Angela and Danny Stone, along with their 3 children, Harper (14), Cal (12), and Maeve (8), have been a part of the Na’atik family since 2018 when they came to Felipe Carrillo Puerto to study in our Spanish immersion program. Danny is an elementary teacher who teaches in a school library, and Angela works for the organization English in Action, which matches tutors to immigrant students to help them develop their English proficiency and make cross-cultural connections in the community.

We wanted to share their history with Na’atik and learn about how, in the midst (and hopefully on the tail-end) of the pandemic, they have found a way to make a place for Na’atik in their family through our online classes.

We’re so glad to catch up with you all and also get to know everyone a little better! How did your story with Na’atik begin?

Danny: We started searching for a language school where we could do a family homestay, and there are five of us, and that was not easy to find. Every other school would say we’d have to be split up, or just flat “no.” And Na’atik said, “That sounds wonderful! We can definitely figure out a situation for you.” [As teachers], Na’atik’s education philosophy fits ours and it sounded like a great fit.

What motivated you to seek out this experience?

Angela: We’d traveled abroad for almost a year when Cal and Harper were younger, so it had been a long time since we’d had an experience like that, so that’s what we were after. We wanted to do a homestay, take classes, and have a cultural component where we could visit different parts of the area and learn more about it. The kids were taking Spanish at school and there are a lot of Spanish speakers in our community, but what drew us in was, like [Danny] said, the educational philosophy, the library--this sense that there was a really strong connection between the community and the school. The families are really involved in the school, and the school is really involved with the families, and it just fit with what we thought school should be like here.

How did you decide to make the transition to online classes with us?

Cal: I think the summer of the pandemic, we were doing Spanish classes once a week.

Angela: Cal’s elementary school has a daily Spanish program, and a lot of his friends speak Spanish, so he gets a lot of exposure to it, but then his schedule was different in middle school and he wasn’t going to be able to take 5th grade Spanish. Na’atik was a great opportunity where we knew the teachers were strong and that could make it work with our schedule; that was our first experience with online [classes]. And, then, when our kids were staying home and doing school online (and then we decided to homeschool completely), it was a no-brainer to make that a part of our curriculum for the kids so they could benefit from having a weekly or biweekly Spanish experience with the same teacher and build on what they’d already done.

This question goes to Cal and Maeve: What is your favorite thing about learning Spanish?

Cal: Since I was 2 when I went to South America, I learned Spanish a little bit, and then it’s part of school, and it’s been a part of [everything]. I took a break and then it was kind of fun to go back to learning a new thing.

Maeve: It’s just fun to have another language that I’m learning.

Angela: Maeve likes to talk with lots of different accents, and she and her friend play very creatively with language. They incorporate silly new words, and they talk with different accents, and we definitely hear Spanish coming out a lot of times! I think it’s something that the more she has done it with Na’atik this year, it’s seeping into her subconscious. It’s in there and it starts to comes out in little interesting ways. She’ll throw out vocabulary and [I’ll think], “I didn’t know you knew that word!”. I think it’s been cemented in her this year, whether she’s conscious of it [or not], and using it fluidly.

Do you feel like you have more time now to learn Spanish or less time? A little bit of both?

Cal: I think we had a lot more time because we weren’t really doing anything at first, so we had a lot of time for Spanish.

Maeve: More time!

It seems like you all have built quite the learning community with the Holcombe family--can you tell us a little more about that?

Angela: [Danny and I] are both teachers, so our homeschool setup was with another family, the Holcombes. We bubbled up with them and created a homeschool schedule, and we were pretty structured. As teachers, it was easy for us to say, “We’re going to do writing at this time, literacy at this time, and Spanish at this time.” [Spanish] was a pretty predictable part of our day. I think it was also really neat to have the Holcombes get to know the Spanish program at Na’atik. From the conversations we’ve had and listening, it’s been really fun to hear [Dax and Kai] improve their Spanish, too.

Does having Dax and Kai take classes with you make learning Spanish online more fun?

Cal: Yeah, definitely. Sometimes me and Kai talk about the classes afterwards. When we were doing online school [through the district], it was kind of boring and we weren’t really learning anything; we were just staring at the screen, and then with Spanish, it didn’t feel like that. It felt like I was actually learning new things.

