She said, “Yes, let’s try it!” *
* The only good news I received today.
The ESOL level 1 teacher that I work with returns to the classroom tomorrow after a trip to France. I hope that she isn’t severely jet-lagged; apparently she touches down tonight and, when last we spoke, intends to get back to work the following morning. I have no idea if she plans to resume her tutoring sessions during lunch tomorrow, but part of me hopes she does. Lunchtime is really the only period we can chat about things, like students’ progress or any problems or concerns we may have, because she teaches during period 3 when I am leading the study group in the basic reading class.
Anyway, I have a proposal to make the teacher. After weeks of observing her classroom, I have determined that there are many students who are strong when it comes to vocabulary and, to a certain extent, grammar. However, these same students are not very confident speakers of English. I would like to start a program in conversation partnership, one in which native English-speaking students at the high school pair up with an ESOL student to help the latter improve his or her speaking skills. I envision the American students receiving “service learning hours” (what the county calls community service and which each student in the public school system is required to amass). To make things less awkward, after registering with the school and posting adverts all over campus, we can accept applications that include a short questionnaire so we can partner students with similar interests. That should help to start the conversation. Since the school has a open lunch policy wherein students can eat and/or hang out virtually anywhere during the period, I think that would be an ideal time for conversation partners to meet at least once a week.
Truth be told, as soon as I decided that I wanted to be an ESOL teacher, I devised this program for a future job post. But now that I am in the ESOL classroom, gaining valuable experience as just a volunteer, I see that if it were implemented here, it could get off the ground and potentially make big strides in student achievement. I don’t see the proposed exchanges between ESOL and American students as (forced) assimilation. Instead, I think they would more likely foster integration, a cross-cultural understanding and acceptance of similarities and differences between or among students. I hope the teacher feels the same way.
Yesterday constituted my 11th day in the ESOL classroom at my old high school, and it was fun and surprising. Since the ESOL level 1 teacher is away, chaperoning advanced French language students on an enviable trip to France, a substitute teacher presided over the early morning double period. She knew ahead of time that I would join her, so there was never any awkwardness between us, no confusion about what our roles would be. When I introduced myself before the late bell rang, she told me that I looked familiar and asked if I had gone to the school. I answered affirmatively and then gave her the years I attended (at her request). She nodded, smiling because she felt her instincts were correct: she had been a substitute in at least one of my classes. Truth be told, at the moment, I didn’t recognize her at all.
She introduced me to the students, who all know me except for the two new girls (!), repeating what I told her (that I want to be an ESOL teacher). Loud—and almost in unison—Ohh!s rang out around the room, which somewhat befuddled me: I announced my professional goal on my very first day in class. How is this news? I suppose the students either forgot or didn’t understand all those weeks ago. Anyway, as she introduced me to them again, saying she’d taught me before, I stood a few feet behind her and locked eyes with one of the more communicative and intuitive students and playfully shrugged while mouthing, “I don’t remember her.” This produced a few giggles between us, but as the minutes marched on, I started to recall this substitute teacher. Gradually, I remembered that she was one of the few who knew how to control a classroom, who was capable of doing more than simply slipping a VHS into the machine to keep us occupied for the hour. Since she’s worked in this classroom before, with most of these kids (the roster changes every week), she’s really great at managing them. But as a result of her skills, what surprised me most was what we got done in that double period.
The students, in addition to learning prepositional phrases (like next to, across from, and around the corner from) and places around town (as in post office, laundromat, and hospital), were reviewing rooms and features of a house or apartment. On Monday, the substitute taught them strange words like satellite dish (which the students never spelled correctly—and I can’t blame them for it! It’s a difficult word!) and mailbox, but on this day we went over mice (as the irregular pluralization of mouse) and cockroaches. Both kinds of critters were depicted in the drawing of an apartment building in the students’ textbook, and we began the lesson by asking the students to write ten sentences using “There is” and “There are” to describe the scene in the picture. Now might be a good time to tell you that I practically never sat down through the course of the day (including while at my new paying job), and it began here, supervising the students as they worked independently. I was darting all around the classroom (as was the substitute), answering questions, correcting the content and grammar of the students’ sentences, translating words from the French and Spanish, spelling words (like satellite and cockroaches), and explaining why it’s mice and not mices. My running around continued all throughout their completing a series of worksheets. I didn’t mind; it was energizing work, and it felt so good to be needed. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard my name yelped so many times in such a short period. Any doubts I had previously that the students didn’t know my name—or worse, didn’t care to—are now gone. I know it’s stupid, but I feel tremendous pride that the students have learned to accept me as a resource for learning English. I’m no longer a strange presence to be tolerated. Then again, I observed this general sentiment last week once I returned after three weeks away. Now the students are eager for my help, and they seem to enjoy it as much as I love to provide it.
