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Viva education!
By LOGAN NEILL Dressed in a colorful red vest and matching panvellos, and topped with a huge blue and gold sombrero, 11-year-old Michael Myers thought he looked rather dapper in his dance costume. "I guess the reason why Cinco de Mayo is fun for people is because you get to dance a lot and dress up nice," said the Deltona Elementary fifth-grader. "At least, that's why kids think it's pretty cool." Of course, the traditional early May celebration, which originally served to recognize Mexico's victory against French occupation in 1862, has earned a slightly broader interpretation from the students of "Los Sabitos", Deltona's Spanish language education project. Each year, the school cafeteria plays host to a lively display of Latin culture. In one corner of the room a steel drum combo plinks out Caribbean melodies as kids dance the limbo. On a huge table, a group of youngsters dive into paper mache art. Others take their places on the dance floor to try their hand at la raspa, a South American version of the Mexican hat dance. And of course, there's plenty of delicious food, ranging from fried plantains and frijoles to sweet Cuban flan. The celebration has been held annually by the five Los Sabitos teachers as a way of rewarding their students for their diligence and hard work during the school year. But this year's festival has special significance to the 15 fifth graders who are soon to become the first Los Sabitos graduates "It's their big send-off," said Lourdes Morales, who began teaching the fifth-grade fifth grade in the multigrade program. "We're proud of them because they've worked hard and learned so much. But best of all, they can appreciate the world in a way that some children just aren't capable of at their age." Los Sabitos (a derived phrase that means "the little wise ones" was initiated three years ago by a core group of Deltona first, second and third grade teachers who believed their students would benefit from exposure to Spanish language and culture throughout the school day. Encouraged by the Hernando School Board, teachers Debbie Hester, Darlene Lovell and Laurie Nichols developed a grade-by-grade curriculum where speaking, reading and writing Spanish would be part of the normal daily classroom routine. "Children at this age are little sponges," said Hester, who teaches first grade at Deltona. "At first I thought I'd be lucky to get them to learn a couple of words and a phrase or two, but they surprised me. They take it all in and just seem to want more and more." The same was true for older children as well, said Morales, even those who had joined her fifth grade class without the benefit of attending earlier grades of Los Sabitos. "A lot of their motivation to want to learn Spanish quickly is so that they don't feel left out socially," said Morales. "But more than that, it's also made them more motivated as students." While Morales is required to provide things such as test instructions and assignments in English, the majority of her students' school day is spent communicating in Spanish. However, the teachers also recognize how important it was for their students to try and appreciate the cultures of the language they were learning. Each grade level in Los Sabitos explored a different Spanish-speaking country during the school year. "One of the reasons I love our Cinco de Mayo festival is that it's very global," said Morales, a native of Puerto Rico. "by studying places such as Venezuela, Cuba and Puerto Rico, the children get a larger picture of what the Hispanic culture is, even in America." True, census figures for 2000 showed that the total Hispanic population grew by more than 122 percent since 1990, making it the fastest-growing ethnic segment of the U.S. population. For that reason, Morales and the other Los Sabitos teachers are thrilled to see that their students have been chosen to help launch a new intermediate Spanish class at Fox Chapel Middle next fall. "Their sixth grade teachers are going to be impressed at how deep their appreciation for knowing Spanish is," said Morales. "I think that they gained a fuller understanding of the culture than had they just done book work in a classroom. This was a place where the language lived every day they were here."
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From today's Hernando Times Editorial Letters |
