The association that people have had in the past with language education is not what it has evolved to become today. People are highly strategic with the way that they are using language in the classroom. Language is used for an authentic purpose, it’s used for critical thinking skills, it’s used for strategic problem-solving, so it’s not just for a basic need, we’re moving beyond that.
What does it mean to prepare for the future? The real future that is a global experience that requires increased understanding of the diversity of humanity, increased mutual dependence on shared and preserved agricultural and environmental resources, and increased collaboration on medical, technological, and social breakthroughs for preservation of societies worldwide?
We can be honest about our past as human beings: our survival in millennia past developed in us instincts to suspicion and tribalism.
But understanding our past — when 2000 years ago the total human population of the world was 250 million — does not, cannot, must not circumscribe our future, when soon there will be 9 billion of us.
The ways that have served us in the past will destroy us in the future.
Language is the central human phenomenon, with which we tell ourselves who we are. If we transform our story — “I am a human being on a precious planet with many other human beings” — we begin to overcome our fear that leads to hate and aggression.
Language is the central human phenomenon, with which we reach out to others to build families, communities, associations, and businesses. When we use language to define ourselves as humans among humans, then all opportunities, all paths can begin to lay open before us.
Look at the vision of The GLOBE Academy and see how it reflects this spirit that is the future. See where you already stand. See where you might next point your intention — what the profile will be of your child, your colleagues, and yourself.
With language, the key human tool, we can do this.
What are the elements of a transformative power of language immersion programs? Uncover new perspectives, forge connections, and embrace the diversity found in your community. As you listen to the decisions that lead to excellent language programs and outcomes, what experiences of your own can you share? What insights lead you to considering new pathways for language and cultural understanding in your life and the life of your family or community? Let’s build bridges and celebrate the richness of language together. Explore, connect, and inspire. Join us!
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Sandra Daniel’s Bio and Resource links
Sandra A. Daniel is a highly communicative polyglot (English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and some Mandarin) with over 15 years experience in education. She is currently the Director of Language Program at The GLOBE Academy where she has worked since 2014. Mrs. Daniel has been a World Language and Dual Language Immersion teacher in the past and does consulting work with the Georgia Department of Education. As the Instructional Lead for STARTALK Programs with Florida State University and Georgia State University for three years, Mrs. Daniel trained over 40 Arabic, Mandarin, Turkish, Swahili, Russian, and Portuguese teachers in best practices of instruction for critical languages for the National Security Agency program. Mrs. Daniel has also worked internationally to teach Business English to top tier executives at Petrobras, IESA, Vale, and Itaú. She enjoys traveling and is an avid athlete.
There are currently 71 dual language immersion schools in the State of Georgia, and The GLOBE Academy is one of two public schools in Georgia that is solely dedicated to dual language immersion with 3 target languages. The GLOBE Academy is a K-8 dual language immersion only school offering French, Mandarin, and Spanish immersion. The school has been recognized by the French Ministry of Education for its excellence in French dual language immersion instruction. The GLOBE Academy has over 40% of students receiving the Global Seal of Biliteracy in 8th grade, and a 100% pass rate on the Advanced Placement exam taken by 8th graders.
Mme. Daniel, 丹尼尔老师, Sra. Daniel
Director of Language Program | The GLOBE Academy
4105 Briarcliff Road NE | Atlanta, GA 30345 | 404-464-7040 www.theglobeacademy.org
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Transcript
0:00:00.0 Norah Jones: So this week we’re going to consider together what it means when we say that we are immersed. There’s a visual here of not just sticking your toe into water, not just picking up an instrument and picking a few notes out on strings, but rather jumping into the water, being in it, allowing it to cover you, bringing an instrument to you and being with it, letting your mind and heart become one with the music that’s being produced by you. Language is learned in our natal families and groups as immersion. We are buried in it. It is part of the culture we experience, and it is how we learn to talk about ourselves and the world.
