Herricks Superintendent of Schools John Bierwirth was recently awarded the Sen. Paul Simon Friend of Foreign Language Award, which is given to a supporter of world language education on many levels.
Bierwirth received the award, which is specifically not given to a foreign language teacher, at the New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers in Rochester.
“It was very nice,” Bierwirth said. “Part of it is just being around for a long time.”
During his career as an educator, Bierwirth has been a strong advocate of progressive approaches to teaching language skills.
“I’m an advocate, but I’m more specifically an advocate for some of the methodologies that work better than the way I was taught a long time ago, which was very literature focused and a classical type of language instruction,” he said. “What teachers do now, whether you have an opportunity for an immersion program, or within the core program, is much better.”
Bierwirth claims no special background or insight in language-teaching techniques, but credits others for helping mold his attitude toward language instruction over the years.
“I am not an expert in those areas and I do listen to experts who make very persuasive cases and I’ve seen the evidence,” Bierwirth said.
While he was in charge of grant acquisitions in the Hempstead School District, Bierwirth helped to create two-way bilingual programs in Spanish and Greek for elementary students in the Hempstead public schools. He continued pushing innovative strategies for language instruction while he was superintendent of the Freeport School District from 1980 to 1989.
In Freeport, he initiated a FLEX program for the middle school with students spending a quarter of the year studying French, Italian, Spanish and Latin. Students’ introduction to language learning in the Freeport district was a six-week immersive program during the summer.
“It was a great idea. Because obviously with the structure of the school day you can’t get four or five hours of language instruction,” Bierwirth said. “It wasn’t academic drill. It was cooking, doing art, anything to use the language, as if someone would leave and go to another country and be immersed in a period of time.”
While he was subsequently superintendent for the Portland, OR. school district, Bierwirth played a key role in expanding the elementary schools’ world language immersion programs in Spanish and Japanese while helping to develop a curriculum in Mandarin Chinese.
The Herricks School District currently offers immersive Spanish classes for sixth graders. On a high school level, one French class approaches language study using French cinema as a means for learning the language, along with traditional methods. Another French course uses that culture-rich culinary arts as a medium for instruction, including articles in French journals. And a third course is framed as a virtual course abroad, using the Internet as the vehicle to transport students who rent virtual apartments, go to see movies and meet friends at cafes online.
Bierwirth said the way the world is changing, language skills are becoming more important to master.
“I think we’re headed toward a smaller and smaller world. The capacity to speak more than one language is advantageous,” he said. “I think there’s also some pretty strong research to indicate that people who are fluent in more than one language also gain by having multiple perspectives on culture and that it is wonderful in terms of brain development.”
The Herricks superintendent is a leader on language committees with the Nassau County superintendents groups, seeking to supplant the absence of state Regents language exams and provide some alternative means of assessing students’ language skills.
“Since the state is pulling back, the language teachers supported by its superintendents, are looking into assessments better than Regents exams,” Bierwirth said.
The movement could translate into a new statewide evaluation standard that would effectively serve the same purpose that the state Regents exams have done.
“A group of administrators are developing Regents exam to replace what the state would have done and will sell them to districts statewide,” Bierwirth said.
