Buen Dia Family School is a Spanish-English bilingual preschool with an arts-based curriculum in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. This is where I’m doing my second co-op. And what a place it is! There are few things as simultaneously tumultuous and gratifying as working with young children. Every day, it feels like I am discovering a new way to make a tremendous mess. Just yesterday, I caught a kid attempting to pour sand into my back pocket. And yet, I feel so pleased with the growth I’ve seen in just a small amount of time.
I’ve always thought it was cliche when a teacher says their students teach them just as much as they do the reverse, but in just a few weeks I’ve come to realize that it really is the truth. As an undergrad with a focus on foreign languages, I feel especially enlightened by the process of language acquisition that I’ve observed in my time at Buen Dia. More than half of the children are from multilingual households, most of which are Spanish-speaking (though some speak Japanese, Farsi, Italian, etc.). It’s both amusing and illuminating observing three- to five-year-olds juggle multiple languages as they learn to express themselves and their ideas. For example, one younger child calls the moon “la moona,” and to request help, he often says “I want ayuda.” It honestly reminds me of the English-Arabic combination my older cousins speak to each other. Their father is Syrian and their mother is American, and they grew up in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, frequently visiting family in both Safita and Indiana. They’re all grown men now in their thirties, but when they speak to each other they still have a very unique sort of personal pidgin that they share.
Even monolingual children have their own unique language. Not just in terms of verbal communication, but with body language and recurrent behaviors, too. It’s so important to recognize and understand the ways in which each individual child expresses their feelings and needs because every single one is different. So far, this co-op has really driven that lesson home, and I’ve been building meaningful relationships with each of the 29 kids at Buen Dia. Some slower than others, but none less important. It makes me wish I had more than just eleven weeks to spend with them, but even if I stayed, many of them are heading off to kindergarten next fall. I guess that’s part of being a teacher — every year there’s a new class and it’s up to you to make your time together meaningful. Well, so far so good.
A birthday present made for me by a student
Japanese learning materials I made for group time
