On Friday, February 12, 2016, several BHS seniors went to Bethpage’s elementary schools to show the fifth graders how taking a language can enrich their lives. I was chosen to represent the Italian classes and let the kids know that Italian is a useful language.

I remember being in fifth grade and having the older kids protest that Italian was useless because speaking Spanish is more of an asset in acquiring a job. It is now our job to encourage students to take Italian and stick with it because it is a beautiful language that students need to take—so the class can continue at the middle and high school levels.

On this trip, several students from each of the three languages, Spanish, Italian, and French, to discuss the benefits of taking their language and all of the fun activities each language includes in their classes.

I had the honor of revisiting my elementary school, Central Boulevard, and speaking to the kids. We seniors felt honored to help out the younger kids and give them an honest opinion on which language they should take.

Senior Ryan Mercer, with whom I had the pleasure of representing the Italian language at the schools said, “It was cool to interact with the younger kids because it gave us the ability to tell them firsthand what the language is like.”

It took a while to get our speech down to properly represent our language but after the first school, we had our routine. Our speech included how we came into taking our language, which was mostly due to our families speaking Italian at home. It was an amazing experience to speak to all of the fifth graders and genuinely help them make a decision that will affect them at least until tenth grade.