Byards' Bywords: In Which Kyle Returns to His Elementary School

When Kyle was in school, he was part of what is called an Immersion Program. This program began at a local elementary school in Indianapolis the year Kyle went into kindergarten and helped the students in the program learn Spanish. I can never remember all the specifics, but basically this program "immerses" students in the Spanish language and culture at an early age so that by the time they're older (say, graduation age), they are fluent in Spanish and know tons about Spanish culture, geography, etc. I believe this might be done at more schools now, but twenty years ago, Kyle's school had an advantage of piloting the program.

The result of all those years of Immersion? Kyle STILL speaks fluent Spanish, even though he doesn't get to practice very much. He learned how to read in Spanish initially and taught himself to read in English. We have lots and lots of storybooks from Kyle's elementary years that are in Spanish and he really wants to make it a goal to read to our kids in Spanish as well as English. Several of his grades were conducted entirely in Spanish, there were some half-and-half, and then by the time he got to high school, he took Spanish classes like everyone else does, but his were way more advanced than any I ever had available to me, like a Spanish film-making class or an AP Spanish Literature course. His geography credit in high school was all about Latin-American countries, I think.

Because he stuck with the program throughout school and completed all of its requirements, Kyle graduated not only with a diploma from Indiana but also with a certificate that I understand is kind of like a diploma in Spain. Neat! He made a lot of close friends in Immersion and also got the opportunity to have teachers from several Spanish-speaking countries like Puerto Rico, Spain, Costa Rica, etc.

So the reason I blog about this now is because we had the opportunity to visit Kyle's elementary school recently when his younger brother, Jacob, graduated from the Immersion Program last week (the graduation ceremony is held at the elementary school). You know how when you're an adult and you go back to your elementary or pre-school and you realize how SMALL everything is? Kyle was experiencing a lot of that when we visited. I also got the opportunity to meet some of his Spanish-speaking teachers, all of which were very wonderful and spoke to Kyle in Spanish and me in English (thank goodness). They were all very surprised to find out one of their first students was married and expecting a nino (baby). They exclaimed that it made them feel old. Well, I suppose if any of my students came back to visit me and announced they were married with kids, it would make me feel old, too, I guess! It was very hard for me to understand the Spanish they spoke to Kyle because they spoke SO quickly...even though I'm a Spanish minor and had several years of Spanish study myself. I couldn't imagine how difficult it would have been to have studied with them as a young child! But that's what makes the graduates fluent, I guess.

Some pictures of our visit:


The school has changed a lot since he left (as any school does), but I thought it was neat that everything was Spanish-style. I'm easily amused, I guess. I thought this cut-out was pretty funny, so I had Kyle pose beside it.