Maria Gillman

Maria Gillman, recipient of this year’s Distinguished Contributions to Lifelong Learning Award, believes in the power of service-learning, where two equal parties come together to gain knowledge from each other and immerse themselves in each other’s cultures.

Gillman, senior lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese Studies, incorporates a service-learning component into all her projects, especially the Summer Institute for Spanish Teachers, a program for secondary school Spanish teachers offered by UW Educational Outreach. She has taught in the program since 1998.

Teachers enrolled in the institute study in Guatemala, taking language classes in the morning and going on excursions in the afternoon. They have visited a women’s textile cooperative, schools for children displaced by Guatemala’s 30-year civil war, and a school that trains indigenous women to become educators.

“You can speak Spanish or any other language very well but if you have no connection with the culture of the language you are speaking, it is almost useless to speak the language,” says Gillman, who explains that the excursions are a way for institute participants to more closely identify with their teaching counterparts in Guatemala.

“My goal is to plant a seed in the summer institute teachers about the importance of not just learning the language but the culture as well,” Gillman says. “Then I step back and let the teachers take the learning as far as they want to.”

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