0:01:15.2 Norah Jones: When we talk about language immersion then, we are talking about a way of not just dabbling, studying a few forms, hoping for a vocabulary list that might serve us for a bit of a trip. We’re talking about the experience of pulling the instrument of language out of our own brain, pulling it close to us as we would pull a brand new instrument. When we learn then to be one with that instrument, to play it not perfectly, but to play it with joy, to play it with increasing skill, to play it to express ourselves, to play it to create emotion, many of us do not take up music because we want to learn which string is which, but to speak through music about our lives and emotions, about our hopes and our dreams. And thus it is with language.
0:02:30.8 Norah Jones: This week’s guest, Sandra Daniel, will be speaking about the immersive experience of young children that allow them to be able to bring instruments to play that express life in different ways. All human, all music, but bringing in the feel of say the difference between a clarinet and a violin, a piano and a flute. We don’t become less a pianist when we learn to play the flute. We become a more broad, talented musician. And here it comes with language. Please enjoy this conversation with Sandra Daniel and think about the immersive experiences that we can bring to ourselves, and especially to our youngest members of society, that which allows them to express themselves, their emotions, their hopes, their dreams, their deepest sense of self. Enjoy the podcast.
0:03:51.5 Norah Jones: So I’m enjoying my opportunity to continue a conversation that actually started at the National Convention of World Language Educators from around the world, ACTFL. And Sandra Daniel, welcome to It’s About Language.
0:04:05.9 Sandra Daniel: Thank you so much, Nora. It’s such a pleasure to be here.
0:04:08.2 Norah Jones: Well, I’m looking forward to what you will share of the power of what you do around the world, and now specifically in Georgia. And we’re going to be focusing on a dual language immersion experience at the GLOBE Academy where you are the director of the language program. So first of all, would you give us a setting of what the GLOBE Academy is, and then for those that are well, knowledgeable about dual language immersion, but want to know which program or programs you have. And for those that are still getting used to our emphasis on dual language immersion so that they understand what kind of program you have and what it does. Thank you.
0:04:58.4 Sandra Daniel: Sure, of course. So anytime I introduce myself, I’m kind of used to introducing myself the way that I would at my school. So I’ll do that.
[Mandarin] 下午好。 我叫丹尼尔老师， 我帮我们的老师 和我们的学生， 和我们的家人。
[French] Bonjour, Je m’appelle Mme. Daniel, je suis la Directrice du Programme de Langues.
[Spanish] Buenas tardes, soy la Sra. Daniel, soy la Directora del Programa de Idiomas a GLOBE.
0:05:30.8 Sandra Daniel: So I’m Ms. Daniel. I’m a director of language program and at the GLOBE Academy. So the GLOBE Academy is in Atlanta, Georgia. We are a K-8, so kindergarten through 8th grade, kindergarten through elementary through middle school dual language immersion program. So our program is a 50/50 program. That means that 50% of content language instruction is done in English and an additional partner language. So our partner languages are Mandarin, French, and Spanish. And then of course, our other language that students are in are in English. So we have a full day model AB program. So that means one day the students are going through all of their content, reading, writing, science, math, social studies in one language, and then the next day, they visit their other teacher where they’ll have either Mandarin, French or Spanish that day and going through the same content areas. The way that that works, instruction is not repeated. We’re moving through the curriculum. So everything is building upon what has been taught before.
0:06:43.4 Norah Jones: That’s a phenomenal schedule. And if I may say the fact that, again, it’s a content-based curriculum in the English and the partner language of the student’s enrollment, but you are in fact progressing through that curriculum in both languages in an AB format. Is this found in other schools in this way? I had have been, I think under the illusion potentially that folks have sort of varied. They take math in one of the languages, but they take their science in a partner language or vice versa, not that each curricular area is in each of the two languages. Can you disabuse me of that understanding or affirm it?
0:07:36.4 Sandra Daniel: Sure. So one of the more popular program models that schools have adopted has been the half day model or the rollercoaster model where they’re with one teacher in the morning and then they go to the afternoon with the other teacher. And then at some point they may change where that afternoon teacher will now be the morning teacher. We did try that method, but we also Sonya Soteldo has done lots of research design and programming for dual language immersion schools. And one of the program models that she highlights in her research is the AB model. And that for us was so important for our learners to have the entire day and to have their full literacy block, and are also with our program, we use readers and writers workshops. So students have their full-time for their literacy, which has been phenomenal.
