"Literate Illiteracy"
Have you ever felt illiterate? Not many times in my life have I ever felt that way. But I do have one story in which my life and the way I looked at others changed forever. I was 10 years old and was playing baseball on my travel summer team. In our 10 year old division, a team had to win their district to move on to their regional, and had to win their regional to move on to the World Series, which was in Catano, Puerto Rico. To make a long story short, my team won the district and regional and was headed to Puerto Rico for the World Series. That was the first time that I remember flying. I remember stepping off of the plane in PR and was shocked when I didn't see anything in English. I was stunned and a little scared at the same time. Once we got off of the plane, we took a shuttle to our hotel and checked into our rooms. This place was amazing!! The weather was beautiful, the baseball was perfect, and the food was incredible! I didn't want to leave this place, until...
We had some down time between our double header but not enough time to go back to the hotel. So we walked out of the stadium as a team (with our parents and coaches), and went to the McDonald's across the street. We walked in and looked at the menu. Usually when walking into a McDonald's you read the menu to find out what you want to order. I did this in the Puerto Rico resturant except I didn't know what to do. I couldn't read the menu...I could read but everything was in spanish. I went blank! The pictures were next to all of the combos on the menu but the words were foreign. This was the first time that I felt illiterate in my life. I felt lost, along with my teammates. It was a good thing that some of the parents that we were with could speak and read Spanish fluently, otherwise we would have went hungry! This event spun a different perspective on the way that I looked at English Language Learners and helped me realize what I might be dealing with when I eventually became a teacher.
