It is the beginning of the
end. As I prepare for my third trimester,
a sense of pattern is setting in. I finally
remember all of my students’ names and am getting to know them. We spend about
125 hours together, it ends and then I’ve another intense thirteen weeks with
the next group.
I mention, when class begins
in November, when we are talking about birthdays, that mine is Feb. 6 and am
gobsmacked when they remember and present me with a gigantic cake, flowers and
a fistful of cash. There is also pizza.
When I demure, as a non-meat eater, I am told, “Teacher, it’s not meat,
it’s pepperoni.” I show number one son a photo of the “Happy Birthday Teacher” cake
and he asks, “Don’t they know your name?”
They probably don’t, even though I write it on the board every
night. I prefer being called “Teacher”
anyway. It’s the second favorite thing I’ve
ever been called, “Mom,” being the first.
Forty-ish Hilda is perfectly
coiffed. She sports high-end highlights
on her freshly blow-dried hair. Her
clothing is elegant and once she wears a silver necklace with jade beads that
makes me swoon. She sips some milky
concoction conspicuously from a large silver water bottle. An enormous “Preguntame sobre Herbalife”
button adorns each fancy blazer or silk blouse.
She offers me a catalog on the first night, sensing my lack of
enthusiasm, “You no like Herbalife.” I
shrug non-committedly. Once she begins
to proselytize during class. I shake my
head at her and she backs off immediately.
I wouldn’t say that she shirks classwork but it’s not a priority. The second the bell rings for coffee break,
she makes a mad dash outside. Commerce. She returns to the room inevitably with an arm
around one of the young girl students, chatting amiably. I want to scream “DON’T DO IT!”
I think it would be awkward
this term, but I’ll prepare a lesson that explains the economic model of
multi-level marketing for future generations. I always make sure to explain
about rent control. Most of them are
renters but have no idea of their rights.
They don’t understand about the cost of payday loans or buying things on
time. We practice reading food labels and learning
that it’s not good to eat too much sugar or fat, as I present myself as a “this
is why” example. We look at Craigslist
and talk about how to be safe when selling or buying items. I print out the list of participants in “Free
Museum Sunday.” But I have to be sparing with the useful information detours as
there is grammar, reading and writing to master and be tested on. Ad infinitum.
I am on a textbook
committee. I dislike the text we
currently use but it isn’t the worst. The textbook and workbook sell for about
$45. This is expensive. My head is nearly bitten off when I express
this. “They don’t pay for the
classes. They can afford $45.” Most of my students work minimum wage jobs in
one of the most expensive cities in the country. A lot of them don’t have steady positions and
pick up work when they’re able. $45
seems like a lot to me.
Even Pedro, my homeless
student, can log on to the school Wi-Fi and take quizzes on his phone. I browse the web for possible replacement textbooks. There’s a handsome, well thought out series,
created under the aegis of National Geographic, that I like. I exchange a few notes with the publisher’s
rep and discover that the only digital supplement to the textbook is for
PCs. We have IPads at school. Apparently, the Nat Geo book will have a
phone app “sometime in the spring,” which could well mean the spring of
2020. Or never. Most textbooks do have digital supplements,
but I am unable to locate a single textbook that has a companion phone app at
this time.
At least the Nat Geo is
handsome and well designed. Most
textbooks have cheeseball illustrations and dorky conversations. I do my best
of liven mine up. There’s a photograph of a young couple, deciding where to
eat. Hungry Elena is holding her
stomach. The students are supposed to
guess what they’re talking about. I improvise. “I’m pregnant. It’s yours.”
Now we’re talking about the
weather. It’s sunny in Tampa. It’s raining in Dallas. It’s cold in Green Bay. There’s a conversation that we practice a
million times. “How’s the weather in
Chicago? It’s snowing.” I happen to know about the weather in
Chicago, having listened to Number One Son bitch about it for about an hour
earlier in the day. I Facetime him and
hold the phone, so all of my students can see him and hoping that he isn’t
terribly drunk or smoking a joint. I
point to the board and they say in loud unison, “How’s the weather in Chicago?” “It’s snowing,” he answers. I hang up.
Maybe some well-meaning high
roller will take on the scourge immigrant animus and invest in creating some
up-to-date, relevant teaching materials.