0:08:38.2 Sandra Daniel: We have students that are writing across pages in Mandarin, their narrative writing, their argumentative and information text, and students get very excited about that, and that’s a huge part of us. And with that half day model, it ended up being either one focus on one literacy skill each day, instead of having that full block, and that’s not necessarily ideal. And that was the way that it happened for us. That’s not to say that that happens in every school, but in this way with our AB model, we’re able to do bridging across the classrooms. And then we’re also able to have that planning time between the teachers strategically. So everything that we do is revolved around prioritizing that collaborative teacher efficacy, the visible learning that we can have through Dr. John Hattie, that’s our goal. So we’ve got carpool planning time where the teachers are scheduled and we’ve got them vertically aligned and we’ll have the same tracks outside doing carpool together, and the same tracks inside being able to collaboratively plan in the morning and the afternoons. And we do that for a specific reason so those teachers can accompany their students throughout the units.
0:10:05.9 Norah Jones: Your description of this wonderful program is part of clearly of the identity and for The GLOBE Academy in a way that my listeners may not be aware. The GLOBE Academy is in Georgia, and it’s not maybe the only school that does this, but you’re pretty unique. Can you first of all describe why it is that when I see the word GLOBE, it’s all in caps, The GLOBE Academy, and also what kind of role it plays as far as its approach to education compared to some of the assumptions that my listeners may have?
0:10:42.2 Sandra Daniel: Thank you. Thank you for that observation. So a lot of people, when they see our school name, they think it’s global academy instead of The GLOBE Academy. So it’s in all caps. And it is an acronym, so it stands for Global Learning Opportunities through Balanced Education. And so that balanced education piece is our dual language immersion program, so our two languages, and then we have three programs within the school, but there’s always two languages, and then the social emotional part of our student and the fact that we want to create positive global citizens that will impact their communities in a meaningful way. So that’s our whole goal for our graduates, and that’s part of our mission and vision as a school. So that is why it is presented in that way.
0:11:41.1 Norah Jones: You are a public school, is that correct?
0:11:44.1 Sandra Daniel: Yes. So we’re a public charter school. So that means we are part, we are a county school. So we work through the county, but we’re a public school. Anyone can come to the school. We do not have an all English track, so we’re not a program within a program. Ours is specifically a dual language immersion program. So when students are coming to the GLOBE Academy, there’s not an option to opt out of language, for example, you come for language, and what you get with our program is the full package. So you’re coming for a K-8 program, our students have up to four high school credits that they can get by the time they’re in 8th grade or three high school credits if they’re in our standard track. And then also we have an optional opportunity for our exceptional students that they can take the AP exam. So we have students that are taking the AP exam in 8th grade for Mandarin, French, and Spanish, and they have done tremendously well in that area.
0:12:53.8 Norah Jones: That’s exciting news for 8th graders to be taking the AP language and cultural exam, which for those who are not familiar with the both joy I would say because language and culture are always joyful, but also the rigor of that particular examination, that is a tremendous accomplishment. You say, I have understand you have 100% pass rate on that as well?
0:13:19.3 Sandra Daniel: Yes. So those students that are taking that AP exam, so that is advanced placement and that’s through the college board, so those students are getting, depending on the university, they could have up to a couple of semesters of credits for the university classes. And as you mentioned, Nora, these are very rigorous exams. A lot of times our families are shocked when we give them the packet and they look at the questions and they say, my child can answer this type of question? These are very hard things that they’re asking the students to do. And we said, yes, we will help them prepare, but yes, they can get there. But we have a 100% pass rate for our Spanish track, for our Mandarin track, we have 85%. And then this year will be the second time that our French track takes it.
0:14:20.4 Sandra Daniel: The way that we opened was a little bit different with all of our levels. But this year will be the second time that we have the French group. The first time we just had two students that dared to be part of that group, and then one of the students passed and the other student had filled out the form inside of the booklet and not on the form. So these are the things you have to think about. And when you have the 8th graders is that maybe it might be the first time that you’re doing the bubble sheet. So we’ve added training on how to fill out the bubble sheet for the electronic grading and all of that for students, because that was new for our 14-year-olds. Most of their exams, they do on the computer, right?
