Teaching English, Learning Spanish, and Appreciating Life's Ordinary Routines
Ordinary Life Interview #2
Hello,
Today I have the privilege of introducing you to my friend Carissa. She and I became friends just a couple years ago, introduced by a mutual friend and have only ever communicated virtually. It’s not easy making friends in your thirties—it helps when a mutual friend can help bring you together!
Often we think our own lives are boring, but to others they can be fascinating. That’s why it’s so fun to get to know someone new at a social gathering. This is the second in a series of Ordinary Life interviews I’m conducting with people I know. Pull up a chair, put the kettle on, and join me in a peek into someone else’s ordinary life.
Carissa lives in Greater Minnesota in a diverse, rural community where she teaches elementary English Language Development (ELD) and coordinates the PreK-12 ELD program for the school district. Below is my interview with her about her ordinary life.
Tell us more about yourself:
I’ve been in this school for five years now and love it; I taught in another state for three years prior to moving here. I am passionate about languages and immigration, equity, social justice, and environmental justice. I am a lifelong active church member, currently attending a Presbyterian (PCUSA) church but with most of my life in the United Methodist Church (UMC) and some Lutheran (ELCA) background as well. My husband and I have been together for almost fifteen years, married for almost thirteen. We have a son in first grade and a border collie who will turn eleven this year.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I love reading. My favorite books are YA fantasy, but I also love a high-quality graphic novel, especially nonfiction or realistic fiction. I enjoy the beauty of winter but hate the ice, so summer is my favorite season. I adore getting the chance to go for a walk, lie in the hammock, or sit outside in nice weather and just take it all in.
What are you enjoying reading lately?
Sooooo many things! A couple that jump out at me: Two YA novels by Kelly Barnill (The Girl Who Drank the Moon and The Ogress and the Orphans). These books have really different plots, but I think Barnhill’s writing style is entrancing. Both books have such fascinating characters and storylines while really digging deep into various emotions and human tendencies. One thing I didn’t appreciate about fiction until adulthood is how much TRUTH fictional stories can teach us about the human condition and how important that is.
Another great read has been Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s Substack, Life is a Sacred Text. I have learned a lot from her! I’ve always felt a strong affinity for Judaism due to its shared history with Christianity, and I really enjoyed learning more about it in college. My husband and I have some close Jewish friends and have been to various Jewish services, too, so I have more experience with Judaism than any other religion besides Christianity. I really love the way Ruttenberg dives deep into the texts of the Hebrew Bible and provides interpretations that are helpful, fascinating, and sometimes very surprising to a Christian like me. She has great insights, a sense of humor, and a really enjoyable writing style.
Where else have you lived?
I’ve moved so many times that it’s hard to count; I’ve lived in two different countries and almost every state in the upper Midwest. Most of my life has been here in Minnesota, but I’ve never actually lived in the Twin Cities (although many of my relatives are there). Having some knowledge and experience of different people and places has become an important part of my life, and I am grateful for the wider perspective it brings.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I am a night owl and NOT a morning person, so my days start with me trying to squeeze every possible minute of time in bed before getting up. This is especially true in the winter because I hate getting out of my warm blankets and having to walk around in a cold house! I read a daily devotional and a couple different news sources on my phone every morning before I get up, then I get ready for school. I have discovered that showering every two to three days is an awesome time-saver, haha!
The school day zips by quickly with a bunch of different groups of students and various paperwork and organizational tasks for the department. I help with bus dismissal and then work for awhile in my classroom while my son reads a book nearby. Since we live close, we walk or bike home or catch a ride with my husband. The kiddo plays in the living room (usually with Legos) while we unpack backpacks and lunch bags, sort through papers, and warm up supper.
We eat dinner as a family most nights. If we have time, we play together with our son before bed. We love playing board games. Then one of us reads a few chapters of a book and tucks him in.
With the kiddo in bed, we watch shows, catch up on email and the news, and I do some lesson planning before I go to bed.
What’s something in your life that is bringing you joy or meaning right now?
I am getting a lot of joy out of my very gradual process of improving my Spanish skills. I’ve studied multiple other languages between my tenth grade Spanish 1 class and my life today, but over the last several years I’ve put in an increasing amount of time and effort to build up my Spanish abilities. Because the students I work with on a daily basis (and many community members of our rural city) speak Spanish, it is highly motivating to be better able to communicate with them. My efforts are really starting to pay off this year, so that has been exciting! It helps that I am working with more new-to-country students, giving me lots of opportunities to practice. It has been awesome to notice myself comprehending and speaking more easily than I used to. I’ve also learned a lot by listening to Spanish podcasts, reading Harry Potter in Spanish, doing online flashcards, and watching Spanish lesson videos with my son to help him get started earlier than I did. I’ve wanted to know Spanish since middle school, and for a while I thought it would never happen because I had chosen to pursue other languages instead. But it turns out you can actually accomplish quite a bit if you keep at something for long enough, even if it’s a small amount at a time.
Finish this thought, “I’m a firm believer in . . . the importance of listening to people from different backgrounds and life experiences to bring to light issues and perspectives you would not otherwise notice or understand.
Imagine there’s been a major global apocalyptic event and you’re one of the survivors helping to rebuild society. What skill or knowledgebase would you bring to the effort?
I am a very organized person, to a degree that seems to blow people away at times. I imagine that if there were a major apocalyptic event like this, those organizational skills could prove extremely useful. I would probably try to start up documents and maps where I organize information like who and what is left, where to find things, what supplies are available, etc. This would definitely be harder without computers and the internet, but I could make it work on paper. 😊
Share something you’ve created lately that you’re proud of.
One of the things I love about my job is creating lesson plans and units that balance content standards, language objectives, background knowledge, and high-quality authentic texts to build students’ academic skills and academic English proficiency in effective and engaging ways. It is a fun challenge every time I create one, but extremely time-consuming. I have enough lesson plans created over the years that now I’m able to reuse them instead of creating them from scratch every time.
Here is an example of something one group of students made last month:
This was a group of six kids, half of whom are brand new to the U.S. this year and the other half who have been here for one year. I pre-taught key vocabulary, then we read part of the first Unicorn and Yeti book (by Heather Ayris Burnell). We practiced retelling the story in both Spanish and English, and students drew pictures of key events in the story to add to this poster. It has been a lot of fun! Also, now all six of these kids now know the English word sparkles. LOL.
What does living an “ordinary life” mean to you?
I think there’s so much beauty in ordinary life that people tend to forget about in pursuit of more exciting or glamorous lives. Moreover, why should we let the media tell us what is or is not glamorous?
There have been times when I have wished for a more adventurous or exciting life. My sister has traveled the world and now lives abroad, and there are some amazing elements of her life that I would love to experience. But every “yes” is a “no” to something else, and I would not trade away this life that I have with my husband and son. We are more settled down, but settled into a life that is a good fit for us. I love that we have time to spend together on things like books and board games, a cozy house that feels like home, both sets of grandparents nearby, jobs we enjoy, and a community with lots of great people around us. It’s not the kind of life you see in movies and TV shows, but that doesn’t make it any less lovely. As my husband sometimes likes to say (I’m paraphrasing):
“My life is boring, but I like it that way! It’s way more fun to experience the drama vicariously from someone else’s life!”
Thank you, Carissa! I loved learning more about your daily life and how you use your passion for connecting cross-culturally and your organizational skills to to help newcomers to your community learn English and feel welcome in your school. Your ordinary life is making a big difference in the lives of those around you.
If you missed it, here’s a link to the first Ordinary Life interview with my friend E: On living micro, making art, and seeing the world with fresh eyes.
Thanks for reading,
—NK