If there were a campaign to counter the anti-immigrant wave, the ESL
student community would be a great locus for the assuagement of liberal guilt.
I dream of a textbook with a component
that can be used on their phones in addition to the classroom. There are certain things, like basic reading,
writing and grammar that can be effectively taught on a digital platform. I’d love to be freed up to focus on human things
like communicating and navigating their communities. “Immigrants are Welcome Here” is great signage.
There would be no better way to
demonstrate this than supporting students in public ESL and Basic Education
programs.
I’d like to show some
gratitude for the invisible folks who care for our children, clear the dry
brush from steep hillsides, clean bathrooms and then drag their asses to school
four nights a week. If a student
successfully completes a course, perhaps the textbook for the next course
should be on the house. Maybe a good
incentive for a year of continuous study might be an IPad. How about some buses for field trips to
museums and cultural events? Why not
programs for local businesses to offer discounts to adult school students? There is so much lip service to supporting our
immigrant community, if I weren’t so exhausted by teaching my little class, I’d
love to organize towards persuading some well-meaning liberals to pony up and
do more to assure immigrants that they’re welcome than merely carry a sign.
But, for the next year or so,
I’m on the frontlines, juggling to prepare students for the ceaseless tests and
give them something that is meaningful for their lives. Even the older folk who aren’t digital
natives, love the Kahoot! quiz game. I
generate illustrated multiple-choice questions, and as the timer ticks away,
they tap answers on their phones. I spend
way too much time on these because I’m fussy about illustrations and refuse to
resort to tacky clip art. But, every night, about twenty minutes before the end
of class, they start chanting “Kahoot!
Kahoot!” so I try to have them a couple of times a week.
Daniel, the pothead, usually
aces the Kahoot! but women usually place
second or third. Lydia, a doe eyed girl,
teeth clad in what I think are intended to be invisible braces, has been
sitting next to Daniel. The other boys
continue, nevertheless, to jockey for her attention. Daniel, with a football
shaped head and slight acne scars, is not the most handsome boy in the room, but
he’s whip smart. And he has a
motorcycle.
We are top heavy this term with
these pretty, smart girls in their early twenties. When there’s a conversation to practice, I
often have the boys read the male parts and the girls, the female. The men inevitably go down an octave and
ratchet up the volume. The room vibrates when they ask the girls, “How many
eggs do we have?” The girls soberly answer,
“We have a lot.” And roll their eyes.
Since Lidia’s settled in
Daniel as a deskmate, his posture is more erect. He is more likely to volunteer
answers to questions. We end class with a Kahoot! For the first time that I can remember,
Daniel’s nickname “Ganja” doesn’t even show on the leaderboard. Two girls take second and third place and
Lidia is the grand champ. The boys groan
and grumble. Except Daniel. He gives Lidia a high five and they walk out
together. I suspect that she’ll show up
wearing his leather motorcycle jacket.
My thirteen-week slice of
students’ lives will end soon. There
will be more little triumphs and dramas over the next trimester. I do not know what this country has in store
for these people, mostly undocumented. I
walk through my neighborhood in the morning.
Housekeepers and nannies trudge up the hill from the Gold Line. Construction workers unload building
supplies. Painters, on scaffolding, sand and spackle. Gardeners blow leaves and trim lawns and haul
bags of brush trimmings down the hillsides.
On my way to work, dishwashers, car washers and janitors wait for the
bus. They fill evening ESL classes. There are always a number who are extremely
intelligent. Most have arrived as young adults so even the promise of DACA
being straightened out is no cause for hope.
I see how quick their minds are and am blown away by their humanity and
tenacity. Maybe the citizenry will return
to reason and they’ll be another amnesty program, like there was in the
80s. So many could be doctors or
attorneys or teachers but all I can do is help them get as far as their legal
and economic reality permits. Spread the word the immigrants are rapists and
terrorists and that they take our jobs away.
The truth is that if they’re legal they can’t be subjugated and
exploited for cheap labor. I can’t focus
though on the tragedy of unfilled potential.
At least if they can speak a little English without freaking out and
navigate the daunting city more effectively, their lives aren’t what they could
be, but at least they’re a bit better.
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