0:15:10.3 Norah Jones: Yeah.
0:15:10.8 Sandra Daniel: They’re not as used to the the paper pencil.
0:15:14.1 Norah Jones: How fascinating though. From the very beginning through your voice, through the information, through the excitement that you demonstrate in yourself, we’ve gotten a great idea about how it is that students may indeed be encouraged to dare to take these classes, for example, to dare to take this examination. So when I come to, before the student ever shows up, what kind of students and families, what are they looking for? What might they be concerned about? What kinds of things have they potentially heard about immersion, experience? And what makes them decide then to take the plunge and continue in this course?
0:16:00.9 Sandra Daniel: I think for us, I mean we’ve had phenomenal leaders, first of all in our state of Georgia because we’ve had great state supervisors. We had Greg Barfield, we’ve had Micheala Claus-Nix, we’ve had Patrick Wallace, we’ve also had in the past, John Valentine and then Mark Linsky. And so it all starts, it’s not just the GLOBE Academy. We have 71 DLI schools here in Georgia and then 3,600 in the United States. But it’s that leadership and that collective leadership that you kind of mentioned at the very beginning. So you talked a little bit about ACTFL and NADSFL, and that’s a great opportunity for us to come together and be stronger as language advocates because they’ve really paved the way to kind of get the word out.
0:17:05.3 Sandra Daniel: We do several education, every month we do an educational piece where we’re training the parents on one aspect of our program. So it may be our MTSS, our multi-tiered system support for students. It may be a STAMP training. I’ll be doing that soon for our language assessments. We have interview EA MAP, we also have our strategic plan. We’ve got a lot of different educational pieces that we do throughout the year in helping the students understand our program. But many of our families already are aware of the significant benefits that dual language immersion students have. And we’ve even seen that the cognitive advantages, I know for me as a teacher, the first time I was doing number talks for the first time and I had been trained and now as in my second grade classroom and I’m teaching in Spanish to the students and I asked them to do a problem.
0:18:13.3 Sandra Daniel: And so this was a problem that they would have to use several steps to solve the math equation and I asked them to think about it. And whenever it was time for the students to share, they had their thumbs up in their chest. They’re ready to share with me and everything. And as soon as they were ready, all these hands were going up. So I choose a student and I cannot write as fast as a student is speaking [chuckle] because for me as a second… So I learned my languages later, the languages that I speak and so for me, when I’m working on the math side, I have to think through English. So I’m not directly thinking in the language at that point in the same way that I would for regular language. And I just could not believe how quickly these students were doing math equations. And the way that they could articulate the steps that they did to find the answer is just phenomenal. But our students have been, they’ve had that neuron boost and they’ve also had an increased openness to others in a way that is not seen so often.
0:19:34.1 Sandra Daniel: We’ve got a very diverse staff. Even if you look at The Globe Academy, our staff directory, you’ll notice that we’ve got teachers from Africa, Caribbean, from South America, North America, Canada, Europe, Asia, all over the world which has been an asset for our students. And so our students are able to see people that are different from them and appreciate them and adapt some things and have their own identities as well. And our families are very supportive of that as well. So when they’re coming to our school, they’re coming for language and they’re coming for of course, that economic opportunity, that business opportunity of having those skills, those language skills. But it’s also those soft skills that they’re getting as well as the critical thinking skills. So they’ve got all of those things when they’re having an immersive education.
0:20:36.9 Norah Jones: You have begun this podcast by doing your introduction of the year in the three languages of the immersion in the school. And you spoke about learning languages yourself. So how many languages do you speak? How did you learn them? And why did you get into this position of education? And also as we’ll continue to probe here, thank you for the biography, which is found on my website fluency.consulting, which your background that you have provided all sorts of professional experiences for training, not only students, but also teachers. Let’s start with the languages.
0:21:23.2 Sandra Daniel: Okay, sure. So I say that I officially speak five languages and those are advanced to native proficiency. My home language that I speak every single day, all day, every day is Italian.
[Italian] Parlo Italiano. Il mio marito è Torinese, è Italiano.
