I am watching less news. On CNN, as I write here I learn that Kim
Jon Un has offed a few of his own dignitaries.
How many madmen in the world have access to nuclear weapons? I listen to audiobooks, mostly novels, having
given up, at least temporarily, Pod Save America and NPR. Spurts of political action revive the
optimism stoked by the 2018 elections. I
am numb now to outrage. The weather is
beautiful. The semester is winding down
and we are testing.
I pilot a new and almost
cruelly long listening test. The
instructions are confusing. Most of my
students bomb. I am permitted to
administer, for promotional purposes, an alternative listening test that I
developed with a colleague. I pass out
the Scantrons and the three pencil sharpeners in my room whirr. I start the CD for the test and when it
starts, I realize that there is a booklet that accompanies the CD which I have
neglected to bring from the office.
My stupidity relegates me to having
to cram the writing and listening test into a single night. I am embarrassed to pass out the cheesy assed
clip art, 20th generation photocopies writing test. One has the picture of a family. The students are to write seven
questions. What is the man reading? How old is the baby? Is she washing the dishes? There’s a picture of a park on the other side
for writing seven sentences.
The boy is riding a bike. The
girl is running. There are three
trees. I spend a lot of time teaching
them to use question marks and start a sentence with a capital letter, which
bores the more educated students and is inadequate for those who haven’t been
to school.
Most of the students produce
something, often in a childish hand and always in pencil, intelligible enough,
to pass the writing test. We are going
from trimester to semester and having done the math, I am surprised that no one
at my school is freaking out. Currently
there are ESL Levels A and B and students are tested for promotion to the next
level at the end of thirteen weeks. Now,
there will be only one level, taught over the course of a 20-week
semester. This is a six-week reduction
in classroom time per level. We have yet
to address what competencies are to be are to be excised from our course
outlines. When I return in the fall my
evening class will begin as the equivalent of what we now call 1A. I have never taught this before. Also, I have a morning class which has
students of all different levels, another challenge.
Promoting students is pretty
much at the teacher’s discretion. There
are always a handful of social promotions of low literacy students who’ve repeated
the class a couple of times and worked their butts off. Usually, the test results pretty much confirm
my gut feelings about promoting a student or requiring a redo. With
this crop of students, knowing that if they aren’t sent to level 2, they will
be doomed to start from scratch at the very beginning of the first level is a complication. It’s a difficult call, knowing that those who
are not promoted are likely to be stultified rehashing the very basics and then
ultimately drop out. But those who aren’t
quite ready for the second level will likely struggle with the inevitably accelerated
pace.
I eschew the district created
speaking test. Students are supposed to
perform a number of commands. “Pick up the
pencil.” Then they are to issue similar
commands to a partner. “Give me the
book. Then they look at a crummy clip
art picture of a school hall to describe.
I cannot bear it and in order to assess their ability to converse, they
are to tell me three things about themselves that I don’t know and then ask me
a question.
Despite the near constant
reminder on Spanish TV and radio of the hateful climate immigrants face, most
of them express gratitude and satisfaction at living in the U.S. I never ask but I know that a handful of them
are here legally. There are even a few
citizens. Most of them, even the
engineer from Guatemala who now details cars, are thankful to be here. A few have kids in college. Felix tells me
about his family business in Chiapas, making pineapple empanadas. Gilberto helps
coach his daughter’s soccer team. They
recently won a tournament in Las Vegas. Elena,
an elementary school teacher in El Salvador, cleans houses in Manhattan
Beach. She is grateful that her
employers are kind and treat her like family.
Mariella asks me what I worry
about. “My children,” I confess. Even though they are full-fledged adults,
unless they are on my premises, there is always an undercurrent of concern for
their well-being. Eva asks me what I
wish for. I tell her that I wish Trump
were in prison and that a new administration would create an amnesty program,
like the one in the 1980s, for the undocumented. She proudly announces that she is studying
for the citizenship test, but she knows that most of her classmates aren’t this
fortunate.
