I spent nearly a decade as a high school Spanish teacher. 

That statement usually triggers one of two responses: 

1-   Groans.I hated learning (insert language here). I get that. We can still be friends.

2-   Um…so I’ve been thinking about learning (insert language here). What should I do?

I found myself asking the same question a few years ago. After  two years of high school SPANISH, four years of college SPANISH, travel to SPAIN and 8 years teaching SPANISH….I married someone whose family speaks Chinese. And it was time to learn a new language. The thought of doing it the same way I had learned Spanish turned my stomach. A bachelor’s degree made me barely conversant. At that pace, I wouldn’t be able to talk to grandma until I was a grandma. That’s when I discovered the PIMSLEUR method (find on Audible, Itunes, etc). 

“Well, this is just ridiculous. There’s a reason certain things are a tradition around here. You are ruining senior year! You are ruining everything!”

Maybe you expect that from one of your students. But what if I told you I heard those words coming from the mom of a teenager and that ruining everything meant we were changing where our student ministry attended summer camp? I had expected a few students to struggle with changing the location for camp, but I surely wasn’t prepared to get such heated backlash from parents too!