Nice Things

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A sweet breeze comes from behind the screen door. It's been a while. Himself's office is nearly subterranean and has no windows. During the winter he works in wool sweaters or a heavy bathrobe. The spaces (with television) that I inhabit are upstairs and warmer. I stick it out until it's unbearable and negotiate with Himself to please turn on the air conditioning. Because I'm cooking. Or I show him the sweat on my forehead, that my mother would always chide me to refer to as “perspiration.” It is difficult for him to not to scowl when he relents and turns on the a/c, using the thermostat that is unfortunately placed in his office.

A few days of more pleasant weather befits my diminished despair. Cornell West appears with Anderson Cooper. He states with credible authority that a certain four year term will not be completed. West conveys no hatred and believes that anyone is capable of repentance and being better. Even our Cheeto in Chief. West is wistful for the memory of Fred and Mary Anne Trump as their son, while not the devil, chooses to behave demonically. He makes a compelling case that the end is nigh but also enumerates the challenges we face ahead towards healing a nation that created Trump.

At the inception of my fourth trimester of teaching I'm sort of starting to have a sense of what I'm doing. The class is the largest that I've had and I drag chairs from the room next door. There's little time for students to get any speaking practice unless I have them practice conversations in a group.  I project a conversation from the digital edition of the textbook and write in variations with a dry erase marker and point on the white board with an ancient yardstick.

A. Is there a (three bedroom, single, one bedroom) apartment?

B. Yes there is. (No there isn't.)

A few militants suggest that is should be “Are there are three bedroom apartment?” “Three teacher. It's three.”

I slap the yardstick on the picture of the apartment and try to explain that it's still only ONE apartment. For the sake of the few who remain stymied I say it in Spanish.

We go back and forth over the conversations. Sometimes it's one side of the room vs. the other and sometimes it's boys vs. girls. I mug and ham it up as we go through half a dozen variations.

We are learning rooms and furniture. I make a little game of Pictionary. I'm getting behind already and there's testing coming up so I rush through the Pictionary instructions a bit and a lot of them just draw the pictures and neatly label the “dresser” or the “sink.” The game aspect and the intention that it will encourage them to use language eludes them. When I see it going south I shut it down abruptly and play the telephone game Kahoot! I hear one of the older ladies whisper, “This teacher, she brings us such nice things...”

There is a lesson on reading addresses and learning abbreviations. I write a lot of different abbreviations on the board. Blvd. Ave. Hwy. CA. Most are familiar. Then I write ESL. 45 blank stares. They get the English part but the SL is an enigma. I write on the board, “English is a Stupid Language.” Another cheap laugh. When I cross out and replace with “Second Language,” I explain that this isn't accurate as for many, English is a third or fourth language.

Knowing that for such a huge class, I have little opportunity to actually hear individuals speak, I block the doorway before the closing bell rings at night and make each student say something to me before they go home. “Tell me your phone number.” “What's your favorite color?” “What do you have (we haven't learned the future tense...) for dinner? When I ask them to tell me the city or town that they were born in, I'm surprised that most say that they hail from Mexico City, Guatemala City, San Salvador or Tegucigalpa Honduras. Only one or two name towns or villages that I've not heard of. I wonder if the city dwellers are more intrepid and likely to cross borders or if some attach shame to being from somewhere provincial and just commandeer their nation's capital to save face.

My cohorts schlep huge wheeled bins and suitcases. Many of them teach more than one class, often at branch locations. I have only the one classroom and am able to store all of my materials in a file cabinet and large cupboard. I just carry a bag with a sandwich and three cans of La Croix to school, as I have the luxury of a single venue. I struggle to keep everything organized but am overwhelmed by games and worksheets. This week I make copies and carefully cut out dozens of map board games, only to realize that I'd had a complete set laminated last year. I arrive early and spend a couple hours trying to sort things out but only make a small dent. A different textbook is being introduced next trimester so a lot of materials that I've found or created won't be germane but I still aim to sort the huge array of games and worksheets so at least I have a clear picture of what I have in order to streamline my lesson planning.

I learn early on that there are early arrivals. Parking can be dicey and many just like being in the air conditioned room. I certainly do and unlike at home, I am fully in charge of the thermostat. The first activity, as students trickle in, is a worksheet. Finding four germane worksheets a week has been a challenge and sometimes in my rush to find something that jibes with the textbook lessons, I've missed British spellings or figured out, too late, that a worksheet is too difficult or easy. A challenge has always been what to do with the students who complete a worksheet early, while their fellow students are still drifting in and toiling away. I've never much used the expensive workbook and have never much liked it but I've discovered that I can assign a page or two in it to be completed after the worksheet, which becomes homework for the more plodding or later arrivals.

As I feel more at home in the classroom I find myself also becoming more of a team player. I've befriended a number of my fellow teachers and after observing a coordinator, who I'd experienced as being unnecessarily brusque and unhelpful, interact with a student and his son in an astoundingly warm fashion my hostility has melted. When statistics are covered in the back to school meeting, I learn that for several years running, my school has the most effective ESL department of any adult school in the district.

We have a decent resource room with supplementary books and supplies. My classroom has one computer for school business that is connected to a printer. There is also a laptop connected to a projector. I teach plurals and list the words that are the same in the singular form. Deer. Sheep. Moose. And I can instantly project an illustration from Google images. The office will make as many copies as I need with 24 hours notice and if I'm slow on the preplanning, there are two behemoth copiers that teachers are free to use.

There are 2 carts with 35 iPads and 2 carts with 35 Chromebooks. I believe that I probably avail myself of these more than most of my colleagues do, as there is a pain in the ass factor of setting them up, connected the router and showing students a rather complicated process of using their school assigned e-mail and password to log on. But, once over this hurdle it's a wonderful resource to help students review materials at their own pace. And a number of the activities I've created for the iPads can also be used on a phone app so the more diligent students can take a quiz over and over until it's mastered.

This term I am less rattled and able to really appreciate the resources that are available. I am still not crazy about the incessant amount of testing that we are required to endure. Now, more than ever, test results are tied into funding. There is a huge emphasis on ESL leading to vocational studies or college. I've accepted that this is just they way it is and that we do provide enough free education for our students that is truly useful, that it's not the worst thing in the world for them to do the dance to keep us funded. Most of the students are undocumented so vocational training or college aren't realistic objectives. Some language to broaden the objectives of ESL instruction to include a more general acclimation of immigrants was proposed for inclusion in a state funding bill but oddly, the brass at the L.A. Unified Adult Division opposed this.

I remember years ago that I taught English to an enormous body of students who had applied for a huge amnesty program for the undocumented. Cornell West has helped restore me to optimism and new hope that the status of the undocumented will eventually be reconsidered with compassion and pragma so that perhaps this rigorous testing and push for vocational training will actually pay off.

The weather is pleasant so I won't have to wheedle for the air conditioner. I teach with greater ease and better accept being a tiny cog in a giant bureaucracy. I try to sweeten the bitter pill of learning a difficult language to a population that is reviled by a frightening swath of the U.S. population. There's lots of work to do, and while things look bleak, more than ever, optimism is an essential ingredient in working for change. And change is inevitable.