Teachers connect Wisconsin to Monterrey
During the exchange, both classes talked via video to learn about the other class’ cultures. (Photos submitted by Tomi Gebhard-Nice and Ryan Pedretti)
Esmeralda Martinez, a teacher from Monterrey, Mexico.
Two fifth grade teachers experienced their own version of ‘Trading Places’
By Steve Van Kooten
In the 1983 screwball comedy “Trading Places,” Dan Aykroyd plays the director of a brokerage firm who switches places with a savvy hustler played by Eddie Murphy and learns the difference between their two ways of life.
Forty years later, the Prairie du Chien School District and the Pan-American School in Monterrey, Mexico, conducted their own version of “Trading Places,” switching Bluff View fifth-grade teacher Ryan Pedretti and Esmeralda Martinez for two weeks this past December.
“I love to be a teacher. I love education and everything that is related to that,” Martinez said.
Martinez — the students in Prairie du Chien called her “Miss Esme” — currently teaches fifth grade; however, she has a catalog of experience, from teaching college students at LaGrange College in Georgia to working as a school principal during the pandemic, over the past two decades. She holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate in education.
The principal at the Pan-American school selected Martinez for the swap to Prairie du Chien, which she said has been a rewarding experience in the classroom.
“I really love how the teachers here have a plan for the students but also have different instruction for some students,” Martinez said. “This is so wonderful because you can help and support your children’s learning. It’s wonderful how this school teaches their students.”
According to Pedretti, his family suggested the exchange program to the Pan-American school.
“My sister and her family moved down there about two and a half years ago, and their kids go to the school,” he said. “There was like five of us interested in third through fifth grades, and just for this first time — because there’s always something to work out — I had family to stay with and feel more comfortable down there.”
There are stark differences between the two schools and the cities they serve: Prairie School District is a public school in a city of 5,500 people in the upper Midwest, while Pan-American is a five-campus school, and Monterrey is a city with more than one million people.
Pedretti said he had to make some adjustments in how he communicated with students because he is not a strong Spanish speaker.
“Their goal is for the kids to speak English all of the time, but Spanish is their primary, so there were some kids that could speak English strongly and some that didn’t speak much of it at all, which was a challenge,” he said. “I often had to rephrase or say things slower because of that language barrier.”
During the program, the two classrooms met via video. Counting both classrooms, approximately 40 students got on video together to talk about their different cultures and ask each other questions.
“That was fun but hectic chaos,” Pedretti said. “That was a unique experience in a good way.”
“It was awesome because you could observe the students. They were like, ‘Oh my goodness, Miss Esme, your class is wonderful,’ and I get the other side, too, because my class had the same opinion,” Martinez said.
Martinez and Pedretti agreed that the program gave their students valuable opportunities to learn about other parts of the world, different ways of life and get exposure to new places through comparable peer groups.
“You push the students not only to ask but to learn about the traditions of other people, and they are the same age, so they can feel a bit more confident,” Martinez said.
“We live in a unique area where our kids don’t get as much cultural exposure as they possibly should, and by having Miss Esme come in and teach the kids, they were able to learn about Mexico,” Pedretti said. “When they look back at their academic career when they’re done, whether it’s in college or at the end of their senior year, they’ll look back at this as one of their bright moments. Some of the kids miss her already.”
Besides their students, Martinez and Pedretti both had to deal with disparate weather situations. For Martinez, she arrived just in time to get a blast of the all-too-familiar Wisconsin cold.
“The first two days that I came, it was like, ‘Oh my goodness, what am I going to do?” Because it was too cold,” Martinez said. “But that’s part of the experience. I enjoyed it, but it is extremely cold here.”
Pedretti, on the other hand, said he enjoyed the Mexico winter, saying, “That was one of the things I enjoyed the most. The first week was 50s to 60s and rainy, but then the next week was 81 to 70. It was perfect.”
Despite the ice and frost, Martinez said she wouldn’t give Wisconsin the cold shoulder in the future, should the opportunity arise.
“If you asked me whether I would do this again, I would accept,” she said.
If you want to hear more about Pedretti’s experience in Mexico, he is expected to attend the Prairie du Chien Board of Education meeting on Jan. 13 to give a presentation about his trip.
