Lori Spak is a Spanish and first level Latin teacher. Before coming to WJ two years ago, Spak spent three years teaching at North Bethesda MS.
What kinds of activities do you enjoy outside of school?
LS: I love crossword puzzles and reading. I am such a geek. I do the newspaper, I do any form that you can find. If there’s a crossword puzzle online and it catches my eye, I wind up doing that. I also don’t really love it, but I force myself to run at least three times a week, for my health. But I don’t enjoy it.
Being a foreign language teacher, do you enjoy traveling?
LS: Yes, absolutely. I love to travel. We don’t get to travel as much as possible, as we used to, because we have a school schedule to stick to. But I do love to go to different places. We went to Rome for Christmas; it was so much fun. I was so excited to finally get there; I’d never been there. I’m teaching Latin. I have to go to Rome!
What do you enjoy about traveling?
LS: I did my Masters degree in International Education, and part of it was cross-cultural communication and learning about people and places and how people think differently and act differently in different places. So I really liked to see that in action. I always feel like I’m studying them when I’m doing that. I’m like, “Okay, what’s the rule for getting the bartender’s attention here?” and “How do you talk to a policeman, that you wouldn’t do in the United States?” Those kinds of rules.
Where have you traveled?
LS: I’ve been lucky enough to have lived in Spain, Germany and Argentina. And [I have] traveled to a lot of Spanish-speaking countries. Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Peru, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. I made my kids walk to Canada once from Niagara Falls . . . [I’ve been to] France, Spain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland. I’ve never been to Africa, that’s probably the next place.
What was the most interesting place you visited, and why was it interesting?
LS: I loved visiting the hometown where my grandmother grew up in Germany because it was so small. There were 600 people in this town and the people actually looked at me and said, “You must be Kuni’s granddaughter.” They all knew her from when she was growing up there. And I loved learning about my family’s history when I was there. That was very cool. I always thought Rome was so cool, but Pompeii is probably one of the coolest cities I’ve ever been to in my whole life. Buenos Aires was wonderful because [of] the people. And the food.
What’s it like going to a foreign country where you are fluent in their native language?
LS: It feels really empowering. You feel competent. It’s a good feeling, and one of the best feelings in the world is when someone says to you, “Now, where are you from?” And they’re not really sure that you’re an American. That’s feels really good, that you’ve fooled them, because you’ve learned a foreign language that well.
On another note, what is one thing that you’d like to accomplish in your lifetime?
LS: I would like to run a 10k. Like really run it, not just walk half of it, which is what I’d probably do. But that’s going to take a lot more work than three times a week running, what I’ve been doing.
Your kids are students at WJ. What is it like having students who know your kids?
LS: Well, it’s interesting because some of the kids I have in my classes, I’ve known since they were in preschool, because they went to preschool with my kids. And actually, one kid that I had last year, I’ve known since like the week he was born. Wow, that’s a really long time! So what’s really wonderful is, because I moved from North Bethesda to here, I have some of the kids that I had in my classes, and [in] Sunday school and some in first grade…[I like] to see what lovely men and women they have become and how they’ve matured. Before, maybe they didn’t look you in the eye, and now they talk to you directly. It’s so nice to see you guys grow up and become young men and women and grow in confidence.
