When I was a small child my mom came to the realization that I did not speak English. I was about 4. Age 5 was right around the corner and so was kindergarten. I was going to leave my mother's constant supervision and go to school for the first time.
Who know how this crossed my mother's mind, but she realized that we only spoke Spanish at home. All our family friends spoke Spanish. All we spoke, was Spanish. However, in school, they spoke English.
Keep in mind, it was the 70s. Latinos were relatively new to Boston. And this was YEARS before bilingual education. My mother knew that no one at school spoke Spanish and that I would be left to fend for myself.
Knowing how quickly children learn languages, she decided to put me into "day care" twice a week. Hopefully, hanging around with American kids would help me pick up the language so I would not be completely helpless at school. I always thought it was funny that my mom thought I had to hang around with American kids, I was born here, wouldn't that make me American too? But I digress.....
My mom searches high and low for a day care where at least one person spoke Spanish... in case of an emergency. She found a day care down the street where one of the teachers took 4 years of high school Spanish....basically the equivalent of nothing. But beggars can't be chooser and she signed me up.
It was my first day and I didn't know anyone. None of my regular friends were there. The teacher comes up to me and says something in Spanish. She's met with a very confused look from a 4 year old. She repeats what she says...another confused response. She tries a third time. I just sighed and said "Why don't you just speak to me in English....your Spanish is horrible."
A few hours later, my mom comes to pick me up. The teacher lets her know that I speak perfect English. My mom is absolutely floored and says "Why didn't you tell me?!?" To which I respond, "You didn't ask!" (Yes, I was a smart-ass from the very beginning!)
After my mom collected herself from the shock of not knowing her only child secretly spoke more than one language, she asked me how I learned it.
Sesame Street. The Electric Company. 3-2-1 Contact. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Zoom.
I learned English by watching PBS. Grover could count to 10 in Spanish, as far as I was concerned, he was bilingual. And thanks to PBS, WGBH (the Boston PBS affiliate - incidentally where I work now), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Viewers Like You...now so was I.
Pubic Television..... It's a good thing.
That is great! I can totally relate to this. I too went to school before bilingual education. In fact, I was the bilingual department in each of my grades. Whenever a new student who didn't speak English enrolled in our school, they were placed in my class if it was the same grade. My sister who was 3 grades ahead served as her grade's bilingual teacher. We learned from my other siblings ( I have 7 sisters and 3 brothers). The funny thing is that I never knew about Sesame Street or Electric Company until I went to school. We lived out on a farm about 22 miles from town. We only got 3 channels because we were about 10 miles out of the PBS channel range. We got to watch those shows at school everyday. Electric Company was my favorite show! As far as I was concerned, the EC episode on "LY - adding ly to a word" was the greatest show EVER!
ReplyDeleteThis brings back lots of great memories! Thanks for sharing and how cool that you now work at that PBS affiliate!
The Good Old Days!!!
ReplyDeleteI thing we would all be better off if PBS was still the only daily programs out there for kids....
SpongeBob has taught my kids some pretty fresh ways of speaking ~ big bird and his friends would have never used those kinds of words!!!
OMG...IMAGINE if you learned English from SpongeBob....you would have called your teacher an idiot..OMG!
I remember before last summer my niece was talking to my daughter about her favorite show on Disney or Nick. Maybe even cartoon network! My daughter had no idea what she was talking about and finally she turned to her cousin and said with a very elite tone, "I only watch PBS." Heee heee, I was never so proud of my little elitist. However, those days are gone, she found Sponge Bob and Hannah Montana.
ReplyDeleteYou are a riot AND a smart azz. LOL
ReplyDeleteIt was the same for me. Spanish was all we spoke in the house. Thank goodness for PBS. Grover was kewl but Cookie Monster was da man!
HugZ
Ernie was my favorite hands down!!!
ReplyDeletei learned to speak English thanks to my two older sisters...Spanish was ALWAYS spoken at home, but I would sneak into my sisters' room and listen to them and pick up on a lot of vocabulary. It also helped to watch the cartoons on Saturday morning ...
ReplyDeleteYou've made remember so many of the great shows that were on back in the day....simply loved Electric Company, ZOOM....OMG that was a must in my house!!! Ohhh and BTW my favorite Sesame Street character was Snuffleupagus....LOL LOL