By Dane Anderson, Staff Writer

For seven years, they have been coming – early in the morning once a week to learn a new language. They first were 5 years old when they started. They loved crayons and puzzles, and most just wanted to know the Spanish words for “door,” and “book” and “puppy.”

Now in sixth grade, they show up faithfully once a week, 10 students at 7:30 in the morning in the last days of school. Next year, they will enter the Spanish program at Hill Country Middle School. Seventh grade is the first year the Eanes school district offers foreign languages.

“I learned Spanish as a kid, when it was very easy,” said Dee Dee Stone, the group’s dedicated volunteer teacher. “It’s a natural thing at that age, when kids are still sponges. They just soak it up like everything else around them.”

Stone said the kids have a very strong foundation, everything they will need to plunge into the formal Spanish curriculum next year. When Stone started the Spanish Club at Cedar Creek Elementary School when her daughter, Lindsey, was in kindergarten, she had no idea it would last seven years. But there the kids are every Tuesday, sitting at their desks at about the time most 12 year olds are just getting out of bed. They are way past the age when any parent could entice a preteen to show up at 7:30 a.m. for anything. 

Not only do they show up, they show up excited and ready to learn. They aren’t even drinking coffee.

“My uncle has three serious, tall daughters,” they say in Spanish in unison. 

“This dress is not a bargain,” they say out loud. 

Matthew Bull said Spanish is a part of his heritage. He wanted to learn another language, so he picked Spanish. But the real reason he shows up for Spanish Club at such an ungodly hour is because Ms. Stone is awesome, he confesses. 

Sarah White agreed. 

“It’s fun in here,” she said. “Well, it was made really fun for everyone, even though we still learned a lot. (We play) relay games to learn new vocabulary or (we do) skits.”

On one of their last mornings together, students laughed and kidded each other. They took out Baggies full of handwritten slips of paper. They formed teams and raced excitedly to piece together words in well-constructed sentences. 

“I look for the purple shoes and the green socks,” they write on the board. 

Jumping around, laughing, correcting each other, trying again – big grins stretch across young animated faces. It is the way parents dream of their kids learning in school. But this  class isn’t a part of the campus curriculum. It’s one parent volunteering time for seven years of her life. It’s a group of students growing up and showing up just for the pure joy of learning. 

Stone hopes the district will soon adopt a foreign language curriculum for elementary school students. Administrators and members of the school board are considering the option. In the mean time, Stone hopes other parents will follow her lead, working with students before or after school, hooking them on the beauty of communication in a new tongue.

“I have all the materials someone would need to teach the classes at different levels, and I am willing to help get them started,” she said. 

They 10 students in the HCMS Spanish Club don’t talk about whether they will miss their friends next year. They are focused where they should be at 12, on the future. They have self-confidence; they feel comfortable they will succeed in seventh grade.

“I will always want to take foreign language I think,” said Lindsey. “I already know most of the stuff they are going to teach the first year, and I can pronounce the words and stuff. I just hope the classes are as much fun, and they teach it the way (Mom) does. It makes it work.”