For the last couple of years, my church has been engaged in supporting a neighborhood in Northfield that has been threatened by large corporate housing management company. The community is mostly Hispanic and many don’t speak very good English. There is also a Spanish church that meets at my church. Occasionally my church will have community building events that are meant to bring this group together. However for the most part, the Spanish speakers and the English speakers sat apart. Of course this was natural because of the language barrier, but it wasn’t right. It made me made when I heard people say things like “They need to learn English because they live in our country.” As I have been thinking about what it means to “love sacrificially”, I decided that I should learn Spanish.

To be honest, I love Chinese. I mean I really LOVE Chinese and I hate Spanish. In fact, I recently went to a powerpoint party and gave a 10 minute talk on “Why Chinese is Better than Spanish!” It’s not because I’m not good at learning languages. I really hate the verb conjugation and gender agreement stuff. I mean, why is a table feminine and a dress masculine? So many tenses. There is none of that in Chinese. I could go on, but that is not what this post is about. In the end, I decided to take Spanish at Carleton during my sabbatical – Fall 2023 through Spring 2024. I can now talk about climate change, slavery, globalization, healthy living, colonization, dictatorship, economic growth, and war. Sadly, we skipped the chapter on tourism. I think I really wanted a conversational Spanish class, but taking the class at Carleton gave me a structure that pushed me, and more importantly taking the class at Carleton gave me a new perspective on being a Carleton student.

Here are some realizations and/or affirmations I gained from this experience:

