Preparing students for a lifelong commitment to learning and social responsibility: Of how I have in

On June 20-22, 2015, I participated in a summer institute on Ethical Leadership at St. Luke’s School directed by Martin Stegemoeller, of St. Mark’s School. This 3-day workshop on the teaching of ethics in every classroom and office was very stimulating as it made me think about different ways on how to incorporate what I learned into the Spanish classroom. Ethical leadership is directed by respect for ethical beliefs and values and for the dignity and rights of others. It is related to concepts such as trust, honesty, consideration, charisma and fairness. Leaders know what they value. They also recognize the importance of ethical behavior. As I result of my participation in and reflection on the workshop, I decided to include the ethical leadership component in my classes and wrote three mission statements for my Honors Spanish 4, Spanish 5, and AP Spanish classes. These statements include a specific vocabulary on ethics, and they all resonate with St. Luke's mission, our school’s motto, our core values, and our four pillars.

The primary goals of Honors Spanish 4 and Spanish 5 are to offer students an advanced communicative course in Spanish while developing an awareness and appreciation of Hispanic and Latino cultures. The AP Spanish course concludes the five-year sequence of Spanish Language and Culture courses offered at the high school. The course follows the guidelines of the College Board AP Spanish Language and Culture course and provides students with opportunities to develop language proficiency across the three modes of communication (Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational) from the Intermediate to the Pre-Advanced range as defined in the learning objectives in the Curriculum Framework and in the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century, also known as the 5 Cs, which focus on five general areas: 1) Communicating in Spanish; 2) Gaining knowledge and understanding of cultures of the Hispanic world.; 3) Connecting with other disciplines and acquiring new information; 4) Developing awareness of similarities and differences (comparisons) among language and culture systems around the world; and 5) Using Spanish to participate in communities at home and around the world.

These three courses, conducted exclusively in the target language, offer a multifaceted curriculum with an advanced level of speaking, reading, and writing in Spanish. In alignment with my school's mission, these courses will prepare students for a lifelong commitment to learning and social responsibility. They seek to foster students’ initiative and leadership through ethical and empathetic involvement with others. In addition, the courses foster the pursuit of excellence, strength of character, and a healthy self-image. By the end of the course, students will have reflected on who they are, if they met their goals for the current year, who they want to become in the near future, and what they are going to do to become better people and leaders so that they can improve the communities to which they belong.

While students will review grammatical structures studied in previous years and studying new grammatical paradigms, they will be able to identify major Latin American and Spanish literary works from the 16th to the 21st century in both Honors Spanish 4 and Spanish 5. In AP Spanish, students will be able to study a series of authentic resources including online print, audio, and audiovisual resources, as well as traditional print sources that include literature, essays, and magazine and newspaper articles with the goal of providing a rich, diverse learning experience. Through the interpretation of these cultural products, students will learn to envision themselves as leaders that they might be at their best, and they will study and move toward the mastery of the qualities that they need in order to become such leaders.

Students will investigate different ways in which we as individuals make a difference in the world we live in, engaging positively within the community, while serving and coordinating our actions toward understanding and intellectual and personal growth. Students will critically think about, reflect on, and discuss the successes and failures of great literary characters in order to better understand the complex nature of human interactions and the personal qualities that shape them. It is not so much about what a character does or says in a novel, but about how his or her actions and ideas relate to us today. Readings for Honors Spanish 4 include Lazarillo de Tormes, Félix Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna, Miguel de Cervantes’s Rinconete y Cortadillo, Tirso de Molina’s El burlador de Sevilla, José Zorrila’s Don Juan Tenorio, Benito Pérez Galdós’s Marianela, Luis María Carrero’s La ciudad de los dioses and El secreto de Cristóbal Colón, and José María Merino’s El oro de los sueños, among others. By the end of the course, students will gain a deeper understanding of the personal and the communal responsibilities in the worlds created by these authors.

Students will keep in mind the four pillars of our school: honesty, kindness, respect, and responsibility: 1) They will think about, reflect on, and discuss actions and people that embody honesty; 2) Establish relationships, motivate, and foster others through kindness; 3) Lead their communities best and earn the respect of others, while respecting the responsibility that comes from authority and leadership; and; 4) Plan how to move missions forward by being responsible.

These courses are conducted as seminars. They value participatory, interactive learning and a willingness to help others. All of the work of the classes is collaborative and, as such, we will be co-responsible for the classes’ success. Students’ committed involvement is essential to the function of this course. This means they are expected to keep up with the readings and come to class prepared to share their ideas in response to them. These courses encourage class discussion that is dynamic and sustained. It will proceed by discussion rather than by lecture. As is the nature of most seminars, discussion will take precedence over activities and will be as interesting, engaging, and lively as they make it. In other words, students must actively participate. Following our WL Department Classwork Rubric, I will assess students’ preparation for class, frequency and quality of participation, and independence and cooperation, among other categories. Students are encouraged and expected to identify their own success and happiness in this class, how they can thrive at the personal and communal levels with that of their peers, while help move the class community towards its mission and improve the lives of its members.

As a result of these courses, students will be able to achieve the following: 1) Review grammatical structures studied in previous years and learn new grammatical paradigms; 2) Have an overview of the major representative works of the 16th and 21st century; 3) Apply critical analysis and thinking to the study of different cultural products; 4) Engage in informed discussions about the themes presented in these texts, as well as what it takes for an individual to be a good person and a leader; 5) Understand and appreciate selected elements of the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world; and Create original work in the target language (Spanish).

In order to articulate students’ visions, how they found their voices and how they make a difference, they will learn to write creative narratives of their lives that link past, present, and future in a single trajectory. Students will prepare and revise numerous essays based on the readings and discussions in class. Topics will include, but not be limited to the following: demography and Hispanic population in the U.S.; gender roles in society, particularly those of women; literature and mass media, celebrations and traditions; global challenges; contemporary politics and events. By the end of the course, students will have acquired a new vocabulary of ethical concepts, ideas, values, and virtues and have worked on their own leadership skills, such as: zest, grit, optimism, self-control, gratitude, social intelligence, curiosity, teamwork, creativity, ethics, resilience, time management, compassion, passion, and patience. They will also have reflected on the existence of an ethics of reading as we examine our past and present and imagine our future to promote justice and peace.

Students will feel the positive effects of their actions as they will walk in someone else’s shoes and experience lessons that involve character strength, while they reflect on the consequences, impacts, or repercussions of the characters’ actions, as well theirs. They will learn how to get better in time when discussing their external and internal goods. Finally, students will assess their own progress and reflect on what they have done to become a good person, and, above all, a better leader. By the end of the school year, I will be able to evaluate and reflect on the impact that character education and ethical leadership have in my classes.