My Inspiration

While on the return flight from Costa Rica, I sat next to a man who looked as though he was a native Spanish speaker.  We didn't interact much.  I read my book, and he spent most of his time looking out the window.  The pilot announced 30 minutes until arrival in Chicago, Illinois, and the flight attendants began to pass out US customs forms.  I started on my own when my neighbor leaned in and asked me a question in broken English.  I responded in Spanish, and he looked at me, surprised.  Hablas espanol? he asked.  "Si," I replied, "acabo de pasar tres meses en Costa Rica."  And for the rest of the flight, he embellished on his travels to South America and all the beautiful women he met there.

I've always loved Spanish.  I started Education courses in my first year at Coe, and they've highly interested me, too, but it wasn't until that moment that I realized exactly why it was important to me to teach a foreign language.  Had I not learned Spanish, I would have never known that man.  We would have sat quietly in our seats, making assumptions about one another but never being able to really know.  And I looked back at the past semester I spent in Costa Rica, the host family that became my own, and a foreign country that became familiar--I never would have known those people or their country had I not taken the time to learn another language.

The world is full of different cultures, ethnicities, and people, who have different ideas, beliefs, and values, and language is one of the most important ways to communicate them.  To limit ourselves to only the experiences of those who speak our language is to deprive ourselves of cultural perspectives that can otherwise be lost in translation.  Language and culture are interrelated, and each is important to the other for true understanding.  I want to teach a foreign language so I can also teach foreign cultures and continue to expand my horizons along with those of my students.