0:21:48.2 Sandra Daniel: So my husband is Italian, so that’s our home language. That’s what we speak. He is from Turin. And so that’s kind of a little second home for us as well. I learned and was educated in Spanish and French, so those were my major and minor and for my undergrad. So I learned those at school. And during my master’s, I went to Boston University. I had two masters in international relations and international communications from Boston University. And there I worked at the Brazilian immigrant agency. And I had a specific focus on Brazil as an up and coming significant power, little economic power that we’ve got in South America.
0:22:40.3 Sandra Daniel: So that was my focus and I learned Portuguese while I was there. And then I also speak English of course, and I’ve added on Mandarin. So I have a novice high level sometimes, depending on what I’m talking about intermediate, low. But yeah, a workable Mandarin I would say. So those are my six languages that I speak. And when I was younger, so my dad learned Spanish, so I’m from Thomasville, Georgia, south Georgia small town, everybody knows everybody and we have a lot of crops and fields, and especially in some of the neighboring towns. And my father was a physician. And so his big thing was he did not want to work through another person to communicate with people. He wanted to directly communicate with people themselves, because for him it was important for people to be seen and heard and treated as with dignity and respect.
0:24:04.8 Sandra Daniel: And so his big thing was he would learn Spanish. So we had the migrant act where many… We had a migrant visa where many workers came into South Georgia and so he decided that he would learn Spanish. And so he listened to tapes and learned, and the way that he interacted with people and how excited they got, I saw that myself as a child and it inspired me. I said, “Gosh, I want to do that for people.” I want to make people feel good, and I want to be that person for people and eventually it moved on to I want other people to be able to do that and so that’s where the educational piece came in, in helping other students, teachers spread that as well.
0:25:04.2 Norah Jones: Do you tell that story? It affected me deeply that you watched your father recognized that people needed to be seen and heard for your own words, and that he took action. He didn’t wait for someone else to come and talk to him. He took the proactive step of learning. That has got to be a story. First of all, I’m quite confident you tell it on a regular basis and also an internalized story that has provided you a lot of insights that help more parents, educators, and community members to understand how language brings out that goodwill and that powerful reaction.
0:25:46.5 Sandra Daniel: Oh, absolutely. And my father passed away when I was 12, and so I feel like I’m so lucky that I get to give that legacy to others. And the big thing after he passed, I had wonderful teachers that were using the communicative method. So it was right when the audio lingual method was dying off, which is the listen and repeat, which was what my father had done with the tapes in the car that we would listen to every day, but this was using language for authentic purposes. So the communicative method was not about just something that was memorized and spit out on the spot because we’re performing. This was really about proficiency. And so it was using language to communicate a message and then interpreting the message and responding to it.
0:26:55.3 Sandra Daniel: And so I had teachers that did that in their classes, and they did not use English. So everything was done in the target language. And that was something that was very important for me that I believed in fully. And that’s something that I’ve been able to bring to teachers and to students and help them as well. So even when we have discipline issues, if you’re coming to Ms. Daniel, and you’re going to be talking in the language and it’s okay because over 75%, we already know this, over 75% of communication is actually not necessarily the words, it’s actually the gestures and the facial expressions and also the tone and the rate of speech. So you can do a lot of things just with those outside factors. And so the actual vocabulary, even when I’m talking to some of our 4-year-olds in August before it’s September 5th, and they’re not five yet, they’re still four, we talk about like, okay, he is not happy.
[Mandarin] 他不好。他不好。Tā bù hǎo Tā bù hǎo
0:28:24.2 Sandra Daniel: And I’m making a face and gesturing towards tears, using my two fingers right under the eyes, rolling down the cheeks, making my mouth go down, making the sad face, thumbs going down.
[Mandarin] 他不好。Tā bù hǎo
0:28:43.5 Sandra Daniel: Then you ask like…
[Mandarin] 为社么 Wèishéme
0:28:46.1 Sandra Daniel: Like why? Why is that? Raising up your hands, making that questioning gesture and then you’re sending, you’re giving the student a piece of paper and then you’re giving them a pen and you’re like, okay, make a picture. Okay.
