Islip teacher uses pupusa-making to help kids learn Spanish

A pupusa-making party recently served as a savory final project — and an authentic taste of Nancy Reagan’s Spanish-language teaching style at Islip High School.

For the final classroom project during the last school year, Reagan’s students watched videos of previous classes making pupusas, the Central American flatbread stuffed with savory fillings. Then, Reagan said, “We had a cookoff to see who can make the best pupusa.”

As they cooked, the students were obliged to use the correct Spanish words for ingredients and cooking utensils. Videos of their efforts were posted on YouTube and TikTok.

For Reagan, 61, of Bay Shore, the exercise reflects a teaching philosophy developed over 29 years in education: Students learn a language by using it, not simply memorizing vocabulary for a test.

“I like to teach Spanish using projects because kids are not always successful test takers,” she said.

These days, instead of spending a class period reading from a textbook or standing at the board, Reagan often roams the classroom offering guidance to students working at laptops.

“The new generation of kids want you to partner with them,” she said.

Reagan grew up in Huntington and graduated from Walt Whitman High School in Huntington Station. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from the University of Connecticut, Reagan taught English as a Second Language for two years at Roosevelt High School and four years at Islip High School, and then become an Islip world language teacher of Spanish.

Karen Maisano, 61, who taught Spanish alongside Reagan at Islip High School for 20 years before retiring to Venice, Florida, last year, said Reagan has embraced interactive technology “to meet the students where they are,” while putting them in “real-world scenarios such as questions you might have during travel.”

Many classroom projects are inspired by Señor Wooly, an instructional website featuring audio, video and reading activities. In one assignment, titled “Las Excusas” (The Excuses), students created Google Slides presentations stating their own reasons for not doing their homework and had conversations with each other in Spanish “instead of just memorizing language and testing,” Reagan said.

Students have also acted out stories, watched “The Road to El Dorado” and compared the animated feature’s depiction of the past with ancient Latin American civilizations.

The approach has made an impression on students such as Brianna Huber, 17, of Islip, who graduated this past spring and took Reagan’s Spanish class as a junior.

“She made it so that we had fun while learning,” Huber said.

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