An interview with Ms. Sands
By Brady Winkler
Ms. Sands, who teaches Latin for all grades at Wayland Middle School, leads a very interesting life! I sat down with her to discuss her life in another country, language journey and her teaching style.
- Where were you born and where did you grow up?
| [Ms. Sands] So I was born in the Czech Republic but it was known as Czechoslovakia back then, and they speak Czech there, so I grew up speaking Czech. And because it’s a bilingual country and it was Czechoslovakia, our president was actually Slovak. And everybody in Czechoslovakia was bilingual because they spoke Czech and Slovak. |
- What was it like to live there?
| [Ms. Sands] I was a child, right, so I left the country when I was 11. So as a child I had a lovely childhood and grew up in a valley, my grandparents lived right up on the hill, we lived inside the valley, in the winters we would ski after school because there was a little ski-slope so I’m kind of like a mountain girl if you think about it, not in a major city. But I grew up in nature and I love winter. |
3. Were there challenges?
| [Ms. Sands] As a child, my parents took really good care of me, and I loved going to school. And I was really excited that in 4th Grade we got to learn another language, and in the Czech Republic that language was Russian. So actually in 4th Grade, I started learning Russian which had a different alphabet. So that was really intriguing to me because it was a puzzle to me, you know? So challenging, no as a child I was very happy living there. |
4. You are my Latin teacher. How many languages do you speak?
| [Ms. Sands] Ok, so after that, we went to live in Austria in which they speak German. And I had to start 6th Grade in German. I was put in a classroom with other kids that didn’t know German, that was just one block, but for the rest of the day, I was just among the Austrian children. I started my German learning there, but that was when my parents decided to come to America. And of course we don’t speak German here, so at the end of 6th Grade I started learning English. And then by 7th Grade, back when I was in school, kids only started learning a language in 7th Grade, so I wanted to be like everyone else, you know because I’ve already come from a different country and I’ve lived in different places so I was like “I want to take French!” because everybody else was taking a language, so I started taking French in 7th Grade. And then by then my English was pretty good, and in high school, all of a sudden my brain was like language crazy, between all the languages I had since then and since I was born. So I added Latin in high school because I just thought it made sense. I started to love languages because my brain could do it. Then, fast forward to college, I spent a year in Paris where I perfected my French skills and also spent a semester in Rome, kind of like finishing off my Latin degree, but of course I’m living in Rome. So what am I not going to learn? Italian? I will! So I also know some Italian because I lived there for 6 months. And my take on that is that Italian is really ”French with a Czech accent.” Because it has the same rules of French because they’re sister languages, but it’s pronounced exactly like Czech, so to me it clicked, it made so much sense! |
5. Was it hard to learn them?
| [Ms. Sands] Absolutely! Because you know the first few months, you can’t say a word because you don’t know any words, and you just sit there kind of lost. But then, if you just try, you learn one word at a time, and then you start putting it together into mini-sentences, and you start building bigger sentences, so it was like that! So I would say no, it was very challenging. But I had no choice. My parents were like “we’re moving!”, but I can’t say anything. I’m a kid. So it was very very challenging, but I got through it, and I learned these languages, so then I proved to myself I could do it. |
- [Brady] Yeah, and you can’t just learn by someone feeding you the words one time and it’s locked in your brain. You have to have 27 experiences with it.
| [Ms. Sands] And that’s a lot, right. But if you’re living in that country, those 27 experiences come rather fast, if you think about it daily. But the beginning is really hard when you have no words. So it was really hard for me to make friends at the lunch table, because when I would be eating lunch in 7th Grade, I couldn’t even talk to you. |
6. Why did your parents decide to come to America?
| [Ms. Sands] Absolutely. I really only got that when I was older and in college. And I really think it’s because they wanted to provide a better life for their kids. What I mean to say is, Czechoslovakia was what was called communist and America is a capitalistic society. And here, you have much more freedom. Not only freedom of religion, and speech, but also freedom of thought. And freedom of education. For example, if we had stayed in Czechoslovakia, because things are different now that it’s the Czech Republic but back then it was Czechoslovakia, I could’ve never studied French. They would’ve never let me study in France. People who live in a communist country cannot go visit other countries that are not communist. So my parents were thinking, “that doesn’t give my kids many opportunities. So we would rather be in a country where they could choose what they want to study.” And have more freedom to travel. So yeah, I think ultimately, my parents did this really hard move for their kids, because I have a younger sister. |
- [Brady] And now things have changed in Europe. With my relatives I’ve thought, “Now Germany seems like a great place to live!” But back then, there were a lot more challenges than there are now.
8. Can you talk about your teaching style? Why do you have your students stand or sit in a circle or as you say “in circulus”?
| [Ms. Sands] I love that, because I think it gives me the opportunity to teach the language, like I’ve learned all the other languages. So I give you an opportunity to talk to one another, and maybe at first just respond with one word answers. “Qualis dies est hodie?” (What day is it today?) and you say “Oh! Dies Martis!” (Tuesday) or whatever. And then little by little, we start talking about pictures, and I feel like circles are the perfect shape. Think about it. You have eye contact with everybody, that means you could talk to anybody across the room, or wherever. When we’re paired up you can switch, and everybody’s kind of in. Nobody’s sitting in the back corner, nobody’s sleeping on a desk. And if you again, think about your first language and how you learned that, it was like preschool! You didn’t have desks, you didn’t sit in rows, people were up, people were talking to each other (little people, like three year olds or four year olds) they were playing! They were talking about pictures! So I really like replicating how we learned our first language; in our second language. For you, it’s your second language. It makes sense because your brain already learned it like that the first time. So I think it’s easier for everybody to learn it this way for the second time. |
9. Bonus question: When people call you, you always greet them with “Klara Sands, what’s your favorite color?” If someone asked you, what would you say?
| [Ms. Sands] Well don’t you know? Purple! Because it’s the color of Rome! |
- [Brady] Well thank you very much, this was great! I loved hearing about your amazing history with languages and wish you more great language experiences ahead.