On a February afternoon, THE MJ PROJECT ventured into the halls of Sierra Pacific High School in Hanford, California with boxes of books, and for the first time all of the literature inside shared one thing in common: they were all written in Spanish.
The foundation’s first Spanish library was donated to the Spanish classrooms and teachers of Sierra Pacific, including Spanish 1 and Spanish 3 instructor, Adam Jameson. The team of teachers came together to create a library list they hope will elevate their students’ learning experience.
“We’re [going to] share the wealth of knowledge and reading and pass it on,” Jameson said.
Jameson, who is a Hanford native and speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese, is in his third year of teaching Spanish at Sierra Pacific and still recalls his own introduction to the Spanish language.
“I’m actually not a native speaker…I started [learning Spanish] in high school, and then I studied it in college,” Jameson said, “I’ve constantly tried to better it.”
He said while growing up he was an avid reader and after an introduction to Spanish, he became passionate about evolving as a Spanish language learner. In his free time, he is currently learning Italian, French and Arabic to reach his goal of speaking 20 languages.
“You’re never going to be able to conquer something if you don’t try…I kind of learned that myself…I’m a second language learner in that sense, and I tell them [my students]…if you really want to learn this language, you have to really want it and then just do it. Anything is possible,” Jameson stated.
His early quest to improve in his second language and the process of what he calls falling into education through substitute teaching, led him to become the teacher he is today.
“I finally leaped into education and decided to teach foreign language,” he claimed.
As he and his colleagues teach to their native and non-native Spanish students, they have many literacy goals in mind. These include teaching students how to read, write and speak the language while immersing them into the culture, customs and experiences.
“ I feel reading and literature informs us about the culture, and it’s a great example of language,” Jameson stated.
He and his colleagues are committed to delivering classroom content that can be applicable to the real world and other subjects students encounter. The MJ PROJECT library contains titles that he said he believes will help facilitate that endeavor. Some of the books include La Chica Nueva by Jennifer Degenhardt and Más Allá Del Invierno by Isabel Allende.
“I don’t feel that there’s a huge awareness of Spanish literature or books out there,” Jameson claimed. “Hopefully knowing that there is a whole other world or…all these writers and things out there, can expand their minds and give them a broader view or maybe an awakening.”
Jameson said students have already checked out books from THE MJ PROJECT’s Spanish classroom library and the book collection is a resource that he and the other teachers are looking forward to incorporating into the Spanish curriculum.
“It’s kind of surreal,” he said. “I’m very excited and can’t wait to see what happens.”