PHOENIX — "I love the age where they are showing their personalities and starting to shine and show they have a lot of individuality."
It's all about being your authentic self inside Lorenna Villanueva Corrales' fourth-grade classroom at Clarendon Elementary School, which is part of the Osborn School District in Phoenix.
And Maestra V (as the students call her) is constantly teaching by example, using deeply personal experiences to help her students open up to the new world around them.
Currently, Lorenna teaches fourth-grade dual language at Clarendon and teaches in both English and Spanish. Students are learning all subjects - math, science, language arts, you name it - and Lorenna can teach it in both languages!
"The idea of biliteracy and building bilingualism" is what Lorenna says initially attracted her to dual language. "In order for them to build good connections in the community, they really need to embrace the language and embrace the learning, and that's what really attracted me. This is what I wanted to teach. These are the types of students I want to build."
And that's partly because Lorenna sees a great deal of herself in her students; some are native Spanish speakers, learning English for the first time. Others are native English speakers, hoping to expand their horizons.
"I understand the complexities of learning a new language," explains Lorenna.
At the age of four, Lorenna and her family moved from Sonora to the Yuma area. For the first few years, Lorenna was able to get educational opportunities she wouldn't have had back in Mexico, but in fifth grade, it all changed.
"When we faced deportation, it was a rough moment of me having to adapt to something completely new," she says. "And it was very confusing, especially because at that point, I was starting to get used to our life here and how we were navigating it...It happened so fast. You go visit your grandma one weekend. And then your family is separated."
Eventually, Lorenna and her family would be deported back to Mexico, where she lived until she was 18 and able to get permanent residency through her father and his side of the family.
Fast forward years later, her family is reunited and says they are all here in the country legally, but that experience is never far from her mind.
And now, she's become a permanent fixture at Clarendon, helping students learn day by day and realizing they don't have to be perfect as they embark on their journey of learning a new language.
As she shows a book called "The Book of Mistakes," Lorenna explains it's a great way to showcase that all mistakes have purpose.
"It's a way to display that you are learning and growing," she says. "We never seek perfection, we just seek progress."
Clarendon's principal told ABC15 that more than half the students are enrolled in dual language, so it's a very in-demand program.
We will be sure to follow up with Lorenna throughout the year to see how she and her students are doing - and how they're learning from mistakes (something us adults could use a refresher in, too!)