Yesterday’s basic reading class (for ESOL students at different lower levels) broke with tradition. Since there were many different activities on the agenda, I didn’t take my group of four advanced students to the dreaded teacher’s lounge. Instead, we corralled four student desks into an enclave in the hallway, where I proctored a reading comprehension quiz on The Odyssey, which we finished last time. I wasn’t surprised by the results: the girl who’d impressed me with how much she retained from the story received a perfect score while her classmates either barely or hardly passed. The girls finished the quiz first, and then continued working on a handout related to the book. Unfortunately, they didn’t finish this work, which I helped them brainstorm for, because their teacher pulled them out to start a general reading skills test on the computer in a classroom other than her own. (This is why we were in the hallway, so we could more easily move from place to place.) The boys worked on the same writing assignment with me in the meantime, with just ten minutes left of class. I spent more than half of fourth period, where I ordinarily volunteer in the special education reading class, discussing the quiz results and other pedagogical strategies with period 3’s basic reading teacher.
The same boy who has disrespected me by exaggerating his discomfort whenever we studied as a group in the teacher’s lounge proved predictably obnoxious yesterday, too. Why does it take so much time to go through your bookbag or binder to look for a piece of paper you were writing on last week? Seriously, I want to light a little fire under these kids’ asses to just make them move faster. It’s during moments like these that I become really impatient. Anyway, I sublimated the frustration that the obnoxious boy’s behavior instilled in me by giving him a dose of his own medicine. For instance, he continuously utters a ridiculous but innocuous phrase, which I mercilessly teased him about, requesting he pay me a nickel every time he says it. That shut him up! But if I think about it, the boy may have settled down more and paid attention to the lesson I was giving once his teacher reminded him that he’s lucky to have me here, working with him. Damn straight! I just need to get this through to him on my own.
As I previously mentioned, I missed most of the special education class. (Well, I didn’t really miss it, but you know what I mean.) But much to my surprise and delight, two students—one of whom never gave me the time of day before—warmly interacted with me. The boy who’d always been completely unresponsive to my attempts to work with him suddenly opened up to me, allowing me to ask questions about what he’s been reading and writing (which, I have to say, was pretty good!). Honestly, I’d never seen him work so quickly (relatively speaking), as he usually procrastinates, claiming to not understand each assignment’s instructions or objectives. I praised him with abandon, and that seemed to make him happy, maybe even proud. God, I hope we can keep up the good work (together).
I’m sorry, today’s post just isn’t going to be written. I am far too tired (I got up early to go to school and then went to work in the afternoon) to commit to this now. Tomorrow, I will summarize my—at the risk of sounding corny—wonderful day in the ESOL and special education classrooms.
When I arrived at school today for my ninth morning of volunteering in the ESOL classroom, the main entrance was closed and all the lights were turned off. The Homecoming dance is Saturday night, and to celebrate, all four classes decorated hallways according to a theme, one of which was inspired by ska revival band Cherry Poppin Daddies’s “Zoot Suit Riot.” (I find this funny since the sophomores who’d chosen it were born the year it came out: 1997.) After braving the teeming hallways, circumventing the darkest, loudest, and tightest ones, I safely arrived at my destination: the classroom, which was also closed. Eventually I learned from a student that all class periods—including lunch—were part of an abbreviated schedule today, with school commencing at 7.50 am rather than the usual 7.25. In the afternoon, the students were to revel in/endure a Homecoming pep rally, which I loathed while I was enrolled there. Anyway, the day got off to an extraordinary start—and it portended the bad things to come.
We spent period 1 in the computer lab. As part of their new vocabulary unit, the pupils are going to make PowerPoint presentations with photos of and a few sentences about their different family members. Only one student came prepared with photos to insert in her electronic family album, but that didn’t preclude the rest from writing the captions. Only a couple had ever used PowerPoint before, so I was on hand to help the teacher explain how to use its functions. This time in the computer lab was very different from the first and heretofore only other instance I worked with the class there. Although it was technically a more complicated task than signing up pupils with a free study aid website service (they are supposed to make something, after all), supervising and demonstrating was a far simpler task for me. I have no complaints.
For period 2, we returned to the classroom. With the shortened class-times, we only managed to get partly through an activity in which the students, divided into pairs and working from the textbook, practiced dialogues with new and familiar vocabulary. I went about the room listening in on couples’ conversations, and on one occasion, I stepped in to help an uncommunicative pair. One was new to the school, and her more advanced partner wanted me to explain the exercise to her. I tried my best, but the partner and I called over a girl who speaks the new pupil’s native language, which solved our problem. Sometimes fellow countrymen are the best resource for overcoming language barriers, but they shouldn’t become an impediment to English language comprehension.
