TELENOVELAS Fall 2009

Today I am on my way to Denver, CO for a Teach for America Recruitment visit. Dr. A mentioned Denver's telenovela stint with the Colorado Health Foundation and I can not wait to go get some field reviews of what people on the ground actually think.

Teach for America is sending me to visit along with a cohort of graduating Latino students from across the country's top universities in an effort to reach their impoverished school system, where Latinos are the most under-performing minority. I will learn more about their vision and get to experience a predominantly Latino schools for the first time in my life. We will be visiting middle school and high school students whose lives I am sure...are melodramatic.

I will be sparking up dialogue about the students' telenovela experiences and perhaps asking the Teach for America corps members if they've considered re-organizing their own teaching format to model telenovela success. Maybe with a little more creativity and a message that would resonate with their audience these students could be trapped in a world of telenovela learning. Think about it...they could learn about geography (through telenovela exports) or basically ANYTHING culture related. It could create dialogue about domestic abuse and maybe it could be that dialogue that could save a life.

I'm a little telenovela messenger this weekend and boy is it a message to give!