I would have written this post a lot sooner had I’d had the motivation to do anything in the month of January other than work and sleep, and had I not gotten hit with a nasty cold that forced me to take my first trip to the doctor’s (something I’d been determined I wouldn’t have to do for the past six months). Better late than never, I suppose.

During the week of January 20th, I presented to my students about Martin Luther King Jr. Many of my older students knew of MLK, but most of my younger ones hadn’t heard of him. Upon handing out a worksheet to my students, they began shouting “Obama! Obama!” A few students asked me if MLK was Nelson Mandela. By the end of the week, I was starting my classes by saying “Martin Luther King is NOT Obama.”

My classes all began generally the same. I gave the students a brief overview of who MLK was and why we celebrate him every year; I then followed this up with a short biography video, and a worksheet to reinforce what they learned, and of course, his “I Have a Dream” speech. The students understood the speech, more or less, and often times broke into applause at the end, which goes to show just how powerful that speech truly is, that twelve year olds can be moved, even if they didn’t entirely understand it. I noticed that my black students especially were very focused on the material; one of my teachers pointed out that a student who never participates or does the class assignments, was studiously completing his worksheet, and raising his hand to answer questions.

I did end up tweaking my lesson just a little. The first class that I showed the “I Have a Dream” speech to was my twelve and thirteen year olds. I played the video from the beginning, when MLK uses the word “Negro.” The class erupted in giggles. One of the boys started repeatedly saying “N***a”; I flashed him a glare, and he looked at me, confused and said “What??” I felt flustered, and the teacher had left the classroom so I was unsure of how to proceed, so I finished the video and had the students complete the worksheet. For the rest of my classes that day I alerted the students beforehand that MLK uses the word “Negro” to describe black people, but that that isn’t the word we use today in the U.S. For the rest of the week, I chose to start the video later into the speech, and avoid the disruption and confusion on their parts.

Something that I came to learn only a couple months ago is that the N-word in Spain doesn’t carry with it the same negative connotations that it has in the U.S. It’s not offensive here at all, although the students should learn that if they ever visit the U.S. they’ll receive a much different reaction if they use the word. It’s still jarring for me to hear it used here so casually, but that’s just another aspect of adjusting to a country’s culture.

Overall, I really enjoyed teaching my students about MLK, and I think they enjoyed learning about him. As I left the classroom, students began chattering amongst themselves, shouting out “I have a dream!”