Things shifted quite a bit for period 3’s basic reading course. One of the four students whom I have worked with for weeks moved out of the class yesterday; his whole schedule has changed as a result of his being bumped up to ESOL level 2. In his place, another student who started transitioning to level 2 this week (and was originally in periods 1 and 2, as well) joined the group. I felt bad that, as today’s assignment called for the students to review what we have already read in The Odyssey, I didn’t have the time to read through it again for his benefit (unfortunately, he’s not allowed to bring the book home, either). Instead, I used his ignorance as a teaching tool. Under strict guidelines to have the students come up with answers for the worksheet on their own and at my prompting (I was expressly prohibited from “feeding” them information), I asked a lot of questions to review the story, even going so far as to say, “Tell [your new classmate] what the witch Circe did to Odysseus’s men.” I was really impressed with one of the students’ comprehension of the story and her eagerness to relate it. But several times I had to request that she give someone else a try. Not a bad position to be in, right?! The rest of the group was less enthusiastic. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. Though I took it as a good sign that the boy who is the least interested in our group-work asked if he could take the book home to review it. I asked his teacher for permission, which she quickly denied. I wonder if that’s the best strategy.
A note on the door of the special education class (period 4) reminded students that they were to convene in a computer lab upstairs. I relied on the group waiting outside to lead me there, slightly pissed off that this constituted the second time today that I was kept in the dark about changes to the routine. Two of the students in our group were the girls who are the most hostile to my presence, and at several points on our journey I felt that they were ignoring me or otherwise disrespecting my authority, particularly when it appeared that they were going to skip class (in the end, it turned out they simply took another route to the lab). I was fuming—to myself—the whole way, but as soon as we arrived at the computer lab, I felt incredibly guilty, at fault for the five students’ tardiness. Everyone else had already begun their reading comprehension tests. Mercifully, the teacher told me that they knew ahead of time of this room change, so I was blameless. She and I hardly interacted today, though. What could I do if they were taking a test for the whole period? So I sat at a computer and read from the September issue of my favorite magazine, Sight & Sound. In a way, I was somewhat relieved that I was let off the hook, but I also felt like an impudent child, because I whipped out my reading material without ever consulting the teacher if she wanted me to do anything. The quiet and the absorption into the movie reviews helped me get over the downright nastiness of those two girls. Seriously, I want to pull them aside and ask, “What is your problem?” They make it difficult just to be there.
Aside from just two kids, I don’t believe that any of the ESOL students have an attitude towards me. From what I can tell, most are either happy to see me every Tuesday and Thursday or just indifferent. It’s just the current state of things, and they’ve merely gotten used to my presence. No one but those two boys—the one from the reading group who has a hard time staying on task and the one whose English and French are so appalling it doesn’t look like he’ll ever improve—disrespect me. In general, this makes it very easy to go into the ESOL classrooms. (It doesn’t hurt any that I feel productive myself and that I can sense the teachers’ appreciation for my efforts.) Perhaps it is a cultural thing that the American-born students have a harder time taking me seriously. When I first considered becoming a teacher, I was concerned that my age and young looks would deter high schoolers from accepting me as an authority figure, especially since I am significantly shorter than a lot of them and am extremely shy and unconfrontational. That hasn’t been so much of a problem with the ESOL kids. In fact, on numerous occasions, they have called me “teacher.” (That feels both good and false.) I’m probably making a mountain out of a mole hill, since these two young “bitches” (yes, from where I am standing, the label fits) are just an extreme case. Besides, most of the special education students have “emotional” or attitudinal problems. I know I shouldn’t take it personally, but it’s really starting to depress me regardless.
I stayed again for lunch, when the ESOL 1 teacher hosts a homework help/study hour in her classroom. Those thirty minutes or so were such an emotional roller-coaster, a “perfect” way to cement a rather upsetting day. (But how could I have been so stupid as to ignore the first three pleasant and productive periods?) At first, I eavesdropped on a conversation between the teacher and one of the ESOL 1 students that I have worked with many times (I have always felt that she likes me, for she doesn’t smile at everyone!). Unhappy for a reason she didn’t want to divulge, she wants to go to another school, but she won’t be able to unless her family moves or until she reaches level 3. (The high school where I volunteer is an ESOL center, and one of the ways it is set apart from other schools with an ESOL population is that it specially caters to beginning English language learners.) Failing this, she said she wants to move up to level 2, pointing to her good grades in math and science for argumentative support. The teacher told her that that’s not enough; her English isn’t strong at all. She’s actually one of the weakest students, as she is easily distracted in class and, as I soon found out for myself, incredibly stubborn. Because I like this girl and I want to see her succeed (though I want that for everyone), I piped up and said, “If you want, I can work with you during lunch Tuesdays and Thursdays. We can do homework, read, anything you want.” She smiled and nodded. I felt like we were getting somewhere, until she disappeared for fifteen minutes and then turned down my offer upon her return. The teacher wondered aloud, “Why won’t she let you help her?!” Seriously, she’s not likely to get very far with this attitude; she’s already repeating ESOL 1.
