The Legends of the White Lady
Recently I visited the Faniyakan Sinipok or the Guam Department of Education Immersion school to hold a storytelling session with the families of the program's students. Similar to the families for I Maga'låhen Hurao Charter School, while the children may progress and show great development in the Chamoru language, unless the parents are fluent or are working hard to learn Chamoru on their own, they will fall far behind and not be able to support the learning of their children. I've seen it many times in the Hurao school where children begin to develop fluency, but they hit a ceiling because first, the limited amount of peers that they can speak and identify with, and second, because their family can't match their fluency or learning level. While their families are interested in having them learn Chamoru, the parents themselves are often not fluent or not actively committed to learning, and so their children will quickly hit a ceiling. It is for this reason that when...
