Here is Ben Lev’s bio. Ben is a very valued member of our group, always totally professional and always right at the front of the change:
I teach at Credo High School in Rohnert Park, CA and Summerfield High School, in Santa Rosa, CA.
I grew up in New York and my best friend was Puerto Rican. I took Spanish classes through high school but it didn’t really stick. My first two years of university were in Montreal, and by the end of that time I was only able to have tiny conversations with store clerks, very basic. I realized that I had missed a big opportunity, so when I transferred to study in California, I took advantage of every chance I to use Spanish. My downstairs Mexican neighbors had a darling three year old whom I adored, and I spent a lot of time in their house.
I had been groomed to be a doctor, but it was not really for me. I quit medical school because I wanted long-term, vibrant relationships with children, not short-term relationships with sick children. I also wanted my work life to be fun, if such a thing were possible. Quitting was the most courageous decision I ever made. I gave up the status thing and money and the reserved parking spot in the hospital lot, but I knew that being with children was my thing.
So I travelled for a long while in Nicaragua (1985, during the Sandinista – Contra war), improved my Spanish a lot and gained critical perspective about the disastrous effects of wayward US foreign policy. Then I got a bilingual teaching credential and taught bilingual kindergarten for a long time. Now that was fun!
Fast forward to 2007, ready for a change, I got my credential to teach Spanish. I lucked out and went to a Blaine Ray workshop the summer before my first high school job started. My dept chair gave me the green light to use TPRS but asked that I also follow the textbook. I taught stories in my own best novice way, all the while getting the bad vibe from the department. Nora Heredia came to observe me in the spring, and afterwards she said so clearly “You don’t belong here, they don’t deserve you.” Scary words, but clearly true. I started teaching at her school, a Waldorf high school, with a full TPRS department. I’m still there, and also at a new charter high school, where I’m building an all-TPRS department along with Rubén Castro, who teaches level 1.
In the meantime I studied in Spain for two summers and in beautiful Guanajuato, Mexico for a semester while writing my Masters thesis. My then 9 year old daughter came with me and we lived in the home of a local family with an 8 year old girl who spoke no English, perfect. My daughter attended the local school in Spanish and developed and amazing fluency over three months. My fluency improved as well, but watching her proficiency accelerate was thrilling.
Now I teach high school and a private adult class. I am also gearing up to teach a free ESL class and have those students pair up with an English-speaking adult from my private Spanish class for a weekly language exchange. I’m not yet clear how it will work out, but I’m excited about helping people make friendships across language and cultural lines. I think about doing more of this when I retire, not for another ten years, but it’s on my mind.