I didn’t wallow in my abandonment, though. Instead, I reviewed two ways of writing the negative of simple, descriptive sentences with the boy who can’t speak clearly in English or French. By the end of our time together, I may have worn out my welcome. I admit to having grown frustrated with him. He failed the first exercise, so I slowly went through an example, underlining words and otherwise graphically representing how, say, “isn’t = is not” and “the boy = he.” The student, to my astonishment, wrote “There boy” instead of “The boy.” This was even after I explained that, no, the sentence shouldn’t begin with, “Boy”: “You wouldn’t write, ‘Garçons.’ It’s ‘Les garçons.'” Anyway, things came to a head when he threw up his hands and exclaimed, “Speak French!” My knee jerk reaction was to shout back, with more than a considerable amount of exasperation, “Speak English!” Then I calmed down: “I’m trying to help you learn English. You need this.” Yes, you need this more than I need to perfect my French, I thought to myself. I fear that I may have hurt his feelings with my forceful tutoring, my pushing back against his ineptitude, for his eyes started to look watery. When I told his teacher about this episode, about my feeling as if I may have crossed a line with him, she said that she’ll have me work with other students from now on.”Yes, I think that’s a good idea. I don’t think he likes me.” Besides, a student as weak as he is really needs his teacher.
On this, my eighth day of volunteering in the ESOL classroom, I skipped first period. While I enjoyed an extra hour of sleep, the students took a test covering the fifth chapter of their textbook, on descriptive adjectives and the weather. I arrived just in time for the second half of the early double period, to escort nine students to the lobby outside the school auditorium where they had their pictures taken for their identification cards and, I presume, the yearbook, as well. Upon arrival, I noticed that signing in students and snapping their photos was a one-woman operation, and in the beginning it was a slow-going process. I worried that some of my students wouldn’t get processed before the bell rang for third period, but as the photographer gradually quickened the pace, all nine and then some (about three latecomers joined our group before the period drew to a close) managed to walk away with their new IDs.
Originally, I felt like I was babysitting, shushing them when they got too loud and rowdy, reprimanding them when they made fun of a classmate who wasn’t present. I killed time by chatting with the students as they stood in line, briefly exchanging greetings with a newbie. I was a little disappointed that the clique at the front of the queue, Spanish-speakers all, didn’t include this new hispanohablante in their conversation.I tested my Spanish listening comprehension skills by eavesdropping, which is how I learned that one of the students, who is moving to the West Coast on Saturday, isn’t, shall we say, excited about the impending transition. (She’s not the only student moving away; the girl who once exclaimed, “I love you!” to me is also leaving, and I will miss her because she so emphatically enjoys my presence.)
As it turned out, though, it was a damn good thing that I was there. None of the students was in the photographer’s database, so she had to hand-write each pupil’s name, ID number, and grade on a slip of paper, which she scanned into the computer. Although they all have practiced spelling their names in English before, some students’ pronunciation remains unclear. Luckily, I was on hand to clarify spellings. On two occasions, I even spotted and effectively communicated to the photographer—much to the students’ relief—that she had transcribed their names incorrectly. It was all worth it because it eased things in the classroom for the teacher, who couldn’t accompany them here, and I sensed that many of the students appreciated my oversight, as I, by now a friendly and familiar face, helped guide them through the procedure.
As a result of three other students rushing to have their photos taken before the end of the period, I was late to the basic reading class (period 3). When I slipped through the door, one of the four students that I have been working with for the past week or so proclaimed his disappointment at my sudden appearance. He was really hoping I wouldn’t show, apparently. That I was sick, maybe? He’s the only obnoxious one of this group, as he is the most difficult to keep on task. I’m never excited to see him either, truth be told, but I don’t make that so obvious to everyone!
In the teachers’ lounge, we continued last week’s assignment: reading a greatly abridged graphic novelization of The Odyssey. The only instructions the teacher gave me were to go over words she picked out as possible obstacles to the students’ complete comprehension. I taught these words and phrases (but do they really need to remember what wineskins means?), and more. I taught them about narrative exposition and how possessive apostrophes at the end of words ending in s (as in sirens’) are doubly pronounced Ss. It’s not enough to say, “sirens.” Reading aloud, every one of them skipped over onomatopoeic words such as “Baa!” and “Argh!” and so I animatedly read and explained these lines. In fact, I was the only one to act out the parts whenever I reread passages, which dumbfounded the students. They looked at each other as if to say, “Did she really just do that?! Sound like a sheep?”