[Mandarin] 我要看。Wǒ yào kàn
0:29:05.6 Sandra Daniel: Like, I want to see it. So then they can do a reflection of what happened and what made the student upset, that kind of thing, that they’re still able to communicate in the target language because they’re understanding someone is not happy and they can draw a picture about it, and then we can talk about it. So I can be their vehicle for communication, but we can do all of those things. And that’s really the big thing is that we can learn language through language and it can be meaningful and there can be so much done.
0:29:46.9 Sandra Daniel: And I feel like even with our 8th grade program, we can’t just because the system is not ready yet that doesn’t mean that we need to hold our students back because our students are capable of so much more than we can even imagine. Even our a 4-year-old that made the friend upset we can still have a debriefing in a different language and still come out friends. We’ve got these kids that they’re set up now to just continue through college. They’re all set already for the rest of their careers. And that’s something that’s not just… That’s not just meaningful for me, but that’s something that they have for a lifetime. And the more that they can nourish these skills and continue to use them and in the community, the more they can give back so that’s something that’s important to me.
0:30:51.4 Norah Jones: Thank you for that beautiful explanation. You have told a bit of a story there, replete with gestures and intonation work about having a child that is in this case you were using Mandarin expressions and a child’s hardly gotten started. What kind of story of say transformation, discovery, understanding, impact on a student it would be great to be able to start with a student even at these young ages. What kind of story can you tell or stories of students that have come to a realization about themselves and the world through being in The Globe Academy?
0:31:43.6 Sandra Daniel: Well, one student comes to mind. We had our keynote at [0:31:57.2] ____ And we are all thinking about who is that student? There’s one student that you’re thinking about and this is the student that maybe challenged you as a teacher, but then you had so much joy and so much reward from this student. And I can’t say the student’s name because I don’t want to compromise their identity, but the student will know who they are. I was in my immersion classroom at The Globe Academy. So I first was a… Well, I was an ESOL teacher, and then I taught business English. I taught Word language, and I taught DLI Spanish. So I was in the classroom and we were talking about CREST, and this was one of the first days of school.
0:32:57.0 Sandra Daniel: And at the time we did not have a language assurances policy. So sometimes English was being used in the language classrooms. Students were speaking in English quite often and now we are very strategic about purposefully uplifting the minority language so that we can have that extra opportunity that students may not have at home to learn this language. So in my classroom, it was always 100%, 100% from me and 100% from you. And that was our contract that we had with the class. And so we’re talking about CREST, and CREST is our community, respect, empathy, sustainability, and trust as part of our responsive classroom, part of our social emotional learning with the students and behavior management system, but really more of a community effort. And so it was the R day and it was respect day, and I was like…
[foreign language]
0:34:10.9 Sandra Daniel: And so I’m like like…
[foreign language]
0:34:17.6 Sandra Daniel: What can we do? And I’m drawing on the board like some pictures of students helping each other, students sharing, making some visuals, putting the labels on it all of this comprehensible input to talk about what it means to be a respectful citizen at The Globe Academy. And so one of my students stands up and he’s like because the kids were just kind of like, it was new for them to have the teacher completely speaking in the language. And I’m not taking the answers. They know that they’re going to be speaking a language and this student stands up and he’s jumping up and down. He’s like “She’s talking about respect.”
[foreign language]
0:35:06.0 Sandra Daniel: And just like yelling. And I was like…
[foreign language]
[laughter]
0:35:12.3 Sandra Daniel: It was just the funniest thing that like, because the student he’s like, why are these people like not even participating? I know what she’s talking about. But it was the funniest thing you can see he is just like starting… He is super energetic and this was one of my students that yes, would talk in English a lot and then realized, okay, well I have to talk in the language if I’m going to participate in class a lot and he loved being with other friends and playing games, and we did a lot of play-based learning. And so this student was just nonstop speaking, speaking, speaking. This was at the time that we were working on STARTALK as well, so we did, I had a STARTALK program, which is a federal grant that’s part of the security agency. So they’re supporting critical language learning from students, and then best practices and critical language teaching.
