Oh, the Places You'll Go, Señor Ramey...

Newport resident Dana Ramey follows the same recipe for success that he shares with his high school Spanish-language students: Hard work, practice, immersion.

So it's little wonder then that Ramey spent his summer vacations taking little rest.

In a typical summer, the Newport resident would look for ways to "keep the lessons fresh" for his Middletown High School students in the year ahead. He would re-read the same Spanish language books that he'd assigned to his students. He would review lesson plans, looking for new ways to make Spanish-language worldwide cultures come alive for his students, either through food, music or even dance.

He would look for opportunities to plan "immersion" trips for his students in Mexico or Europe, as he'd done in previous years. Or he might look for ways to continue his own immersion and life education, such as in 2003 when he won a Fulbright Exchange Teaching Fellowship that enabled him to live with his wife, Maggie, and daughters Lily and Amber in Mexico for a year and teach while an exchange teacher from Mexico assumed his classroom in Middletown.

During any other summer, Ramey would squeeze in all this classroom prep slowly but steadily over his two-month vacation, between walks on the beach with his wife, between New England day trips, or body surfing off Easton's Beach, gardening and house repairs, and cooking his favorite Mexican dishes by popular request from his family.

But this was no ordinary summer and, somehow, miraculously, Ramey still managed to do all that while handling the new busy schedule and whirlwind cross-country tour that's resulted since the 58-year old Newporter was named Rhode Island's Teacher of the Year back in December.

One recent afternoon, Ramey popped into his empty classroom to show Patch his favorite gift since winning the honor, a book from Barbara Walton-Faria, a former RI Teacher of the Year from Newport schools, who knew the wild ride in store for him.

"Oh, the Places You'll Go," Ramey says, translating the Spanish-language Dr. Seuss book title, his eyes widening with somewhat disbelief over a boyish smile. "Yeah. I really have had no rest. But that's a good problem to have."

Since winning the top honor, Ramey has crisscrossed the country several times, meeting with other top teachers at a national education conference in Dallas in January, then again in April in Washington, D.C. for a banquet with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

That trip also included a handshake meet-and-greet with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.

This summer, the avid baseball fan got to throw out the first pitch at a Newport Gulls game—for which he practiced with coaching from a local middle school student. In late July, he attended Space Camp in Huntsville, AL, with top state teachers from all over the United States, to spend a week working together in problem solving groups and other Space Camp-like activities, like parachute simulations and real zero-gravity exercises in a high-altitude free-fall in a plunging jet.

Mindful he was representing Rhode Island, for the "First Day at Space Camp" photo, Ramey wore the No. 12 Pawtucket Red Sox Jed Lowery uniform gifted to him by the Pawsox during a recent private tour of the stadium, along with the baseball mitt he's had since a kid growing up in 1960s Fall River, the third-generation son of Lebanese-Americans.

Space Camp was immediately followed by a brief trip to northern California for Ramey and his wife to visit their 22-year-old daughter, Amber,  which dove-tailed with a three-day conference on national education policy in Portland, OR.

"It's been great," said Ramey. "I'd like to think that the national teaching program has given me a louder voice to accomplish some really important things and to be heard at the local, state and national levels."

At the local level, Ramey recently secured seven new computers to create a language lab in his classroom and—as a prize for Teacher of the Year—SmartBoard technology that integrates multimedia into lesson plans.

At the state and national levels, Ramey gets to advocate for the preservation and expansion of foreign language and cultural studies, employing a similar passion and message he uses when teaching his own students about learning a foreign language. The lesson he teaches is that given rapid globalization, learning a foreign language such as Spanish is rapidly becoming a necessity in a competitive marketplace.

"You can't have globalization unless you have insight into the culture and the language. This is our world, not just our country, and we have to wake up to the reality that America isn't the only culture," said Ramey. "You can't just teach language anymore. You need to teach about the cultures too. And important programs like this shouldn't be cut at the expense of others."

Ramey's passion for foreign languages and world cultures, particularly Spanish, translates in the classroom through his constant research and creativity in crafting immersion teaching techniques that incorporate lessons "holistically," to use one of Ramey's own descriptions of his approach. Ramey will use music, multimedia, history lessons, reading, public speaking, cooking, trips abroad, and even dance, to aid the students in experiencing the foreign language in the context of the whole culture, because as Ramey said, the two are inseparable.

