PBTIL - McAuliffe Team

Classes / Teachers

Lizette Crowley

I was born in New York City and raised in Puerto Rico. My family moved to Puerto Rico when I was three years old. I grew up in the town of Rincon which is located in the very western part of the island. This part of the island is know for its beautiful crystal clear beaches. In addition, the waves at some of the beaches are so high that it's excellent for surfing. During the months of September to January, people from all over the world come to Rincon to enjoy this sport.
I was fortunate to start my college education at the University of Puerto Rico in the city of Rio Piedras. At the end of my second year I was offered the opportunity to continue my studies in New York City. I thought it would be exciting and challenging because I could improve my English skills.
While in New York City, I obtained scholarships and met people who offered me the opportunity to travel to different countries in order to enrich me as a person and professionally. Some of the countries that I visited were: Egypt, Iran, Japan, Greece, Cyprus, among others. This was an awesome experience.
When I graduated from college, I got a teaching job in Middle School 143 in the Bronx. There, I taught eighth, and sixth grade bilingual classes. After four years of teaching in the school, I was asked to take the job of Bilingual Staff Developer and Coordinator of the Bilingual Department at my school. Although a very different and challenging position, I obtained great experiences doing this.
In 1999, I moved with my husband and child to Lowell, Massachusetts. I am presently teaching at the S. Christa McAuliffe School. Here I am teaching the two-way bilingual Spanish component of the fourth grade. After many years of teaching I still feel that teaching is a great thing to be doing. I love my profession every day more (even with the good and bad days).

Email Lizette Crowley (lcrowley69@excite.com)

Madeline Febo -
It was a stormy day; the sky was covered with very thick, grey clouds. The wind was howling and it was moving even the biggest trees... "And it was raining, raining like I have never seen before" - that was what my mother told me about the day when I was born.
My name is Madeline Febo. I was born in August 3rd., 1959. I was born from a very special woman, her name is Flora Maldonado. My mother's father, my grandfather, was the one to choose my name. He named me after a very close friend of him, who had died just before my birth. My father was a very good provider, his name is Confesor Santiago. They did not have a lot of schooling, but they certanly had a lot of devotion for their family.
I was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Ponce is the second largest city in P.R.; in population density and in territory. Puerto Rico is a very small island in the Carribean. It is approximately 100 by 35 miles. The climate in my homeland is tropical. We have two official languages, Spanish and English, however is Spanish the language spoken by most Puertorrican people. Our currency is the U.S.dollar.
P.R. is fully developed economiocally and technologically although people still emigrate to U. S. for better opportunities and to improve their ways of living. That was excactly my case. I am the second oldest from a family of eight. That means that I had a lot of responsabilities. I was the first one, from my family, to graduate from college. I did my four years of college in a very respectul university, InterAmerican University in San German, P.R. My bachelors degree is in Psichology and Secondary Education. Then when I graduated, jobs were very difficult to find if you did not speak English. I never wanted to learn English because I was a rebel. On those days there was some kind of revolution going on; young people were against anything that had to do with U.S., and I was one of them. Then when I graduated I realized how important was to learn English and how important was to get allied with U.S.
With zero English skills, a bachelors degree two suitcases and a lot of hopes I came to Lowell Massachusetts. The day I arrived to Lowell I almost die of coldness. It was only fall but I was not used to the weather. Then everybody was so white and talking so strange (English). I crashed! I wanted to go back, but I did not have any money. Thank God for that!
After two weeks in Lowell, I started working as a Parent Liasion in the Community Team Work. The same year, I met my husband Antonio Febo, and a year later we got married and I changed my last name to Febo. Two years after that I had my first child, Anthony. He really enlightened my life. In those days I was working as a Social Worker in the Department of Public Welfare. When Anthony was a year old I started working as a fourth grade, bilingual teacher in the Varnum School and we also bought our house.
I believe was in 1990 when I enrolled in the Graduate Program at the University of Lowell. Three years later I graduated and in the same year I had my second and last child, Karina.
Things were going very good, but suddenly my husband lost his job, we felt homesick and we decided to go back to our homeland. Not a very good idea! We stayed in P.R. for a little over two years. In a sense was very good because I got to teach in a very diferent environment. My children learned Spanish and I taught different subjects and a variety of grades. But then my husband met somebody else and left my two children and myself.
I was very lucky, because thanks to very good friends I was able to come back to the same school that I was working before (McAuliffe School), and to the same group of people that I already knew.
I have been working as a bilingual teacher for about eleven years, and each year is different. This year I only have seventeen students. They are mostly from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Most of them are very limited English proficiency, but they also lack of the basic skills in their native language, Spanish. I had found that the students who come to Unites States when they already know how to read, learn the skills in English easier than the kids who are born in here, but parents speak only their native language. Most of the students I have this year are from working families, contrary to former years when most of them were from Welfare recipients families. I know these students very well since they are the same as last year. Last year I was their second grade teacher and I moved up with them to third grade.
I am very happy with my students, they are working very hard, and I am working very hard with them to improve their and my language skills.
Email Madeline Febo (MFebo40@aol.com)
This program is supported in part by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts, Lowell.