Peter Tokofsky
Back after pandemic with help for English-learners
This year’s Amity scholars include teachers from Spain as well as Central American countries. From left, Carmen Medina, Paula Buide, Diego Andrade, Maria Mayor, Irene Manzanares, Maria Jose Perez and Kevin Guevara.
Seven international teachers arrived in Half Moon Bay late last month. Over the course of the new school year, they will contribute to instruction at Hatch Elementary School and Cunha Intermediate School while also gaining new pedagogical skills they will take back to their home countries where they all hope to secure teaching jobs.
The group represents the latest cohort of interns who come to Cabrillo Unified School District through the Amity Institute, a San Diego-based nonprofit dedicated to increasing international exchange and cooperation.
The program, which has a long tradition in Cabrillo schools, faced challenges after the 2019-20 cohort returned home early when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down classrooms. Last year a group of five Amity interns returned to Hatch for the first time since the pandemic.
The current group is the largest ever, and, for the first time, the program will expand beyond Hatch with a full-time presence at Cunha.
Five of the teachers hail from Spain. María Mayor, Irene Manzanares and Maria Jose Perez all come from Madrid. Carmen Medina and Paula Buide call the northwestern cities of León and Coruña home.
Kevin Guevara from San Miguel, El Salvador, and Diego Andrade from Valledupar, Columbia, join the Spaniards.
Local Amity coordinator Erika Whitemore appreciates having someone from El Salvador who can relate to many of the local students and represent her own heritage as well. “I have to beg hard to get people from El Salvador,” she said. “They usually send them to Minnesota.”
After the first few days of school, the enthusiastic group already recognized some of the differences between their classrooms here and at home. “They place a lot of importance on emotions,” Manzanares observed. “They ask, ‘How do you feel?’ a lot.”
“People are really nice here,” noted Andrade, who will spend the year assisting Spanish classes at Cunha. “Everybody says ‘hi’.”
“They have a lot of resources and technology,” Buide said. “It’s strange to have so much in a public school.”
“I like that all the kids get the same supplies,” Medina said, referring to the support given to students with greater needs.
Having seven additional
bilingual instructors provides tremendous benefit to the district, teachers and
administrators said. Ashley Waggle, the new principal at Hatch, said she was grateful that the Amity teachers
enabled the school to give extra attention to two new
students who recently immigrated to the area and do not yet speak English. Contributing to equitable public schools is important to the interns, too.
“I went all the way through public school,” Mayor said. “I owe my English to public schools.”
The group brings other assets as well. Perez hopes she’ll be able to share her piano-playing ability with students during the year. Guevara is a skilled barber and is looking for some chances to offer a trim.
Every year the interns who arrive in Half Moon Bay express delight about being placed in such a beautiful
location by the Amity Institute, which sends teachers to locations throughout the United States. But this year, members of the group
admitted that when they Googled the name of the town they had to hide the information from their parents due to the shooting tragedy that dominated the search results.
All seven in the group hope that their experiences working in American schools will give them an advantage in their search for a good job when they return home. Other people in their countries can speak English, they said, but few of them have learned about the American culture in ways they expect to this year.
Their cultural learning is enhanced because the Amity interns spend the year living with local families. Whitemore is still looking for families willing to host some of them for the second semester starting in January.
Source: Half Moon Bay Review
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