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Thirteen three-year-olds tilted their heads up and watched, wide-eyed, as a red quetzal with green tail feathers and a gray-and-white eagle swapped stories and details about their homelands: Central America and North America.

The tykes seemed to forget their daycare teacher animated the avian hand-puppets behind a desk - but they did notice their foreign language and cultural arts teacher strumming her guitar and setting the show to music.

Minutes later, the kids were singing along and leaping to their feet to dance a Spanish hokey pokey, followed by the "elbow mambo," showing off their knowledge of the Spanish words for body parts.

The Monday sessions at St. Mary's/St. Alphonsus School in Glens Falls last less than a half hour, but resonate with the children.

"When I'm singing with them, they are just alive," noted Lisa-Renee Ackermann, the teacher in the foreign language and cultural arts program, a distinctive element of the school.

She sees daycare, pre-Kindergarten and elementary students once a week. "The day goes by so fast because they're all so excited."

The youngest children, she said, absorb new languages quickly: "They don't see it as another language. They just see it as more things."

Bienvenido
Mrs. Ackermann started the program six years ago after she was hired as the middle school Spanish teacher.

"I think it complements the other classes," said principal Kate Fowler. The cultural program "is about the joy of learning at the littlest age."

Mrs. Ackermann also ties Catholicism into her projects and lessons: for instance, students learned about Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron saint of the Americas; and the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday connected to All Saints' Day.

"It lets them realize that other people might think of God in a different way," Mrs. Ackermann explained.

Mrs. Fowler said of the course: "Their first experiences about other cultures will be positive. She's so gifted in the way she's able to bring that all together."

In the beginning
The class is the latest innovation in a school with a long history. Catholic schools in Glens Falls date back more than 135 years, starting on the city's French-speaking west side in 1873 with the Academy of Our Lady, later renamed Ecole St. Alphonse by French nuns.

On the east side, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet opened St. Mary's Academy in 1883 to serve the Irish and Italian immigrants of St. Mary's parish.

In 1932, the Kindergarten-through-high-school St. Mary's Academy moved 1,200 students to the current structure on Warren Street, a three-story, dark gray gothic building designed by Ralph Adams Cram.

It features terrazzo floors, a two-story stained glass window depicting the history of Catholic education and an auditorium modeled after Westminster Hall. (Currently, the hall also serves as a worship site for St. Mary's parish while the church is being renovated.)

After St. Mary's high school program closed in 1989, St. Alphonsus School closed and merged with St. Mary's. Over the past nine years, the school was renovated using $1.4 million in donations and a $120,000 New York State energy-efficiency grant.

A recent $50,000 donation from an alumnus will replace the furniture in the elementary rooms. The school also gives out tens of thousands of dollars in tuition assistance annually.

Today, 244 students are enrolled in pre-Kindergarten through eighth grade at St. Mary's/St. Alphonsus; about 50 children attend day care. The school is the only one in Warren and Washington Counties accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

The school retains 80 and 90 percent of its students. The principal credits the preservation of programs like Mrs. Ackermann's for that, as well as studio art, theater and music.

"Our belief is every child can succeed at something," Mrs. Fowler said.

About 80 percent of students at St. Mary's/St. Alphonsus are Catholic. All students attend Mass on Fridays - with nonperishable food in tow for the parish food pantry. Last year, the school raised $7,000 in 24 hours for a family displaced by a fire.

En Español
Mrs. Ackermann guides her students to learn prayers in Spanish and to help others. Students hear from medical missionaries and sponsor families in Guatemala. They also send alphabet books and soccer equipment to children in Namibia.

Mrs. Ackermann noted that, when four- and five-year-olds say prayers in other languages, some worry, "Will God know what we're saying?"

Older students are reassured. Maggie Greene, a first-grader, said she prays for her aunt's safety in snowy Colorado. Maggie and her classmates crafted worry dolls in Mrs. Ackermann's class last week.

"If you, like, worry about something," Maggie explained, "first you pray and then you talk to someone about it and then you make a worry doll and then you put it under your pillow. My favorite part about [the worry doll] was finishing it so I could play with it."

Sydney Bennefield enjoyed embellishing her new yarn-spun friend. "We got to decorate the hair," she told The Evangelist, adding that she'll pray for her 98-year-old, sick great-aunt.

Mrs. Ackermann has taught guitar, piano and cultural music for 20 years. She lived in Guatemala for a year after deciding to adopt a native boy, now 11.

Her goal at St. Mary's/St. Alphonsus is to get children passionate about learning. "I don't care what they want to learn, as long as they want to learn," she declared. [[In-content Ad]]

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