20SomethingMom chronicles of a young mom

Job to VisionPosted by admin on March 19th, 2010

It’s never too late to be what you might have been. ~ George Eliot

On a good day, I think I have the best job in the world. It comes with flexible hours: I work a few hours a day, sometimes online. It’s rewarding: I guide students through tough tests, tough courses, and sometimes, tough personal struggles. Fortunately, the going rate for private tutoring is such that it has sustained me for many years.

On a bad day, I feel hopeless. If I am not getting through to this one child, how could I possibly get through to the many more who need my help? The very thing that is absolutely necessary for the continuation of my career — the per-student cost — is the most depressing part; it denies access to large numbers of floundering students.

Most days, of course, fall somewhere in between. I feel tugged away from tutoring by the need for stability (no more dead summers), yet my ultimate career interests center around the skills I have perfected in my decade of one-on-one academics. Since job satisfaction fluctuates like this for most people, it helps to maintain a vision of something better, if not bigger. As with other life goals, putting this in writing (or at least allowing the thoughts to be directed into dreams) takes it from impossible to improbable.

Here’s my career vision:

My ideal job would combine tutoring and mentoring in a large-scale nonprofit. I would train others in my “methods” (once I render them into something concrete and transferable) and have each student sponsored by an adult willing to pay for his/her supplemental education. It’s the same idea as sponsoring a single hungry child on the other side of the world, and would eliminate the need for excessive fundraising from stingy corporate sources.

Whether or not this particular vision materializes, its articulation reminds me that a job is a job is a job…until we turn it into something more. A little daydreaming, a little reconnecting to the reasons we work, may be a good start. Even those jobs that just get us through a summer, a crisis, or a decade can act as stepping stones.

With all the bad news and dim forecasts swirling around, right now is the best time to examine the difference between a job and a career, work and life’s work.

Do you know what your life’s work would have/should have been?

It still is.

Technorati Tags: career, education, employment, goals, job, tutoring, vision, work

Becoming FluentPosted by admin on March 18th, 2010

My latest post for SpanglishBaby deals with the long journey to second-language fluency and the particular challenges surrounding dialect.

Read it and let me know what you think!

Technorati Tags: bilingual, SpanglishBaby, Spanish

Bilingual StridesPosted by admin on March 10th, 2010

Since I recently began contributing to SpanglishBaby, I have been re-energized in my efforts to keep my son surrounded by Spanish. The shifting balance of Spanish and English has been particularly interesting to watch. He has always responded differently to each language, but has recently developed preferences according to the rules of his interactions thus far.

I speak only Spanish to him, with few exceptions (i.e. when I’m frustrated and can’t find exactly the right words). He watches equal amounts of Spanish and English television — his favorite is Pocoyo — and I only read to him in Spanish. (This becomes funny when translation is involved.) Most days, it’s just the two of us interacting en espanol.

In the past few weeks, he’s become quite opinionated about my use of English. He doesn’t flinch when I use English with other people in front of him, but he completely ignores me if I speak directly to him in English. Today, I took him to Starbucks. Because I was speaking to the barista in English and my brain was in that mode, I asked if he wanted a cookie in English. He didn’t even look at me. But when I said “quieres una galleta?” he nodded and said “mmhmm.”

Things are the opposite with my mom. He spends a lot of time with her when I’m working and on her days off. She uses only English with him, but she’s starting to learn some Spanish words. He laughs when she speaks Spanish and sometimes even shushes her.

This awareness of separate languages is an exciting development because he’s simultaneously advancing towards the stage of nonstop talking. He said his first complete sentence (5 words) a few days ago, but it was English and Spanish mixed together. I was so excited to hear him mix the languages (code switch) because it means that he has a command of both grammatical structures. I feel like a scientist conducting an experiment, and being blown away by the results. Every myth that we grow up with about our limited brain capacity explodes at the moment that a 2-year-old says a coherent sentence in two languages, with native accents in both.

I suppose that for someone who grew up in a bilingual household, this wouldn’t be such a crazy discovery. For me, though, it’s an amazing thing to witness. I know plenty of people who grew up speaking Spanish at home and English at school, so I know it works. Still, there’s no lesson like seeing it happen in your own child. We think that the “firsts” stop after the first step, the first word, but I’m learning that there are many, many more to come.

I wish that every child in the world could have the gift of bilingualism, but all I can do is encourage other parents to do what they can to expose their kids to a second (or third or fourth) language. There is room in those little heads for all of it.

Technorati Tags: bilingualism, code switching, espanol, parenting, Pocoyo, spanglish, SpanglishBaby, Spanish

Come read my posts at SpanglishBaby!Posted by admin on March 1st, 2010

I invite all of you to check out one of my favorite parenting websites, for which I am now a contributor.

SpanglishBaby is a wonderful blog/store/community for parents raising bilingual children. It is a source of information, support, and friendship for me and many others.

Please check out my first post, and make this site one of your new favorites!