How Sputnik Changed My Life

Kevin leaves tomorrow to drive to a summer music program in California. He has filled most of the living room with the things he will cram into his car---percussionists and avid bicyclists don't travel lightly---and he is very excited.

I still get excited before beginning any trip, but there's nothing like the excitement of being a young adult about to embark on an adventure. Ken still talks about his motorcycle trip to Arizona while in graduate school. Our friends have all at some time shared their early travel adventures. Today I'm remembering my trip to Austin, Texas.

The year was 1965 and our country was still in post-Sputnik shock because the Russians had dramatically shown us just how far behind we were in science, math, and foreign languages. The government reacted by passing "The National Defense Education Act" which made it possible for many teachers to attend summer institutes to upgrade their skills. For most teachers this meant spending six pleasant but uneventful weeks on a college campus. For me it was life changing.

I had been accepted as an undergraduate to a unique NDEA institute for pre-service Spanish teachers at the University of Texas. Little did I know that this big fish in my little college's pond was about to be a very tiny fish in a very diverse and much more advanced pond.

The early shocks were to be expected. As a commuter student at my college, dorm living was brand new. Meeting multi-cultural classmates and teachers from all over the country was both exciting and terrifying----they were all so much more fluent than I and had so much more experience in the Hispanic culture! I was younger and definitely less worldly than they. Speaking Spanish 24/7 was, to say the least, a challenge. Sometimes I got in the shower and cried while talking to myself in English because I was so frustrated. Not the least of the shocks was the temperature in Austin in the summer!

Slowly my comfort level increased. I realized I was learning language methodology from Dr. A. who had written the best-known book on the subject. I saw that methodology in action as I observed Sr. B. teaching 3-year-olds and 5-year-olds and watched Sr. W. teaching middle school and high school groups. I struggled with taped exercises in the language lab and by the end of the summer had the trilled "rr" down cold. Before that summer I wouldn't have known a fricative or a labial if I had tripped over one, but by the end of the summer I could talk intelligently about comparative linguistics . Evenings spent singing Mexican and Spanish folk songs were great fun and provided music resources that I still refer to. Best of all, I was no longer afraid to talk with the teachers and participants...24/7...en español.

This past weekend I attended the annual Chicago area assembly of the Lutheran Church. The theme was "You Shall Be My Witnesses" and my weakness in the whole area of witnessing to what God has done in my life has been on my mind.

So here I witness to what God did in my life and how he used Sputnik, of all things, to direct me on a career path. In August 1965 I sure didn't know that the pleasure I got from watching little kids learn Spanish would push me towards my first job with 5th and 6th graders. I sure didn't know that the linguistic knowledge would later lead to writing a Spanish phonics book. Hidden to me was how the music and games and culture I learned that summer would become the foundation of my teaching and later the foundation of what I teach to teachers. Little did I know that the fluency developed that summer would enhance my life professionally and personally. Little did I know that the post institute trip to Mexico City would be the first of myriad visits to that country.

Little do we all know of how God is going to use events in our life but, when we look back on those adventures we might have been a bit afraid to start, we begin to understand what God's plan was.

Thanks for Sputnik and NDEA, God!

Thanks for music adventures for my younger son. Thanks for civil engineering adventures for my older son, ¡Vayan con Dios en sus aventuras, Kevin and David!