After class, in conversation with the teacher, I learned that I should have assigned roles to each of the students to better engage them with the story rather than have each read a page in a sort of reading relay (their frequent yawns and glances at the clock provided me with a lot of anxiety, I have to say). Next time, when we finish the book, I will remember to do this. Since this version of the epic poem is so condensed (to put it mildly), the onus was on me to fill in some gaps in the story, to explain how one scene transitioned into the next. Lecturing so much, despite asking questions first to check for understanding, betrays pretty much everything I have learned about effective methods for teaching ESOL; it’s vital that the students talk in English as much as possible. The more I talk, the more likely it is that they’ll ignore me, right? So I must, when helping to develop the pupils’ reading comprehension skills, get them to think more critically. But how? I want to figure that out.
In period 4’s special education reading class, I worked one-on-one with two students. Both of them reluctantly acquiesced to my request that they read to me. Given their unenthusiastic responses to my question, things got a little awkward. I didn’t know if I should get up and leave them alone or simply guilt them into it by staying put. And just before I was going to lift myself out of the chair and leave them to own devices, in each case, the student began to read aloud—haltingly. (Whereas ESOL students repeat after me whenever they mispronounce a word and I correct them, these kids don’t backtrack at all.) I wondered to myself, Why did the boy, who used a sore throat as an excuse not to read aloud [which I accepted as valid], decide to read to me for a short while from his book on the internment of Japanese(-American) citizens during WWII? And what made him stop all of a sudden? Was it because I labeled what the U.S. government did “racism” three too many times? I’ll probably never know.
Day 7 in the ESOL classroom. In periods 1 and 2, the students continued reviewing adjectives for describing a person’s physical appearance and personality (i.e. “He is tall and thin” and “She is friendly and very talkative“). They have a quiz tomorrow that will ask them to pair an adjective with its antonym, and we practiced this a lot today—by reacting to demonstrative images, listening and responding to a video, and drilling the key words through writing them on white boards. In the primary exercise, the teacher flashed pictures on the board, prompting the students to write full sentences using the correct (pro)noun, verb conjugation, and adjective. When, as a class, we went over the answers, each pupil corrected the work of a neighbor, but it was difficult to get them to mark incorrect answers and write the appropriate one. As I walked about monitoring the class, I witnessed students changing their friend’s answers. But I mainly stuck by the new kid (Tuesday was his very first day) to see how well he did and to stop him from erasing his work (I let him hold onto his worksheet rather than hand it off to someone else). The extent of his vocabulary impressed me, especially since he hadn’t learned the words with the rest of the class; he even correctly spelled mustache!
Then we watched a few minutes of the video tape that accompanies the textbook. It’s incredibly dated, simplistic, and silly. Despite its transparently poor production values and the over-the-top performances of the actors, it’s a really good teaching tool. After playing the segment in which a man and woman compete on a mock TV game show (they’re awarded $100 for each correct antonym they give for a descriptive adjective), the teacher asked the kids to shout out the answers when the game show host prompted the show’s contestants to do the same. We even watched a segment on reporting the weather, which is the subject of the students’ next unit. I understood that they had already been exposed to the vocabulary but hadn’t yet mastered it. I thought it was clever to feature the weather today, to get them thinking about it for the future. In any case, I think the class is ready for tomorrow’s quiz. I mean, each one of them better ace it, or I will be sorely disappointed! (Don’t I sound like quite the teacher already?)
During the basic reading class (period 3), I again accompanied the four students I have been working with for the past couple of sessions to the nearby teachers’ lounge. To my surprise, their teacher introduced a new kind of assignment that will likely take us two weeks to get through as a group: we’re to read a much-condensed and graphic novel version of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. The goal today was simply to examine the parts of the book—the front and back covers, the (so thin as to be almost nonexistent) spine, and the title and copyright pages—in order to learn what the book may be about. Other than warning me that the students probably do not know what a back cover, spine, or title page of a book is and what each thing does, the teacher didn’t give me any further advice on how to teach this lesson; I had to make it up as I went along.
Thus today was the first time that I have had to teach a subject in the basic reading class beyond, say, distinguishing between short vowel sounds, using guide words in the dictionary, and identifying the topic of virtually any written document. Yes, today I lectured on a wide variety of topics related to classic literature. To begin, I defined the word odyssey, and I continued from there, explaining the importance of the title page and providing tips on how to find any book’s date of publication, relating the briefest of biographies on our author Homer, and describing Greek mythology and the literary importance of gods. We may not have started the book, but I certainly enjoyed talking about it because I was really on my own. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’m going to. I impressed myself with my ability to expound on these subjects with such relative ease. Whenever I used a word or phrase that, once uttered, I realized the kids probably didn’t know what I was talking about, I took a moment to explain. When the bell rang, signifying the end of class-time, I asked the students if they were excited to read The Odyssey, and they nodded (alright, with a shrug of their shoulders, too). I will try to teach it to them with more oomph.
