The teacher behind the success of bilingual pre-school
Maria Luz Doralli Montelongo Vega, was born in Zacatecas, México, came to the USA 18 years ago, and for the last 14 years she has been working as a bilingual teacher.
Today she is in charge of the bilingual immersion program at the Instituto bilingue Gudalupano, located in the Kendall Whittier neighborhood, where she works with the tiny ones in the community in English and in Spanish.
“Being a Latina teacher is quite a responsibility because I feel I’m also a kind of a mother to all my students, considering their young age, which is why the responsibility is huge,” said Doralli.
According to the teacher, learning environments should be safe, so that the child feels at ease, a reason why at her institute teachers devote a lot of time to trying to understand the behavior of a child and his or her needs.
“We need to see how he behaves with the rest, if he participates actively, if he is left behind, if he interacts with other children, that is how we can see how they re feeling,” she explained.
Recently the Hispanic community has been deeply affected by the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Trump administration and the fear of deportations, but according to Doralli the children don’t bring these ghosts to the class.
“I haven’t dealt with something like this yet, but I know that should this happen to any of my students and their families we could see it in the behavior of the child.”
The Gudalupano Institute is completely bilingual.
“We follow a program in which children learn both languages at the same time, and it is fabulous to see how incredibly they capture every single word, as if they were sponges,” she said.
Bullying is almost a trendy word, and sometimes it has an early beginning. Doralli knows about its existence in pre-k and has to struggle with potential bullying situations even with the youngest ones.
“It’s a behavior that does not start in school, it comes from the house. The first school is home, the first teachers, the parents. That is why whenever we face a situation that requires intervention we work with the child and also with the family.”
Doralli is a mother of two teenagers and is quite aware that one doesn’t learn to be a parent with a manual, and while parents learn, some kids suffer.
“The lack of attention is the main problem I see with my students, but I believe that it is justifiable at some point because parents are in constant learning of parenthood, and the children are also learning with their parents.”
The main goal of this school is to educate our children with love, avoiding idealizations and teaching the community, the families and the children that we “are all human beings,” in words of Doralli.
Doralli said that being a teacher can be hard, we all have good and bad days, but instructors need to leave their demons outside the class before starting the day.
“Each of us has a different recipe, I am a very quiet person, I have a lot of patience just because I believe in God, he is the one guiding me in everything I do, so whenever I have rough days I rely on his strength and let the moment pass,” Doralli explained.
At Instituto Bilingue Guadalupano teachers work hard to help children become noble and humble boys and girls who believe in a future full of hope, love, peace and unity.
“Life is long and we can notice very early in life the qualities of each of our children, but life has its ups and down, and that is why we have to be there for them, to guide them with love and values, so that they become good citizens,” concluded Doralli. (La Semana)