This week I am watching a show called Aprende a Vivir. Check it out if you would like to watch it! I have watched so far the first two episodes, and I have to say it is excellent. It is school appropriate, but I would not play it for my elementary school kids. I would play it in a 6th-grade Spanish class or a health class. It is only 3 episodes and easy to watch in school. It is a show that teaches about diabetes and how to manage this disease. Even though this is a different language, you can learn a lot about diabetes, a different family, and culture. Also, while watching this show, you see a love story as well. This reminds me of the Spanish soap operas I used to watch with my Abuela.
While watching this show, you can see many Spanish cultures and how they are as a family. They only speak Spanish in the house and say a couple of words in English. You can also tell this is a rigorous family, where the oldest daughter who is in a serious relationship and is going to get married, still lives at home with her parents. It is very family-oriented and sticks to gender roles. The oldest daughter will be a nurse and marries a doctor; the mother stays home, cooks, and takes care of their children while the father works. There is nothing wrong with these gender roles. It plays out as being your typical family we see on Tv. The young boy is very athletic, and his sister goes to all his games and watches them play. You can also tell that the mother is running the household and takes care of everyone. Especially her husband, she will be going to his doctor’s appointments with him to tell the doctors everything they need to know. You can tell this is a typical Spanish family; it looks a lot like how the family is and how I grew up just without everyone speaking Spanish. Only my father and grandparents spoke Spanish.
While watching the episodes, you only saw the family in their kitchen, but it was a typical kitchen that you see in everyone. The mother was home, cooking, and waiting for her family to come home and eat. This is what it is like in my family; my mom will cook, and we will all gather in the kitchen when we get home, and it is time to eat. We know from watching the episodes that the family loves soccer and plays it for fun and watches the games on Tv and when their son plays it. With families in the United States on our, Tv is mostly football and basketball are the sports we watch. I noticed that there staple food they would have and even eat as snacks were rice white or yellow with beans or without, and I liked seeing that because it is a staple food in my house, we always have rice. I thought it was the normal food to have with every meal, but when I started going to friends’ houses for dinner, I realized they did not have it with every meal; they mostly had pasta or potatoes with their dinners. I always thought it was weird until I realized people could be thinking the same thing about my having rice for every meal. Our cultures are different, and what we eat is different, and it does not make sure weird. In this show, you saw that these family’s values were health and their family members’ safety. They put family above everything else. It is nice and refreshing to see in a Tv series because it most Tv shows, we do not see that. The one thing that I thought was very different is the same. His oldest daughter got engaged in front of the whole family and not just them together. I thought it was sweet that the only family got to be involved. We do not see that in our culture anymore, especially the man asking the father permission for his daughter’s hand; I loved watching that part. It means that this young man has respect for his new family.
I highly recommend that everyone check this quick series on youtube, and I have provided the link as well. I believe it is a great mini-series to show in our classroom to learn about health, Spanish, and cultures.
Please let me know what you thought in the comments!