Moore is the founder and executive director of the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Charter School in the District, which prides itself on a language immersion program that requires all of its 350 students — from prekindergarten through sixth grade — to study in two languages. The school’s sixth-graders take an end-of-year trip to Martinique (for French students) or Panama (for Spanish students); this year’s crop is leaving this month.
Can you tell me a bit about the class trip?
We look at it as the capstone of their language and cultural studies — an opportunity for students to be fully immersed in either Spanish or French and fully immersed in the culture of the countries they visit. We have intentionally kept the study tour in the Americas so they can look at French or Spanish culture as it’s evolved in the Americas. It’s a nice bringing together of all areas of curriculum and studies. It’s a weeklong trip, which is probably just about as much time as you can get out of 11 and 12 year olds.
Is it difficult to take such young kids on such a big trip?
All the adults and teachers we send come back thoroughly exhausted. They say that’s typical — it’s not unusual, with kids that age.
What are the benefits of starting a language immersion program in elementary school?
The primary reason we have made language and cultural studies a centerpiece of our curriculum is because we think it’s vitally important for students to understand everything that happens in the world and to understand the implications of what happens in their neighborhoods. Very often it’s easy to see the world just from the lens of where you sit, and we want our students to understand that there are differences in the world. We teach students how to communicate with people in other places. We teach French and Spanish, but it could have just as easily been Mandarin and Hindu. The point is to learn a different perspective, a different history about an additional culture.