• Timing of assignments matters – We always had a graded homework assignment (a substantial textbook reading that had poorly designed reading questions) that was due on the same day as the exam. The reading didn’t reinforce grammar or vocabulary that would be on the exam, but it took several hours to do. As much as I wanted to be interested in the reading, I found that I was always angry because I wanted to be studying for the exam and I had this graded thing I had to do that didn’t help. This was interesting to me because I would check out Spanish chapter books from the library that I read one paragraph at a time and really enjoyed. When I could grab a museum guide that was in Spanish, I would. When I chose these items at a time that was convenient, I was interested in pushing myself. I feel like these textbook readings would have been more interesting to me if they weren’t due right as I had a major graded task due (e.g. an exam).
• Log-in overload is a thing – This class has multiple apps (at least 4, not including sites to practice verb conjugation, grammar, etc.) that I needed to log in to access different course content. It was overwhelming, particularly when I started. I found myself missing assignments and resources. If Carleton students are taking 2-3 other courses with similar numbers of apps, I can only imagine how challenging it can be, particularly since all the passwords are supposed to be different and also they might have different usernames as well.
• Transparency of course design is important – The due dates for my class were spread over about 3-4 different places, most of which I needed to log in to access. Then the deadlines were imbedded throughout a long text document. Needless to say, I missed things that were due because I forgot to check one of the spots or I realized it at the last minute and had to scramble to get it done. Ugh! For years I have created a 1-page version of the syllabus for me on a calendar-like page (class days of the week for each of 10-weeks) that shows the topics for each class, the relevant textbook chapter reading for the class, and ALL due dates (e.g., homework, exams, project deadlines). It helped me make sure that I didn’t have too many due dates in one week and allowed me to see the flow of the work in the class at one shot. It turns out that this is helpful for students as well! It allows them to organize their time and plan ahead. For visual learners being able to see every due date/deadline on a calendar at one shot is a great way to help them plan around their other classes and get in the rhythm of the class.
• Even well-intentioned instructors can cause harm – The threat of public humiliation is powerful. It can cause people to rise to an occasion and push themselves harder than they thought possible. It can also break them and shatter their confidence. This is a reason why cold-calling can be problematic. Though I didn’t experience cold-calling in the class (taught by the professor) or TA sessions (taught by trained student workers), I did experience times (mostly in the TA sessions) where I was repeatedly put in situations where I was publicly humiliated. Sometimes multiple times within the same class. I could feel myself shrinking inside, trying to pull back away from the situation as much as possible even within the fixed chair I was sitting in. Even when I knew the answer, my brain was so shut down that I couldn’t respond. I left the sessions holding back tears and cried all the way to my office. No one was trying to hurt me or humiliate me. In fact, I think they were trying to be helpful. But in the end, it was the impact that I remember. They were not thoughtful in how to allow me to share what I knew in ways the encouraged me to keep trying, so I shut down and stopped trying. I didn’t want to go to the TA sessions. I was convinced that I didn’t know any Spanish even though I aced the exams and successfully spoke Spanish with native-speaking college staff and community members during “Spanish lunches” I arranged once a week. Even as an experienced educator who could see what was occurring, I couldn’t stop the demoralization spiral. It was as powerful a lesson to observe as it was painful to experience.
• The just-so stories that we tell about our students are probably not right – We when we see a student who is working hard and eager to participate, we might tell ourselves that student loves to learn. It could be that the student has built their self worth on grades and is afraid of failure. When we see a student who seems disengaged, we might tell ourselves that the student just isn’t interested or they party too much. It could be that they are demoralized or shut down because of what is happening in class. There were a number of times when the class or a student didn’t respond as quickly as was hoped that the professor or TA assumed that we were tired because it was an early class. That might be partly true for some students, but it wasn’t true for me. Many times I understood the explanation, but the prompt wasn’t clear and I was trying to understand it. I couldn’t think of an example that quickly to apply the concept. (I have a learning challenge that adds to this delay.) This wasn’t helped by the fact that we were only supposed to speak in Spanish and maybe I didn’t know how to ask my question in Spanish. All that to say is the assumption about the cause of the observed behavior was based on (incorrect) biases and/or assumptions. Therefore the solution presented didn’t match the cause and, in my case, led to frustration and consternation.
• Just one event can throw everything out of whack – I started taking Spanish while I was on sabbatical and was based in Colorado. I was keeping up with the assignments and exams and doing them with the same deadlines as the students, except I didn’t attend class or TA sessions and I submitted everything electronically. Towards the end of the term (week7) I needed to transition to attend a conference in Denver and then immediately drive back to Minnesota. Between conferencing and driving, I missed almost a week of class time. It took me 3 weeks to catch up and take the final, which would have been the equivalent of an EXT 3 if I had asked for an extension from the Dean of Students Office. Wow! If I were a student with Covid or I had gotten a concussion or there was a family emergency, even though I was an A/A- student up until then, any of these events could have REALLY tripped me up. I was disoriented, scrambling, stressed out and I didn’t even have a medical issue to further affect my ability to think. I just couldn’t work. I can’t imagine trying to do this as a student with a full course load where my grades mattered.
• Time available vs complexity of the assignment – Simon and Priest have a graph that plots “skill level of the participants to complete a task” versus “the risk experienced by participants in not completing the task” that is used to explain the optimal balance for skill and risk for learning. For a given task that students must complete in a class, I would modify the graph to plot time available to complete the task versus the complexity of the task. If the task is easy and students are given too much time, then they will get off task. If the task is too hard and you don’t give students enough time (the misadventure or disaster zone), then they might get frustrated, lean on the strongest student, or even cheat. It’s important to find the right balance! When class time is running short and the practice task that the professor plans takes more time, the solution is not to rush the students, which will ultimately compromise the learning goals of the task for most if not all students. Rather the task should be probably be modified or postponed.
• Just because you say it doesn’t mean it’s true – When I proposed to several of my Spanish colleagues my idea of taking Spanish, they said, “No Problem!” and “You are welcome to take the class!” and “We would love to have you!” But the ground truth was they hadn’t thought about what that meant. All of the support structures were available after 8pm in the evening, when I was at home and had no intention of coming back to campus. The Spanish bon fires, ice cream social, and the movies, etc. surrounded by students would have felt awkward for me. I was invited to Spanish table, but it was expensive (since I was not on a meal plan I would have had to pay for it and it was expensive even at the faculty discount rate) and the space was too loud for me to hear and interact. I ultimately created my own support and enrichment activities – free verb conjugation apps, Spanish lunch with colleagues and friends, reading Spanish comic and chapter books, but I didn’t feel I was in a community and I didn’t feel like what I had pulled together on my own was recognized or valued. I just kept hearing the instructor desperately imploring me to take advantage of the opportunities they provided to improve my Spanish acquisition. (The department did pay for a student to be my Spanish tutor, which is something that can be provided to students who need extra help.) I wish that when I had been told that I could join the class but that the class supports and enrichment were not designed for me so that I could plan accordingly or strategized ahead of time.