The last week begins. There will be a rush of make-up tests and a
promotional ceremony. I will bake
something, make certificates of achievement for attendance, persistence and
leadership. The students get a colored
clip every night they attend, which they will exchange on the last night of
school for cheap crap from the Dollar Tree and Oriental Trading.
I will attend a week of
training for a morning summer school course I’ll be teaching. A new trend is to teach occupational skills
in conjunction with ESL. I am conducting
the ESL portion of a Medical Technology course.
We will be making 3D models of the digestive system and learning to take
our pulse. I work with teachers from other
schools who are teaching the same course, planning lessons and selecting
materials. I dread these meetings as
most of the mandatory meetings provide nothing that couldn’t be stated in a two-sentence
e-mail. These planning sessions are
satisfying though. I am fortunate enough
to be with a group of really committed teachers who truly aspire to make the
four-week summer school session as rewarding as possible.
Theoretically, this
vocational training, coupled with ESL, is, I think, an excellent idea. Unfortunately, without legal status, a number
of students are not employable in the fields we provide training for. I likely won’t be eligible to teach summer
school again in 2020 and I hope, like in 2018, I’ll be able to throw myself
into effectuating a more compassionate and competent government.
I am still doing costly
battle with the city regarding our Echo Park cottage, but the nightmare tenant
is gone, and my business occupies the upstairs and Spuds lives in the lower unit. As Spuds is a Dodger fan, being an easy walk
from the stadium is an extra bonus for him.
He works in the garden and makes small repairs. He walks down to Echo Park Lake and reads and
writes. When I admit a repair man, I am
astounded that he keeps the little apartment neat as a pin. I imagine a couple more months of wrangling
with the city but certainly the worst is over, and the little house Is happily
occupied.
At first, the adjustment to
my own home office is a bit difficult. I
feel indolent working all day in a nightgown, or sweatpants. I’m in the groove now. Being able to enjoy
Larry’s kittenhood is certainly a huge bonus.
My office is in the basement. I
sequester myself there when there are some workers in the house. I caution them to be very careful not to let
the kitten out. I emerge from my
basement office when they leave and there is no Larry to be found. I scour the house and drive through the
neighborhood like a madwoman. I call
Spuds, hysterically and get him to come continue the search when I have to leave
for school. He too examines every inch
of the house and stomps around the hills calling for Larry. I arrive at school immobilized by grief. We’ve been plagued the last few years with a
number of cat-tastrophes and I wonder why the universe seems out to deprive me
of a kitten to love. The teacher next
door comforts me and brings me a Starbucks.
During the break, there is a text from Spuds that Larry has ambled into
the living room. He’d been sleeping
somewhere in the house apparently. Cats
are so much better hiders than we are seekers.
Larry knocks everything off my nightstand, walks on my face in the middle
of the night and has destroyed four sets of headphones but my heart swells with
love when the little thing curls up, purring under my chin.
My walking partner admits
that when we walk up a particularly steep hill, she imagines that she’s being pursued
by Nazis. I think sometimes about 1930s
Berlin and Café Society. Jews made art
and attended the opera, imagining I suppose that the madness would blow
over. The 2018 election was certainly a
good omen that the madness will end but the current draconian abortion measures
being passed in the south and the ascendance of fascism around the planet makes
me wonder if I’m as out of touch as European Jews in the 1930s.
But despair is fruitless and depriving
myself of small pleasures will not make for a more compassionate society. For the sake of my sanity, I am somewhat less
engaged with the daily outrages. I remember
that writing postcards until my hand ached and pounding on trailer park doors
in Orange County, along with thousands of others who channeled their outrage into
action, was as gratifying as anything I can remember. I’m going to enjoy Larry the kitten as he
enters cat-olescence and order another big box of postcards.
No comments:
Post a Comment