Teaching and learning in out-of-school contexts has a long history of successfully adapting pedagogy to local and current needs of student participants. The innovative uses of technology, the flexible social organization, and the everyday relevance of out-of-school activities make these learning contexts ideal for innovation.

In the next section, I sketch briefly the sociocultural perspective that helps us to understand that language is not merely a string of words independent of its sociolinguistic context. Rather, language is intimately tied to individuals' everyday situations, cultural values, and social relations. Next, I describe La Clase Magica (The Magical Class); a bilingual/bicultural educational innovation that seeks to optimize the learning potential of Spanish-speaking children by restructuring activities to include knowledge and skills they bring from the various learning domains in which they participate. Finally, I discuss the insights on language and learning we have gained from providing children with free access to their own background experiences.