Period 4’s special education reading course was much more fun than Tuesday’s lackluster hour. At the teacher’s suggestion (and in her own words), I “attached” myself to one student while she worked on her independent reading assignment for the first half of class-time. Together, we filled out a worksheet before she even started reading the slim volume on comic book artists and writers. I enjoyed working with her, mainly because she was objectively sweet and interested in having me help her. I noticed, however, that she was a lot like the ESOL kids I had just worked with: though I tried my best not to give the students answers to the questions outright, I could see that no matter how many times I fed them information they should include in their responses, they just wouldn’t copy me. This may be a sign of miscomprehension, of course, but with this girl, I was slightly taken aback by how she didn’t take the bait I waved in front of her, metaphorically speaking. In other words, it was a bit of a struggle to get her to write her conclusions with complete, thoughtful sentences. For example, I had to make her understand that it’s not enough to say that “Computers make it easy to use.” “Use what?” I prodded. And we went from there. It was slow-going, but I could see that she felt she had accomplished something (her smile was big and bright). We may not have reached a goal I had set out to achieve, but we reached hers. And that may be enough.
I stayed again for lunch (period 5). During the first half, I watched two boys from an upper level French class interview one of the three French-speaking students who made themselves available to the kids and whom I work with in ESOL level 1 (periods 1 and 2). Watching the proceedings, which the inquisitive interlopers recorded with their iPhones, I practiced my own French listening comprehension skills and learned more about one of the students that I really like. Later, once her interrogation wrapped, those of us not participating in the boys’ French language project moved next door to study. I worked one-on-one with the new boy, starting at the very beginning of the textbook (the alphabet and numbers 0 through 10) and finishing the first chapter or two. I completely underestimated his English language skills on Tuesday, as I found out that he knows a lot of the vocabulary that his classmates have been learning since the beginning of the school-year. Not only did he know the names for school supplies and rooms in the home, he also could pick out the correct piece of information (whether a person’s name, address, phone number, or social security number) once I read it aloud to him. He had a choice of two options, and he was always correct. I feel bad for misunderstanding his talents the other day, mistaking his shyness, reluctance to speak up, and inability to answer our questions for complete ignorance. But, reflecting on this, I have learned yet another important lesson in the ESOL classroom: never underestimate your students! From now on, I shall always try to keep this in mind.
I have this theory, based on personal experience, and you can probably relate. You might even call it “Murphy’s Law.” Whenever I ponder, even in the slightest of moments, a potential, usually negative or at least strange, outcome, it almost always comes to fruition. I say “almost always” because I don’t notice when it doesn’t. Last night and this morning, I ruminated on two small hypotheticals about my sixth day at school. First, I reflected on the process by which I, as a visitor, have to sign in at the main office. I imagined that, contrary to the custom in place since I started volunteering on Tuesdays and Thursdays at my old high school, I would have to orally announce my presence to someone. Generally, it is so busy that no one, especially the front desk secretary, registers my interloperness. Well, today, she did, mistaking me for a student: “Why are you signing in?”
A little nervous, since she’d never noticed me before, I stumbled when I told her that I am a volunteer in a couple of ESOL teachers’ classrooms. “Oh, you look like a student.” I acknowledged my young looks; I didn’t want her to think that she offended me, because she did no such thing. “In ten years, you’ll really like it when people think you’re younger than you are,” she concluded. Yes, I agreed. The irony is that about fifteen years ago, almost everyone I met thought I was “mature” for my age. Now that I’m older, I wonder what they really meant by calling an eleven-year-old “mature.”
My topsy-turvy morning continued a few minutes later in the hallway, when one teen, sitting on the floor with her friends and waiting for the school day to commence, stopped me in my tracks to ask if I’d ever had pineapple orange juice out of the jug. I didn’t think I’d heard her correctly, so I asked her to clarify her request (I also felt I was being made fun of; what can I say? I’m paranoid after having been picked on a lot behind my back in school). Nope, she meant what she said. I never supplied an answer, because, funnily enough, she then asked if I was a teacher. Doing my best Woody Allen impression, I fumbled a bit with my response again (why am I so unsure of myself?!) and wrapped up by saying, “I’m definitely not a student.” “OK,” she nodded, silently urging me to continue on my way. She had no further use for me. “So because I’m not a teacher, I can’t help you?” I asked, slightly befuddled. “No.” And she turned to look away. So first I am mistaken for a student by an administrative staff member, and next I am mistaken for a teacher. Weird.
