Welcome To Esperanza Elementary Blog

I want to give you a special welcome to our Esperanza Elementary blog as we take our journey to found the school of our dreams. I invite you to visit us often and offer any ideas, thoughts, suggestions, questions, comments, etc. you might have.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The Greater Journey

This morning I finished reading David McCullough's newest book The Greater Journey. It is about Americans who went to Paris from 1830-1900 to learn. Not only was the book extremely fascinating--one that I wanted to read again as soon as I read the last page--but I also learned some valuable lessons.

The Americans in the book went to Paris to learn from another culture that had been in existence a much longer time than their own American culture. What they learned they brought home to enrich Americans. America is still a relatively new culture so it would still be wise for us to be humble and learn from cultures that have existed longer, some even for thousands of years. How we can learn from these cultures:


  • Travel

  • Read--fiction, nonfiction, biographies, poetry, art

  • Cultivate friendships with people from different cultures

  • Documentaries

  • Attend cultural events

  • Visit cultural restaurants and other cultural business establishments

  • Learn another language

  • Have pen pals

  • Listen to music from different cultures and learn about the instruments

We as the educators at Esperanza need to set the example. Then we need to intentionally provide opportunities for our scholars to learn from other cultures. Even though our Hispanic scholars may share a common language--Spanish--they will probably come from different countries...and even those who come from Mexico may come from different parts of Mexico.


This cultural learning journey can be one of those most intriguing things we ever do.

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