Laura Yanasak never thought she’d end up standing in front of a classroom full of students. When she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in French, she told herself, “I’m going to get a cool, cool job. I don’t know where or what but it’s not going to be teaching.” Now, as she enters her thirteenth year at the Milwaukee French Immersion School, she looks back at her initial resistance with a smile. Today, her students know her as Madame Yanasak. She has a superpower the average human might dread: teaching a class full of eager kindergarteners. Think that’s not hard enough? Try it in a different language. Her job is to introduce French to her students by immersing them in francophone language and culture.

Growing up as she did in Wauwatosa, a suburb twenty minutes outside Milwaukee, there wasn’t much exposure to francophone culture. It was a chance gift from her mother, a set of French flash cards, that first got her interested in learning the language. Middle school, when she first started taking French classes, presented an opportunity for Mrs. Yanasak to see “what else is out there.” She stuck with the language for long past her initial sixth grade French class. French sparked her curiosity to learn more about the world, a passion which only grew stronger during Mrs. Yanasak’s first trip to France at 16. Visiting Paris and the Loire Valley with her mother opened her mind to how big the world is; “there’s so much more out there,” she says, “than little Wauwatosa.”  

After college, Mrs. Yanasak originally planned to pursue a Master’s in French film from the University of Iowa. She eventually decided against it and set French aside to work at the Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee. After cuts to the newspaper caused by the ‘08 recession, she found herself back in school; this time as a teacher. A woman at a Friends Meeting gave Mrs. Yanasak word that a French immersion school in the area was hiring, and she spent a day volunteering at the Milwaukee French Immersion School. MFIS’ identity as a public school, and one of the few public immersion schools in the area at that, attracts students from all backgrounds. It took a leap of faith to imagine herself working there as a kindergarten teacher. She says the serendipitous timing of an open teaching position made the decision easier–that, and the instant hugs she got from the kids. With only a week and a half of turnaround time in between jobs, she dusted off her French-speaking skills and jumped right in.  

The first four or five years, according to Mrs. Yanasak, were rough: “you basically have to jump in and just start doing and you’re going to make an insane amount of mistakes.” She pulled 12-13 hour days, learning on the go. On particularly rough days, Mrs. Yanasak has to put on her “English necklace,” which her students respond to with wide eyes and gaping mouths.  All classroom communication is supposed to be in French, Mrs. Yanasak says, but when the necklace comes out, the kids know they’re in trouble. Moments like this, which can only be learned on the job, make her laugh. With more and more time in the classroom –she eventually bumped up to second grade and then down to kindergarten again– she decided to pursue her Master’s in Education at the same time as teaching.

Part of her pedagogy’s purpose is to inspire the sense of wonder learning a language brings, one that Mrs. Yanasak felt as a child with her French flashcards. Getting students excited about French means giving them access to the diverse range of francophone cultures across the world. Mrs. Yanasak’s students are young, and she often has to deal with kids biting one another and lots of temper tantrums, but she’s convinced this is the perfect time to jump in and learn about a language and culture other than your own. “I think language learning is one of the coolest things there is because little kids are just sponges,” she says. “They just take it in… It’s still so cool to watch their brains just grow in that way.” Learning a new language can be challenging, however, and Mrs. Yanasak has learned to meet students on their own ground. They are at different developmental stages, with some kids reading at a third-grade level while others cannot identify letters, all of which she must accommodate, in French. She teaches at an immersion school because there, students come together over a shared passion for language learning. 

Mrs. Yanasak took a round-about path to where she is now, but she takes pride in confronting the challenges teaching presents and in the work she does. “Teaching is one of the hardest jobs there is,” she says, “but it’s also one of the most rewarding.” The personal connections come as part of the job, from teaching multiple children from the same family to relying on her peers for support, are why she plans on sticking with this job until the end of her career.  And she should; Madame Yanasak plays an influential role in her students’ lives. The immersion aspect of her classroom, in particular, teaches students the importance of cultural and educational exchange. In the future, Laura tells me, we’re going to have to persuade Americans who don’t believe they need to learn a second language, that in fact it’s essential, if we ever hope to reduce xenophobia and a number of other ills that face our country. “Maybe one day,” she says hopefully, “we’ll have a language policy like every other country in the world.”