Success

Dolly Case--the wife of one of our Esperanza board founders, Cody Case--shared this on FB this morning.  It fits beautifully with what I was going to write today. 

Because we are going to have all our Esperanza scholars learn to play chess I felt it was important for me to learn.  Therefore, I bought a $1 chess set and a book written for children and started my chess learning quest and made learning chess a 2012 goal.  Then my husband introduced me to "Chess Titans" on the computer.  It was so humbling to continually have a computer beat me.  I lost so many times I quit counting and wanted to forget it.  Then I finally had a win.  Needless to say, this did not make me a chess champion and I will probably still lose MANY games, but it gave me hope.  Plus, I love the game and the challenge.

This experience reminds me of a couple of things.  First, success helps breed success.  We want to give our Esperanza scholars opportunities to feel success.  Second, it is important to have a growth mindset as Carol Dweck would suggest.  We want to encourage this mindset at Esperanza for both our scholars and our staff so we know that it takes effort to achieve our goals and not give up just because we don't achieve early on in the game. 

Example! Example! Example!

I bought an expensive chess set at All-A-Dollar as a Christmas gift for my husband and me.  Felt I needed to learn to play chess if we are going to have all our Esperanza scholars learn.  Guess I'll soon need to buy a violin and learn to play the violin since our Esperanza scholars will be learning this as well.

This experience is a reminder that example is the best teacher.  If we want our scholars to be readers we need to be readers.  If we want them to love math and science we need to cultivate a love for these subjects.  If we want them to be good and moral people we need to set the example.  If we want them to strive for quality and excellence we need to be willing to do the same.

Navigating Two Worlds

Research studies indicate that Hispanic learners who are most successful have learned to navigate well in the dominant culture without sacrificing their heritage culture. This can be especially significant for our lower income Hispanic learners.
There are some things we plan to do at Esperanza Elementary to specifically address this:

• Teach all students to be literate in English and Spanish so they write and speak in both languages at a high level.


• Expose all students to what well educated people in the dominant culture know as well as acknowledging the contributions of their heritage culture. The intention is to widen their horizons.


• Expose students to the lifestyle of higher income people. For instance, taking them to cultural events (plays, operas, ballets, symphonies, etc.) and to nice restaurants. This is something Salome El-Thomas did with his chess winning students.


• Expose students--and their families-- to higher education institutions. Dr. Josie Tinajero developed an excellent Hispanic Mother/Daughter Program for 6th grade girls with this being the goal. We plan to implement this program at Esperanza as well as the Hispanic Father/Son Program Dr. Tinajero later developed. There is also a program called Adelante developed by some University of Utah professors we might want to emulate.


• Find mentors for students.


• Involve students in tutoring and mentoring younger students.


• Teach them financial skills. Many of them(and/or their parents) already have an entrepreneurial mindset that can be tapped into.

Students who can navigate two worlds will be richer--personally as well as probably financially. Thus, students such as these will also enrich our community and nation.