In case you’re still wondering, the second scenario I played out in my head before school was my not being able to use the restroom I prefer (it doesn’t have a lazy hand-dryer that takes forever to fulfill its purpose). And what do you know? Girls had crowded in there with the lights off (teenagers are weird, did you know?), which sent me on a quest to find another restroom. In fact, if I had been able to use my preferred W.C., I wouldn’t have crossed paths with the girl who wanted to know if I’ve ever drunk pineapple orange juice from the jug. I wound up slipping into the staff-only restroom, terrified that another occupier would be offended by my presence. In that case, I determined, I would point at my visitor badge (but no one confronted me). On the upside, I had always wanted to see inside a staff bathroom. Aside from an aerosol can of air freshener in the stall, it’s nothing special.
OK. Enough about my neuroses. What happened in school today? Not much, unfortunately. During the double period of ESOL 1, I mainly observed the lesson. The students practiced using descriptive adjectives, reading aloud the short paragraphs that they wrote yesterday about one of their unnamed classmates. Once finished, each student called on a colleague to guess the name of the person he or she detailed. The kids really enjoyed the activity, and I thought it was a fun way to engage the students not only in the practicalities of language use but also in learning about each other. In the last twenty minutes or so of class-time, the pupils wrote in their journals about four members of their families and themselves, describing each person’s physique and character. I went around the room answering questions, reading their work, and correcting their errors. It was probably the most fun I had all day.
The basic reading class during period 3 was a continuation of last Thursday’s session: I escorted the same diverse set of four students to the teachers’ lounge, where we completed the reading comprehension packet on how to identify the subject of a written document. I didn’t think it would take all period (though it did), so I asked the teacher for a back-up lesson. Why did it take so long? Two of the students, to different degrees, had a difficult time staying on task. Once I got the girl to take out her very well-hidden earbuds and shut off the music, she more or less participated as fully as the other two diligent students. The boy couldn’t sit still, wanting to get up several times throughout the course of the study session, and he took out homework for another class as well as his phone on at least two occasions. When I discussed his behavior with his teacher afterwards, she said he acts out because—no surprise here!—he thinks he knows more than he does. He’s disrespectful to me, and he doesn’t realize it. Whenever he said something dismissive about me or the coursework, I dished the same kind of frustration right back at him (“You’re bored? I’m bored with you”). I just hope I never cross the line.
Other than the friendly paraeducator’s heartwarming story about his great-great-grandfather being born a slave and living to age 100, nothing of note happened during period 4’s remedial reading class. I couldn’t keep up the momentum I experienced on Thursday, which, if you recall, was a great improvement following my debut in last Tuesday’s class. I couldn’t strike up conversations with the kids as easily as I did before. I felt unwelcomed again.
Finally, today marked the first day that I stayed during period 5 (lunch at 11 am) to offer extra help to the ESOL students from periods 1 and 2. Most of that time was spent teaming up with the teacher to communicate, via proxy, with a new student whose English language skills are virtually nonexistent. She had wanted me to work with him one-on-one from the beginning of the textbook. I knew it would only consist of “What is your name?” and “Where are you from?” and that I am more than capable of going over this with someone, but I still felt uncomfortable working with him alone. After all, on his first day, shouldn’t he learn that she is the teacher and I am merely a volunteer? I didn’t want to confuse him. I spent the other half of the period organizing the binder of the boy whose speech, writing, and comprehension are so bad that I have worked with him one-on-one and in small groups a lot. To my surprise, he allowed me to go through his things, and he even thanked me. “You’re very welcome,” I said, feeling as if he and I might have turned a corner, because in the past, we haven’t gotten along so well.
Yesterday, I attended four hours of hands-on training in order to serve as a Voting Operations judge on Election Day (be sure to vote on November 6th!). I’m not going to bore you with the nitty-gritty of learning how to set up the equipment, use the electronic pollbook to check-in voters, or fill out forms for the few voters who will cast their ballots provisionally. Instead, I am going to tell you a story of how I encountered some sexism from a fellow trainee and how I dealt with it.
The middle-aged man who sat next to me was nice enough in the beginning (we bonded over our shared party affiliation). Quickly, however, I discovered that he is an obnoxious bully. He muttered under his breath sarcastic quips directed at other trainees who didn’t understand a concept or procedure that the trainers were going over. I got the sense that he said these insults for my benefit, as if to entertain and/or delight me. I ignored him for the most part, but it didn’t stop him from saying them.