"I guess my signature project that everyone knows me for is the 'Salsa Project,'" he said. "I start out giving the kids a real world issue. I tell them that salsa is the number one condiment in the U.S. right now, and that always surprises them. Some are even angry that it's overtaken ketchup. But then they want to learn why."

The next step of the project, says Ramey, is research—in Spanish. The students build a vocabulary while learning everything there is to know about salsa. They keep a diary in Spanish the whole year. All the while, Ramey plays salsa music in the background. Other times, salsa dancing is introduced.

Year two Spanish students are tasked to research salsa recipes at the commercial level and come up with a new recipe of their own, along with a marketing plan for Rhode Island, in Spanish. At the end of the year, they deliver their entire presentation in Spanish, using visual aids and other tools.

Two student salsa recipes of note were so good that they have become mealtime regulars at the Ramey house: A watermelon pico de gallo salsa, and a roasted tomato and pepper salsa, also known as salsa al molcajete.

"They're tickled and they're intrigued, and sometimes they even get a little upset over what they find out," said Ramey. "But they're learning. With all this combined, they're learning the language and the culture together. They're building a vocabulary and grammar usage and learning to use the right tenses and they're problem-solving."

Ramey immerses the students and applies the "holistic" method of teaching in other ways. For example, he will build lesson plans around themes such as one chapter solely about travel. Another might be about cooking. Another about salsa.

"They need to know how to think on their feet, to problem solve, to be able to walk out there and use the language," he said.

When some students struggle with learning a foreign language, Ramey will tell them, "Would you know how to do a play perfectly the first time on the field? No. The coach has you practice. Things don't come to you overnight. You have to practice. The more you do it, the easier it comes."

In the area of hard work and perseverance, Ramey speaks from experience.

It took him about 20 years to become a full-time Spanish language teacher in the position he holds today. He credits the late John Pontes of Fall River, his own high school Spanish teacher, for inspiring him through culture lessons, special projects, and travel slides.

"I took French for four years and had a hard time with that language. But having such a great teacher really made a difference," said Ramey. "Spanish to me just seemed so musical. I remember first learning it and it just ringing in my ears."

Ramey went on to attend Southern Massachusetts University (now UMASS-Dartmouth) and was adamant about becoming a teacher, even though SMU didn't have a teaching program. Ramey ended up proposing such a program to the department head and it was approved. From there, he took a student-teaching job in Spain, then a teaching job at an overnight Nature's Classroom program in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, where he picked up certain skills that he still uses today.

"It was there that I learned to use music to get through to the kids and really hold their attention," said Ramey, also an avid musician.

But during the late 70s and 80s, Ramey struggled to find a permanent teaching position, as foreign language teachers were not as prevalent as other subjects. After settling in Newport in 1978, he found work as a musician to get by along with substitute teaching stints. By the mid-80s to early 90s, with a family to support, he added restaurant management to his workload while continuing to "sub."

Still, teaching remained his passion and he refocused his energies again to teaching.

"I was teaching part-time, wherever I could find the work," he said, recalling long commutes and long hours away from his family during the early 1990s.

By 1996, Ramey strongly and successfully pursued the one Spanish teaching position that opened up on Aquidneck Island in the Middletown High School foreign language department. In 1999, he earned his master's degree.

"It's one of those professions that calls you," Ramey said of his relentless two-decade quest. "You don't really have a choice in the matter."

And that journey, he says, likely has something to do with his current achievement, as Rhode Island's Teacher of the Year.

"When I finally had that opportunity, I jumped in so whole-heartedly and have done so ever since," he said. "I was really ready for it and dove in 110 percent."

Of course he's back to thinking about how to keep things "fresh" for his students this school year. Maybe Latin dance. Or a trip to Costa Rica. Or more projects where the honor students and high school students with disabilities work together.

Then there's that SmartBoard that he won as Teacher of the Year, along with a new computerized language lab to integrate into his lesson plans.

"It's all about going those extra miles to get the students immersed," he said.

Extra miles indeed.

Oh, the Places You'll Go…