This evening I made life just
a little bit better for twenty community college students. We were playing the classic foreign language
learning game of Bingo in my Intermediate Spanish class, and as the only member
of the class who has been to the White House, I enabled everyone to complete a
Bingo on the second column down on their cards for five extra credit points.
One student got lucky and
asked me the pivotal question, and every head in the room turned to us. Nineteen more times I was asked: “¿Katherine,
ha estado en la Casa Blanca?”
And nineteen times I
answered: “¡Si! He estado en la Casa Blanca.”
I love taking community
college classes. I love Intermediate
Spanish so much that this is my sixth or seventh time taking the course.
In high school I took Latin,
which was useful for scoring high on the verbal section of the SAT, but useless
if you want to converse with anyone outside of Vatican City.
My quest to learn Spanish began
with an after work Berlitz class at my first job in Manhattan. Since then, I have taken many Spanish classes
in many community centers, libraries, and colleges.
When my youngest daughter started
elementary school, I decided to start Spanish at Foothill College right up the
street. Over twelve years there I
gradually progressed through Beginning Spanish 1,2, and 3, Intermediate Spanish
1, and then I kind of stalled.
I failed Intermediate Spanish
2 twice, after which I decided to try a different community college.
So now I’m at Cañada College
a little further up the street and taking Intermediate Spanish 1 again.
I love meeting the wide variety
of people who sign up for community college.
Usually the youngest compañero de clase is a disaffected sixteen-year-old
high school student and the oldest is well into their golden years.
We do a lot of personal
sharing in class, although usually in Spanish, so I only get about 60% of the
content, but what I can understand is very interesting.
¡Vamos a aprender Español!
