Thoughts From a Bilingual Educator!

By: Emilio Salaverry      So, for the past couple of weeks I could not help, but think about all the 2020 graduating classes, especially our seniors. I never had a graduation ceremony, as a result of poor choices; however, for 2020 seniors it is different, they did not do anything wrong, they did not choose to not participate, they did not choose to leave school earlier and got straight to community college. There is no one to blame for the consequences COVID-19 has brought upon the world and 2020 seniors. Yes, all your plans for this year have been turned upside down; no senior pranks, no skipping school, no prom, no parties, no graduation ceremony and (in Peru) no despedidas. However, there are many reasons to be grateful and look forward to what wait for us in 2020 and beyond.      I want to start by expressing how grateful I am to have the opportunity to engage with, talk to and work with youth that inspire me every day. During quarantine 2020, and especially during gr

By: Emilio Salaverry I am starting my seventh week of online teaching and it has been a roller-coaster ride to say the least. What I mean is that I have had so many emotions during the past six weeks. This teaching thing is hard, even harder trying to do it through a screen and on lockdown. However, something weird and awesome happened to me last week; I told my students “I love you”. It came out so freely and sincere that I didn’t really process what just happened or had much of an instant impact. So, I am going to share my thoughts on this experience. After telling my students “I love you”, I had two initial thoughts. Immediately, I thought; "I hope their parents were not listening". Knowing that some parents are next to their children helping and guiding them through class made me think that they probably heard me say it. I wonder what they thought of it and if I crossed the line or not. The good thing is that I haven’t received any emails from angry parents or eve