Monday, April 21, 2025
Caterina Spallino has been a language educator at West Hempstead Secondary School for 24 years, where she teaches both Italian and Spanish to 7th and 8th graders. She has recently been selected as an honoree at Cellini Lodge No. 2206 Order Sons & Daughters of Italy in America’s 57th Annual Scholarship/Charitable Benefit & Dinner-Dance.
Q: What brought you to becoming an Italian educator?
A: Really Italian language has always been my first love. I come from Italian immigrants. As a child, I lived in Italy for two years where I was basically a reverse ESL student — where I didn’t understand or know the Italian language and I was suddenly immersed in a school that only spoke Italian and I was an English speaker.
So that’s where my love of learning the language began, and when we came back to the states, I just continued on that path. I decided then that I want to be the person who now teaches the language to English speakers.
Q: Can you tell me a bit about your career?
A: Well, I studied at Hofstra Liberal Arts College after high school and I majored in Italian and minored in English. Then once I graduated, I really still didn’t quite have a path to go on. I thought I would go into being a translator, but then I figured I would need more languages than just the one.
So I started doing some research and I found that SUNY Stony Brook had a masters of arts in teaching, where you can receive your masters, as well as fulfill all your requirements for your teaching degree. I thought that was a great thing. I knew I wanted to do something with the language, and work with young people, and I can get my masters degree at the same time. So I received my masters of arts in teaching Italian and then I began working. I taught briefly at Valley Stream North before West Hempstead, where this is my 24th year.
I was at West Hempstead for several years teaching only Italian, and then an administrator approached me and said ‘Well, the Italian classes are getting smaller. I would really love it if you could also get certified in Spanish.’ That was never my passion, my true love was for the Italian language. But I was asked how many credits I would need to get certified and if I could do it — and I had taken Spanish classes in college, so I did have credits. It was worth my while, so I went through Nassau BOCES to see what the requirements were. About 10 to 12 years into teaching, I then received my Spanish certification. So now I have both and I teach both.
Q: What has been a highlight of your career so far?
A: Just seeing the success of my kids. We participate in the National Italian Exam given through the American Association of Teachers of Italian, and my kids have done so well on it. They’ve placed in bronze, silver and gold medals. It’s just amazing.
And being a middle school teacher, you sometimes don’t see that you’re really having success, in a sense, with a student, right then and there. But then last year, I was invited by the senior class to a ceremony, as they nominated and honored me with being one of their most influential middle school teachers. That was special to me because it showed me that I really do have an impact at this young age, and they do think of you later on in life. I’m like OK you know this is this teacher really affected me in some sort of way.
Q: Can you tell me a bit about the recognition that you’re receiving?
A: Apparently the Cellini Lodge Order Sons & Daughters of Italy, I’m not certain if they sent out an email or how it actually came about, but both my principal and my director of the humanities department nominated me to receive this honor. For my love of the world language, as a teacher who engages her students and is creating their love for the language, that’s what the nomination is about.
Q: March 3-7 is Foreign Language Week at West Hempstead. Could you tell me why language learning is an important part of our education system?
A: We get that question a lot, especially with AI and translators. Everyone’s always like ‘Well why do we need to learn it?’ But I feel — especially in the U.S., where we’re such a diverse people, there are so many different cultures — the learning of a language, other than English, brings us closer to others in the world.
It builds connections, better understanding of others, of cultures and traditions. I feel that’s a really important part of just growing and becoming a sympathetic, empathetic adult. Yes, you could use Google translate if you need to, but just to know or understand another person’s culture, it makes you a better person in my eyes.
