UTRGV philosophy professors received an award for their work in Dual Education, which promotes bilingual studies.
Alex Stehn, associate director of the Center of Bilingual Studies and a philosophy associate professor, and his wife Mariana Alessandri, a philosophy assistant professor and an affiliate faculty in Mexican American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies, started the Rio Grande Valley Parents United for Excellent Dual Education, or RGV PUEDE, when they found out there were few opportunities for their own kids to have a bilingual education in McAllen.
“We really wanted to find out about the different kinds of Spanish [programs] that [were] offered for elementary students,” Stehn said. “We talked around with a lot of other faculty, especially faculty in the College of Education, and we found out that there was this thing called dual language enrichment education … but what we found out while we were talking with all these other faculty is that those programs weren’t really widespread.”
Stehn said that parents who were looking for the same opportunities for their kids needed an organization to advocate for those programs.
They started with help from other UTRGV faculty by sending an announcement through UTRGV Messenger asking staff and faculty if they were interested in finding out more about dual language enrichment opportunities for their children.
“We wrote a letter in English and Spanish and took it to, like, our Spanish-only preschool and we found out that there were some other Spanish-only preschools that our colleagues were sending their kids to,” Stehn said. “So, we asked them if we could drop the letters off there. Basically, we just started organizing mostly in McAllen. … But again, we realized that for dual language to really be successful, it can’t just be in just one district, it really needs to be, we think, the whole Valley.”
Stehn and Alessandri hope to expand the program to other cities such as Pharr, San Juan, Alamo, Harlingen, Brownsville, Donna, La Joya, Mission and Rio Grande City.
Alessandri said the goal of RGV PUEDE is to support districts, to value and implement quality dual language education and to inform parents about dual language education and how it differs from traditional bilingual education.
“When you teach a native Spanish speaker in their language, they do better in English, in Spanish, in their subjects and … it affirms that their language is useful and good,” Alessandri said. “And when you don’t do that, it makes them think that their language is something to be ashamed of and they lose it.”
Asked how their work helps UTRGV’s strategic plan to become a B3 institute, Stehn replied that by having schools who teach proper dual language education to kids early on, they prepare for a B3 institute and will be able to take a class in Spanish in the future.
Stehn and Alessandri were awarded the Rio Grande Valley-Texas Association for Bilingual Education and recognized as 2019 Distinguished Community Advocate Honorees, according to the UTRGV Newsroom page.
Stehn said that although he liked the recognition, he felt more responsibility to keep working on the program.
“I feel like, ‘Oh, my god, I have so much responsibility now,’ because, you know, I do feel sort of personally responsible,” he said. “If I don’t do a good job helping parents get organized, and some kid this year that is starting pre-K and instead of starting a dual language program, they’re in an early exit program. And by the time they get to third grade, the school’s not going to be teaching them Spanish anymore. Like, I feel, like, I’m already too late for that kid. I feel like I’ve already failed that kid.”
Alessandri said the award was affirming and empowered them to keep going.
“It was a surprise,” she said. “So, we just felt really empowered to keep going and to say, ‘Wow! This is really being valued.’ Then, the news broke out everywhere from that article. … It was so interesting that it’s really getting out. So, I think that a lot of people have their eye on the RGV as it could be one of the leaders of dual language.”
Alessandri thinks it is important for young people in the RGV to speak Spanish for job opportunities and to relate to the other people of the Valley. Stehn said there are so many languages in the world, and he feels sad when a kid is monolingual, especially in the Valley.
He said that although he is not perfectly bilingual, he respects people who are.
“We want our kids to be able to move through these two languages, whether it’s reading, or writing or speaking,” Stehn said. “Even though the world is still messed up, I feel like we can do a better job to make the schools less messed up.”
