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@kristenanniebell : Our next of #10featuredteachers Round 2 is Jose! I loved reading his story: “My name is Jose Tipton-Guerrero and I'm a 5th grade teacher in Tigard, Oregon, a suburb of Portland. I teach in a dual language program where half of our day is taught in English and half in Spanish. Some of my students come from English-speaking families and some come from Spanish-speaking families. A few are even recent immigrants to this country from places like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, including one little boy who just moved here last week from Mexico. As an immigrant to this country myself, I know the struggle that students can have when acclimating to not only a new home, but also to a new language. I was 5 when my parents brought me to this country, and I had to go to kindergarten without knowing a word of English. I love that I teach in a program that understands that speaking another language is not a handicap, but a gift. Learning in both English and Spanish allows my students to develop not only an appreciation, but also a love of cultures and people different from them, while still honoring where they come from. While I love having the opportunity to teach my students in two languages, there are some challenges. Our school library has only 4 shelves of books in Spanish, which clearly is not enough to provide 300 dual language students with enough engaging reading material at their individual reading levels for an entire school year. We have no class sets of novels for 5th graders and no nonfiction books in Spanish. I would love to put engaging, thought-provoking Spanish literature into the hands of my students. My students need and deserve it. Thank you!” I love embracing our differences as gifts! Jose’s wishlist will be in my bio all day! Thank you everyone! 😍📚💙🍎😘