ELIZABETH PLEMMONS
Work Effectively Within Diverse Teams to Address a Community Need
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I was reminded of my time in Spain and how, as I gained knowledge in Spanish language and culture, I was able to teach our Spanish students from Cáceres more effectively. This also allowed me to help our NSCD students as they also strove to teach and connect with their new friends. This was a powerful lesson to learn, and was made even more valuable as I connected it with what I was learning in my education classes. I know that this experience and the understanding I've gained on how to address educational disparities in the classroom will allow me to better serve all students that come into my classroom.
In 2008, I was asked if to chaperone a trip to Cáceres, Spain for junior and senior high school Spanish students at North Shore Country Day School in Lake Forest, IL. Our group was part of a larger exchange group in the western-central city of Cáceres. The NSCD students were placed in homes with families of the Spanish students who were participating in the exchange, and I was similarly placed. My Spanish was limited to basic things I’d learned as a preschooler (counting, the alphabet, various animals and objects), and I was in a home where almost nobody spoke English. Because of this disparity in communication, I asked if I could attend morning Spanish classes that the NSCD students were taking.
I learned to speak Spanish, but I also learned about the city of Cáceres, Spain as a country, the people, and its history, art, and literature. The class’ teacher was a woman about my age, and she invited me to be a teaching assistant in the afternoon English classes for the Caceres students, helping to bridge the gap between the Spanish and American cultures.
This was another seminal experience in my life. We spent nearly a month in Spain, and every day was an adventure in learning. We toured ancient Roman ruins, we walked through olive groves, we met political activists in living in a commune on the outskirts of the city, and we walked through abandoned structures tattooed with beautiful graffiti art. We learned about Caceres’ storied history (a religious battleground for the better part of 1000 years between Chirstians, Muslims, and Jews) and how it fit into the greater history of Spain. We learned about the struggles the city faces today, ate amazing food, attended concerts, and I spent a weekend celebrating the running of the bulls in tiny rural town near the Portuguese border.
All the while, we teachers worked to bring each culture closer to each other using different mediums. Games, music, art, and even math and science were fair game. By the time we left, we had made many new friends (I am still in touch with my host family today) and gained a new perspective on life within a different culture.
One of the first education courses I took at Parkside was a class on understanding differences in culture, and teaching from a perspective of tolerance, curiosity, and empathy. We were taught that different cultures can be marginalized in schools, affecting student success and outcomes, further alienating them, and affecting their mental health in the long-term. We were ultimately tasked with first understanding a culture, why our students from that culture might be at risk, and finding creative solutions to help shrink these disparities.
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