As I walked around the historic Steel Stacks in Bethlehem, I began to think about how I could incorporate such a fundamental, well-known part of the community into my Spanish classroom. At first, this does not seem like a very obvious task. How could I make the Steel Stacks – something so monumental in our little town’s history – relate to my Spanish lessons? While wandering around and admiring the beauty of them, I remembered how important for the community those Steel Stacks were and still continue to be for the people of Bethlehem, and that’s when I realized it.

Many of my students have ties to the Stacks through their relatives. The Steel Stacks provided work for a multitude of families – especially immigrant families – and a lot of those immigrants came from hispanic origin. If I could somehow take the history of these industrial giants and relate it to the family history of my students, that would make my lesson both relevant to the students, and cross-curricular.

Sometimes, having my students learn about something historical in Spanish class sounds like a boring task to them at first. However, by tying the history to something that directly relates to my students in a meaningful way, I am sure they would be more likely to find the worth in what I am teaching them. I think they would be excited to find out about the history of something that provided a way of life for their relatives. For the students who don’t have direct family ties to the Steel Stacks, chances are they know a friend who does. The hispanic community in Bethlehem is prominent and continues to grow larger, and it would be beneficial for all of my students to know more about the people they’re surrounded by and growing up with.

As far as the actual lesson goes, I would have my students do a project by researching the history of the Steel Stacks and the immigrants who came to work there, making Bethlehem the thriving city it is today. I would give them the autonomy to choose from multiple ways to present the information they found, such as role-playing and creating an iMovie or video about the journey of a hispanic immigrant, making a piece of art that portrays the Steel Stacks and an oral presentation in Spanish to go with it, creating a song/rap/poem about the life of a hispanic immigrant who worked there, making a journal in Spanish written from the perspective of a hispanic immigrant, or for the students who are a little less creatively-inclined and more versed in academic writing, simply writing an informative essay. There would be so many ways to incorporate new and old Spanish vocabulary, grammatical concepts, and culture in this lesson, and the students would have more fun learning in this way than doing something more ordinary, like repetitive practice sheets.

As a student teacher, I like to make my lessons relevant to the students whenever I can. A prior high school teacher of mine once told me, “If you want kids to learn, make the lesson about them. Students love when everything revolves around them.” It was funny to me at the time, but I quickly realized how true that is – and it’s not because the students are conceited. Most students simply have an innate drive to learn about what makes them who they are, and this lesson could be just the way to give them that opportunity. As many times as I’ve walked around the Steel Stacks, run past them during my cross country practices, or driven by with friends, I never would have thought that they could provide me with such great ideas for creative, cross-curricular lessons that are relevant to my students. However, after walking and thinking with history, I was able to open my mind to a new way of thinking about my approaches to teaching and learning. I suppose sometimes all it takes is a step outside of the classroom and into the community to get inspiration for innovative ways to make lessons more enriching, and the classroom a more exciting place.