I was born into a family of educators. My Great-Grandmother, Marie Hunter Reid, once rode a bicycle along rural Michigan (Japanese), sand roads 10 miles (about 16 kilometers) in a skirt to take the test to become a teacher. You can see the road she took from Port Hope to Harbor Beach here. She was so nervous when she started the test, that she couldn't think of any answers. Fortunately, the supervisor of the test knew my Great-Grandma well. The supervisor put her hand on Marie's shoulder and said, "Relax! You can do this." Grandma Reid took a deep breath and DID remember. She passed the test and became a teacher in a one room school house, in the small town of White Rock. She taught first through eighth grades (ages 6 to 13) in the year 1900!
Marie's daughter, Helen, became a third and fourth grade teacher in Keego Harbor, Michigan. Here, she met her future husband, Max Thompson, a chemistry, biology, physics and math teacher. He went on to become a school principal and eventually superintendent of the Van Dyke School District, one of the largest school districts in Michigan. Later, before retiring, he was the driving force behind the creation of the largest community college in Michigan, Macomb Community College and was honored with the library named after him. Their son, Dennis (my father), became an English professor in that college and his wife, Nancy (my mother), was a high school math teacher before, she decided to raise a family. She later co-taught English classes for foreign students with my father at that college. My sister, Susan, and I both became teachers. My sister taught third grade for five years in Colorado before she decided to raise her twin girls, Cali and Ella. Her husband, Scott, resisted family pressure to become a teacher. He works as an architect in Boulder, Colorado.
After I graduated from university, it took me 8 years of working part-time jobs until I decided to go back to school and get a teaching certificate and a Masters Degree. I got my first full-time teaching job in Japan. Soon after arriving in Japan, I met Yuri. She is now my wife and she too, works as a teacher. She teaches English to pre-schoolers and kindergardeners.
As I look back on my experiences learning French, Spanish, and Japanese, I am thankful for the opportunities I had to listen to songs as a part of the curriculum. My first such experience was listening to Carmen, the opera by Georges Bizet. While reading the lyrics, I felt like I could REALLY understand French for the first time. I believe that all students should have the opportunity to enjoy music as part of their foreign language study. If you want to acquire English, enjoy it everyday!