Everyone has their own unique memories from their childhood that they hold dear to their hearts. One of my earliest memories is sitting in my room with my sister attempting to teach me how to say “mom” and “hello” in french.

I can still hear the excitement in her voice as she repeated it until I got it down, and for some reason I associated “Maman” with moose, and “Bonjour” with a dresser. To this day I am not sure why I associated those things but it definitely helped them stick in my head.

I didn’t understand that going to French emersion school was that different until I went into sixth grade. I never appreciated going to a French immersion until I went to my second middle school. I went to Normandale Elementary school from kindergarten through fifth grade, and it was almost like everyone who went there lived in a little bubble. We had teachers from all different backgrounds and our T.A.’s were all from different parts of  France.

Looking back now it was so amazing getting to spend everyday with people who had traveled so far to help us learn and understand their language. Although I appreciate being exposed to a different culture throughout my childhood, there were also some setbacks with learning everything in French.

I learned all my science, math and social studies in French through sixth grade, and then was suddenly thrown into a Maple Grove classroom and expected to just “figure it out”. I have never had an easy time with my math, even in elementary school it never clicked. I felt as though I didn’t belong where I was, I belonged back at Valley View Middle School with all the French immersion kids I had grown up with.

I spent my first year out of my bubble at Maple Grove, which had very few similarities to Edina. Maple Grove was different than everything I had known. My bubble was popped and I felt like a complete outsider at Maple Grove.

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Come my eighth grade year I was re-inserted in a new bubble, Orono. I remember my first day at Orono and I couldn’t have been more at home, no one else had grown up learning a different language, but there was a sense of familiarity that I needed.

My opinion on going to a French immersion school has changed dramatically since the fifth grade, I am so lucky I got that experience and would not change it for anything. Although I struggled with the transition, most emersion kids are gradually taught how to translate things in an easier way than I learned myself.
I hope that parents give their children the opportunity to start learning a different language at a young age, I am really thankful for my experience and wouldn’t trade it for anything.