0:36:22.2 Sandra Daniel: So we had a partnership with Florida State University, and I had teachers that were working on their doctorate that would come into my classroom. And we were like, okay, we’re going to have this student, we’re going to think about putting maybe a GoPro on their head and having them talk with everybody because the way that just to see students interacting in the language authentically is such a joy. And even the funny things, like…
[foreign language]
0:37:02.3 Sandra Daniel: Grabbing the pencil and taking it from another student. This is my pencil. All of those little small interactions that you have that’s their social language that they’re creating in the classroom and learning to talk to each other and to have friends and to be a friend. It was just a really exciting time. And so this student was a student that had individual learning plan for them and they were held back a grade. And to see this student be so successful and so confident and be such a leader in the classroom, it was just such a wonderful thing and that’s something that students can get because language is for all students and all students can be successful in that way with language.
0:38:05.4 Norah Jones: They can. It’s interesting. I have just finished having a podcast where I spoke about one of my students that had an educational plan and where language class was where he finally was able to just flourish and have the fun that you’ve just described it so beautifully right there with that student. Thank you for that story. Now I’m going to tie it into bookends for just a moment. You have to have leadership and a vision and collaborative work inviting you to define all of those things in order to establish an entity like The GLOBE Academy. We also need on the other end, to be able to continue to demonstrate to the community that is supporting schools with their money, with their time, and with their vision for their children, that this is having a positive effect. Speak if you would, about that the vision and the leadership, and how the story to establish the academy was provided, how the story of what it’s doing is being told, and then if I might, I’m going to give you another one, which is, so that others may consider this to be a pathway for their own communities, their own state.
0:39:35.5 Sandra Daniel: Sure. So this school was actually started and I came later. So we started in 2013, so we we’re only on 10, year 10 right now. And it was started by a woman, Brandy was her name, and I’m losing her last name at this point, but she was working on her doctorate. And part of her doctorate was making the charter for The GLOBE Academy, and she was a visionary. And she had also studied different models of immersion in her research, and she had established our program originally as a full day AB model, and she had the vision of having three languages first, three partner languages, French, Mandarin and Spanish, and then adding on Arabic later. We ended up not doing Arabic later because she was gone after that, that first year, I think it was halfway through the year. But because of her hard work, she really established the pathway. She had looked for an area that was easily accessible by the highway, and that was a building that was up for rent, so there was, first, you have to have your location and make sure that you have families in the area that are supporting it.
0:41:12.4 Sandra Daniel: And there was a huge amount of families in the area that supported the school and bought into this mission and vision. She was the one that wrote the charter for us, the first charter, and that became part of her research and studies. And we had the support, like I mentioned, from leaders from the state in terms of helping us with visas. So we do support J-1, H-1b visas for our teachers, and then we had the wonderful support of the French embassy so the French ministry of education, super shout-out because we are now a school that is labélise, we have the LabelFrancÉducation. So, and at the time, they were supporting us with assistance and we’ve had assistance for all these 10 years, we love our FTI our French teaching intern program, but that was the important part at the very beginning, is having a location that was accessible, having the families in the area that wanted to go to the school, and the support from them to get the building up and running, they were painting the walls, they were building these structures that you can see behind me, these are built-in shelving that’s been hammered into the wall, and that was from our parents and teachers, and they really believed in the school.
0:42:48.9 Sandra Daniel: And it’s interesting because we do have a well-knit community at our school, so when I came on the second year, so I came on the same year as our executive director, Christi Elliott-Earby, and she is also extremely… She has a wonderful vision, and she is a wonderful, excellent leader, and I love working side by side with her. And she has been able to just develop this program into really what it is today, but you really… You need that kind of person, especially in a dual language immersion school, because DLI is hard work, it’s expensive, so if a school is looking to create a program, you’ve got to have that buy-in, you’ve got to have location, you’ve got to have the teachers, but you’ve also got to have that leadership, those four things. And then I was there as a teacher and then later became… I was training teachers, I’m working on STARTALK program with Florida State University, and Georgia State University, and then eventually came into the role of coordinator and now director.
