Profesora Jessica Nelson is excited to be joining the LILA family
and teaching 6th grade this year. She grew up in the Twin Cities
area and took classes at Anoka-Ramsey Community College in her junior
and senior years of high school. After graduation, she attended the
University of Notre Dame, where she studied history, education, and
music, in between watching Notre Dame football. (Don’t expect her to
reply immediately to any e-mails sent on college football Saturdays.)
It wasn’t until she took a weekend trip to Spain during a study abroad
semester in London that she realized she wanted to continue studying
the Spanish language. Last year, she was finally able to return to
Spain for a year through a Fulbright grant. She worked at a bilingual
elementary school in the suburbs of Madrid, Spain, helping
Kindergarteners, 4th graders, and 6th graders improve their English.
She has fond memories of new cultural experiences from her year abroad,
and is grateful for the opportunity to have made lifelong friends from
other countries. Now, she is living in Ham Lake and is thrilled to be
able to continue using her Spanish and maintaining a global
perspective. Like the rest of the LILA staff, she is a passionate
supporter of bilingualism (or multilingualism!), and appreciates the
power of language to change the way we interact with the world.
Pfa. Nelson also brings to LILA a wide range of less traditional
knowledge, such as a library-catalog equivalent knowledge of the Dewey
Decimal system (thanks to years of work as a library shelver),
classical violin expertise, access to historical archives in multiple
countries, and tips for avoiding injury in a capea, a variation of a
bullfight involving young cows, red capes, and no protection for the
humans involved. She looks forward to making new memories with the LILA
family this year.