By Vanessa Williams

Heeeeeey everyone, good morning! Hola a todos, buenos días!

We were warmly greeted by a student in high school teacher Olivia Dougherty’s classroom at Cardozo Education Campus’ International Academy. The student was a guest presenter from high school ELA teacher Beth Barkley’s class. 

For her unit on Central America this year, Barkley encouraged her students — most of whom are newly arrived students from outside the United States — to teach other students about the countries from which they migrated. Barkley’s students drew from personal experiences and deep research about Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama, as well as other countries of the Latin American diaspora. While the idea of teaching about Central America is to bring attention to a region that is often neglected in teaching about Latinx heritage, Barkley and her students wanted to more comprehensively recognize and instill pride in the array of cultures present in their classes. However, the center of their research and class presentations remained teaching about Central America. One objective, for example, read, “Our objective is to learn about how countries in Central America are related.”

The students traveled to other classes to share what they learned.

After presenting, one student reflected,

Cuando fuimos a exponer con the students, bueno, sentí mucho miedo en hacerlo, pero después agarré valor y me gustó mucho hacerlo, porque los students prestaron mucha atención en lo que hicimos y aprendí que nunca hay que tener miedo en hacer cosas que los demás sepan cosas de centroamérica.

When we went to present with the students, well, I felt very afraid to do it, but then I got the courage and I really liked doing it, because the students paid a lot of attention to what we presented and I learned that you should never be afraid to do something. Many others know things about Central America.

Another presenter wrote,

What I liked the most about the presentation was the students in the class where we did the presentation, because the students are very smart and they paid attention. . . . I also have great respect for all the students who participated in the presentation. You guys keep going. I love you all.

Resources: 

• One group’s slide show

• Another group’s slideshow 

Find more stories from Teach Central America Week 2022.