After the ten-minute break about halfway through the training session, I complained about being cold. Pulling himself away from his smartphone, he startled me with his request, “Let me feel your hand.” Hesitantly, I handed it over to him, and he determined that yes, I am cold. Thank goodness I had someone—a man, no less—there to confirm this for me. Then he said, “Girls are always cold. Men are hot.” “Really? Are you really saying this?” I laughed nervously, taking issue with his choice of words (“girls” and “men”). “Yeah, that’s why you need us.” Up until this point, I thought he was gay because he read as slightly effeminate (I know it’s not fair to profile people, but it’s damn near impossible to turn off gaydar). However, with this statement, I knew he wasn’t gay, for a gay man wouldn’t say such a thing. Anyway, I felt better about this exchange once he pointed out that he is always hot (he was in shorts and a t-shirt; I was in jeans and a jacket) by virtue of being fat. That broke the ice.
Things got more offensive later on. While the two female trainers were demonstrating how to open and flip over an electronic voting unit/booth, the male trainer stated that two people are needed because it weighs 40 pounds. Leaning in to me, the man sitting next to me whispered in my ear, “Or just one man.” Unamused, I turned my head and said, “Now, now, don’t be sexist.” With a condescending smile, he responded, “Actually, that’s chauvinism.” Pissed off, I replied—without a smile, mind—quickly and sarcastically, “Keep going.” It stopped. He didn’t say anything else that offended me (other than the gripes about our classmates), but that may be just because he wasn’t given another opportunity to make fun of women’s bodies or abilities.
At the time, I really didn’t appreciate the vocabulary lesson. While technically he may be correct that his line was an example of male chauvinism (women can be chauvinists, too!), as it denigrates and patronizes women whom he implies are inferior to men, I fail to see how it isn’t also an example of a sexist attitude or behavior. Sexism and male chauvinism are not mutually exclusive categories. So how, in the grand scheme of things, am I wrong? If anything, his statements about the female trainers and his rejoinder to me suggest there’s a sexist streak coursing through him. He wants to put us all in our place, which he envisions is below him. Not to mention, he is most likely ageist, in that he thinks it’s acceptable for him to school me this way because I am probably half his age and just don’t know any better. Yeah, right.
This unfortunate episode reminded me of a feminist polemic I read months ago, Rebecca Solnit’s oft-published “Men Explain Things to Me.” In it, she recounts some of the many times that some men have talked down to her, a celebrated author of numerous academic books, simply because she is a woman. Further, she concludes,
Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being. Things have certainly gotten better, but this war won’t end in my lifetime. I’m still fighting it, for myself certainly, but also for all those younger women who have something to say, in the hope that they will get to say it.
When I first read Solnit’s essay, I was really taken with it. She does a very good job of clarifying that she is not classifying all men as those who feel they have a duty to—consciously or unconsciously—correct, educate, or silence women in conversation. When I shared it with my sister, she pointed out that she hasn’t had experiences similar to Solnit’s, with men explaining things to her. Instead, she said that she regularly encounters people—men and women alike—who are less educated and of a lower class than she is who have this itch to scratch, this impulse to silence her and put her in her place. Once my sister made this observation, I noticed that I too usually have this kind of experience, even within my extended family. I realized then that, no matter how embattled I feel as a feminist, strange men don’t overwhelmingly say or do things to me personally that offend my sense of womanhood. (These results are skewed, honestly, because I don’t get out much. Therefore, if I did spend more time out and about in the world, the number of sexist and/or chauvinist episodes I experience would certainly go up.)
I got a job! Sure, it’s a temporary one, but it’s still a job. Come Tuesday, November 6th, I will serve as a Voting Operations Election Judge. In other words, I am the person who checks in registered voters, giving them directions and providing any further assistance. And when it’s all over (my day will begin at 6 am and end after 8 pm, when the polls close), I will help the team process the results.
As soon as I heard on Tuesday that my county’s Board of Elections was accepting applications, I filled out the form and mailed it. I wasn’t expecting to hear back so soon, but yesterday I received an email welcoming me to the program and with further instructions on how to prepare. Today, I did some reading from the training handbook and then successfully completed a quiz in order to sign up for a training session. Which I’ll be attending tomorrow.
The job may be for just a day, if you don’t include the four-hour training session and the meeting on the Monday night before Election Day (though my term of service retroactively runs from December of last year to April 2014), but I should earn a little cash that will help me pay for the four-day New York City trip I’m taking with my brother and sister later this month. Plus, it should be an interesting learning experience, being on the other side of democracy. In fact, by virtue of having to spend all day at the voting station, I probably won’t be able to vote at one myself! If I am not assigned to work a polling location within my own precinct, I will have to vote by absentee ballot or on any of the early voting days that commence at the end of the month.
The Rumination Refinery 