted to do. I had just started working with children at the YMCA in my
town, when I met a little girl about three or four years old who didn’t speak any English. None of
my coworkers present knew any Spanish, so when I said that I took a couple years of it in high
school, I was immediately in charge of this little girl. My Spanish skills were a little rusty at that
point, but I decided to give it my best shot. I found the girl sitting in the book corner, looking
rather upset. I introduced myself to her in Spanish and asked her what was wrong. She responded
by pointing at the book she was holding and saying, “Inglés.” I remembered that we kept a small
collection of Spanish books in the back storage room, so I said, “Un momento,” to her and
returned with the bin. When she started looking through the bin and recognized the language on
the covers, her face completely lit up. After digging and digging, she finally picked a book and
handed it to me. When I flipped it over, the cover read Spot Va a la Escuela -- and that is when I
realized I wanted to be a Kindergarten teacher, and teach my students the basics of Spanish.
Growing up, I was surrounded by learning about and experiencing the Spanish culture, but my
biggest regret is not taking my dad more seriously with his Spanish lessons and the Spanish
classes he put my brother and I in as kids. It’s too late for me to take those Spot books seriously,
but it doesn’t have to be for my future students.