0:44:15.2 Sandra Daniel: You need to have someone that is strong and a strong leadership team, we’ve got a full team on both of our schools or both of our campuses, with an assistant principal, a principal, two data coordinators that work with multi-tier systems support. We’ve got two curriculum and instruction coaches at both campuses, and then we have counselors at every single grade band, and that’s the support that you really need to help students succeed and teachers succeed as well. And we’ve worked together with a lot of partnership, so you talked a little bit about the importance of the business connection, our students are going to be the people that are working with these companies, and there’s a lot of companies that are looking for tax write-offs. So if you have a school that is non-profit, which ours is, it’s a 501 [c] [3], it’s a wonderful opportunity for businesses to make contributions and then have a nice tax write-off at the end. So that’s another way. And there’s a lot of scholarships and grants that are from the Department of Education, either the US Department of Education, there’s federal grants like STARTALK, and then we’ve also got state grants, thanks to Patrick Wallace and Dr. Lansky.
0:45:50.3 Sandra Daniel: So we have some of those that are available for the schools as well as the Spanish Ministry of Education and the French Ministry of Education. We’ve also worked highly with our partners at the Confucius Institute in the past, and now that has passed on. But that’s a big thing, is creating those governmental and also business connections that you can have to support your school.
0:46:21.6 Norah Jones: Such collaborative effort, and with the clear delineation that you’ve provided, those are some important pathways that people can divide and conquer as it were, when they get ready to think about this or to empower. Thank you very much, Sandra, I appreciate that. Sandra, as we take a look at all that you’ve shared, as we take a look at your heart, having been in this, and again, I go back to the legacy of your father, thank you again for sharing that story. What is it that is in your heart, in your mind, that before we end this podcast today, that you want to be sure that you say to those that are listening in the education community and the community of people that love language, the folks that are engaged with business advocacy, anything, any group actually, but what would you want to be sure that you say before we end today?
0:47:20.9 Sandra Daniel: I think that for me, I think a lot of the past associations with language we’re so different, and the way that learning is happening today is a completely different experience. I will hear from many people in business even that are like, oh wow, that’s a lot of languages, I learned such and such in school, and all I can say is this. And that’s something that I’ll hear pretty often, and it makes me sad because I feel that the association that people have had in the past with language education is not what it has evolved to become today. People are highly strategic with the way that they are using language in the classroom, it’s used for an authentic purpose, it’s used for critical thinking skills, it’s used for strategic problem-solving, so it’s not just for a basic need, we’re moving beyond that.
0:48:29.7 Sandra Daniel: And when we have students that have these highly evolved linguistic skills and cultural skills, that’s an intense asset that can be given to anyone, and it’s that human connection that they’re able to give with that, going back to the way that I saw my father connect with other people this is such a great way of connecting. And that’s when Nelson Mandela has a quote, and it’s, “When you speak to the man in English, it goes to his head, but when you speak to them in Afrikaans, it goes to their heart because that’s their native language.” And so it’s not just that heart though, is that connection and problem solving and critical thinking that our students have, and it’s going to be so wonderful in the future, because in the United States, we have 3,600 schools that have millions of students going through these programs, and they’re going to have these skills as well.
0:49:48.1 Sandra Daniel: Just at our school, we have almost half of our students that are getting the global seal, and that’s half of our students that are in 8th grade that are already able to communicate at that intermediate mid-proficiency and already able to do these things as 14-year-olds. And then some of them are even getting university credit, so things are just looking up from here.
0:50:11.5 Norah Jones: Thank you so much, Sandra Daniel, that you have been a delight to receive information from, and especially to recognize the power of what you’re doing and of where it’s going in the country all over the place. This has just been a tremendous boost. Thank you so much for sharing today.
0:50:28.7 Sandra Daniel: Thank you so much, Norah.
0:50:30.2 Norah Jones: So I hope that in this conversation, you’ve got some clarity not only about what immersion can look like, but what are some of the powerful impacts of making that commitment, the impact of course on the learners, but also the impact on the communities and families that are engaged with these learners and the society which can receive these language users, multiple instrumentalists, to go back to the introduction are able play a variety of tools bringing a variety of emotions, and having for themselves a variety of opportunities. As we continue to think about what immersion can mean, please think about what’s happening in your environment, your family, your schools, your communities, your work, your company, let’s take a look ongoing at how language changes lives and how language is an immersive experience. Until next time.
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