Beyond the Classroom & Beyond the Text

Emilio Flores
Los Fresnos News

Los Fresnos, Texas — Beyond the text had an evening meeting with guest speakers from the Los Fresnos community. The event took place at Bonita Flats on Tuesday, November 1st with three key guest speakers, State Farm agent here in Los Fresnos, David Armendariz; Sandra Lopez-Langley from 1st Community Bank, and Art and Melissa Delgado the owners of Bonita Flats.

What is Beyond the Text?
Beyond the text is a non-profit organization created by David Gillespie. His wife, Labenia Gillispie, and his mother-in-law, Rose Rareba are both board members of Beyond the Text. Beyond the Text become an official non-profit June 23rd, 2021.

Gillespie felt that as a teacher, schools were over-dependent on test scores and data. “Learning is more than just from a textbook,” Gillespie says, “When you learn, there are different levels to that,” he explains the gathering, comparing, and then applying. He hopes to get students out of the classroom and on field trips or field lessons. To go to the site where the Mexican-American war actually took place, or to talk with a veteran FROM the Vietnam war for example.

As mentioned, David Gillespie was a teacher at IDEA for about ten years. He taught Social Studies and AP US Government. He shared why he wanted to start Beyond the Text. His endeavor was to engage students in a completely different way. To look beyond just what the textbook says, to learn from real people, to learn hands-on, and that not all careers are needing of College.

Eleven students attended the event and the owners Art and Melissa were kind enough to provide pizza for the attendees.

Gillespie shares some of the advice that was given including the need to develop people skills, learn through trial and error, find your passion, and always seek to growth.

“Mr. Armendariz specifically spoke about how he became an insurance agent, something he did not originally set out to do. Ms. Lopez-Langley spoke about the need to be financially literate, the need to stick with a job and work your way up, and gave the students a challenge to complete 1st Community Banks financial literacy training. Art and Melissa spoke about finding your passion by doing different things.”

Gillespie shares that he has much bigger plans for Beyond the Text and he hopes to have this program eventually be available to more schools in the future. For this School year he has received 83 initial applicants several of those already participating in events. You can follow their page on Facebook by searching Beyond the Text.