Learning new things

So my summer challenge is to learn to communicate in Spanish - reading, writing and, most importantly, speaking.

I took two years of Spanish in high school but I will tell you I spent a lot of time drawing pictures and not so much actually attempting to learn Spanish. My teachers lost me when they described the English parts of speech and how it differed in Spanish. I was never good at labeling English sentence structure so comparing it to Spanish did me no good. I'm still not sure how I managed to get credit for graduation - maybe it was because I was a well behaved student (aside from never doing any actual work).

I've been in the Rio Grande Valley for nearly 15 years now and am constantly surrounded by people who speak Spanish or some variation of it. I will admit to learning a few words along the way - mostly the bad words and as well as how to apologize and explain that I don't speak Spanish - but other than a few memorized phrases, couldn't string together a simple sentence.

For the past two years, Spanish has become more of a necessity. Many of my student's parents only speak Spanish so I am forced to rely on someone to translate for me. But even still, my skills have not really improved because I really haven't had the desire to learn.

A few weeks ago I was at a community event for my new school and was surrounded by Spanish speakers. I really wanted to be able to understand what was going on and interact with the community. I realized that I really I wanted to learn. I switched my car radio to a Spanish music station, found some Spanish kids shows on the internet (let me recommend Pocoyo ) and I sucked it up and bought Rosetta Stone. Yes...It's lots of money but so far I am very happy with the product.

What's changed for me is my mindset - mindset is such a big thing when it comes to learning. If you don't want to learn it, you probably won't. On the other hand, when you want to learn, you seek it out. I find myself playing little games in my mind - how many things can I identify in my house or on the way to work? what is the purpose or message of the commercial I just heard?

It's all about the mindset.

I learn the things I want to learn or the things I know are going to help me be successful at my job (because I want to be successful at my job) but the things I don't want to learn - I don't. I can't be bothered. I'm sure this is where many of our kids our coming from, because this was my mindset as a student as well.

As a teacher, know my students all want to learn something. The question is what do they want to learn and how do they want to demonstrate that new knowledge or skill? And more importantly, where does their "this is what I want to learn" coincide with my "what I'm supposed to teach you" because then the powers that be are incredibly happy - and if not, I'm going to try to set aside a little time each week so they can pursue the thing they really want to learn even if it has nothing to do with my subject area.