Danny: Before we homeschooled, it was all online school for regular school, and then Na’atik for Spanish. The energy was so much different than their regular online school. For their online school, they had a whole class of kids, and people struggled with being unmuted, not having their videos on--it was very slow. We’d see our kids and they looked so bored. But then with Spanish classes, they’d be laughing and interacting and having fun--it was very different. [Having] one-on-one Spanish classes definitely helped.

The Stone Family at a Na'atik Homestay

Now, the requisite distance learning question: How does everyone manage Zoom fatigue?

Angela: I think with the move to homeschool our kids, we cut out a huge part of the online [fatigue]. When we switched to full homeschooling with our kids, it was so easy to continue with Spanish online because it was a half hour twice a week, which felt like nothing compared to spending a whole day on the computer. It was easy to make that shift and realize this was a worthwhile screen experience that wasn’t mind-numbing or overwhelming. We didn’t experience Zoom fatigue with our Na’atik classes because it was a minimal amount.

Cal: After we went back to in-person and we got quarantined and had to do [school] online for a week and a half, I was reminded of how I couldn’t focus and was having a hard time learning. Spanish was definitely not like that.

How has the transition to in-person school gone for everyone, and how have you managed to continue taking classes with Na’atik?

Cal: I have high school math online [because of cohorting] every other day in the morning. On the days I don’t have it, I do Spanish then. It just worked with my schedule.

Angela: Thanks to [Na’atik]. We were fortunate that Katia could teach during that time where Cal had a block of no classes once a week.

Danny: One of the things I appreciate the most about Na’atik is the flexibility all around, in that specific situation with Cal that there was the little window he had, you were able to make that work. Angela was talking about how we created our homeschool schedule for our two and a half groups of kids. It really helped that Maeve and Dax could do their Spanish while I was able to focus on the other kids. It helped us get through our homeschool day. And the other part, when we were actually at Na’atik when Maeve wasn’t old enough to take classes, I stayed with Maeve. I’m the most proficient at Spanish--

Angela: --you were the most proficient.

Danny: That’s true; she’s surpassed me. So, the rest of the family would take classes all morning, and Maeve and I would hang out in the garden, and I would teach Maeve Spanish classes, or we’d go to the library upstairs. Sometimes we’d go around town and learn Spanish that way. Other homestays would say, “If you’re not going to take classes you can’t be part of the homestay,” and Na’atik gave us that flexibility of making it work for our family.

Cal: A really nice thing about Na’atik, more when you’re actually there in person, is that it’s more than learning Spanish. I learned a lot and had fun with the classes... but everything else they did managed much more. We did different things--still learning Spanish but in other cool ways.

Angela: --Like the cooking class, and Catherine’s son inviting you to run with them… They were just super open!

Danny: The homestay was probably one of the most important and longest lasting impacts of our Na’atik experience. We were there for two weeks, but when we left it felt like we were leaving family.

Do you think you all will visit Carrillo again in the future?

Danny: I hope so!

Angela: Yeah, we had a great experience! At my job, I have a lot of English-speaking tutors who are always looking for ways to improve their Spanish. I’m always offering Na’atik up because it’s an authentic experience to do a homestay, to do the classes, to visit the area, and to travel around. I think that [when] travel opens up and feels pretty safe again, yeah, I hope so.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about your experience with Na’atik?

Danny: Something we haven’t really talked about is [the study abroad/language immersion coordinator], Simon. Simon was there when we were there, and that’s who I was interacting with when I was emailing everyone saying, “We’re a family of five, and we’d love to do a homestay…”. I felt like we developed a great relationship before we’d even come. He was really interested in helping us figure it out. And then coming back to do online, Emily was great and so helpful, and transitioning to Erica--has been a really key and unique thing that other schools don’t have. I think that’s really a great thing that Na’atik does.

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The best way to experience the Mexican lifestyle is in person, with a Na’atik Immersion experience. Not only do you live with a local Mexican-Maya family, sharing home-cooked meals and free time, but also receive expert instruction in your chosen language at our school. Best of all, every immersion experience helps fund our subsidized and free local education program, helping local students to access opportunities and make their own futures.