The deadline for giving two weeks
notice before the start of the new trimester passes and I have not
submitted my resignation. There is an earthquake drill that night.
We have endured a meeting, the week before, cutting into class time.
An administrator stands before us and reads the instruction sheet
we've received printed, in our mailboxes and also via e-mail. Our
classroom wastebasket can be repurposed as a toilet, in case of
lockdown. The students are to duck and cover under their desks for
two minutes but I show them a YouTube video about earthquake survival
instead. Then, teachers are to carry a flashlight and don yellow
hardhats and day-glo safety vests and lead the students across the
street to the parking lot to wait for the “all clear.”.
Subliminally I guess, flirting with getting fired, I wear neither
vest nor hat. I do carry a dim flashlight. A monolingual
administrator, using a megaphone, issues inaudible instructions. In
the event of a real earthquake, I am legally bound, as an L.A.
Unified employee, to act as a disaster point person. Were there a
real trembler, I'd get 'em under the desks and I'd wear the hat and
the vest. I hope they get the megaphone thing straightened out and
designate a Spanish speaker for translation.
-->
Only a few of my students are Dodger
fans and, unbidden, they keep showing me their phones with the score.
Tomas is perhaps the smartest student in the class and one of a
handful I call upon for demonstrations and occasionally, to help
settle a rowdy class. Tomas is an Astro fan. During the final game
Tomas sticks his phone, with the heartbreaking score, in my face
about twenty times and chuckles malevolently. I warn him I'll get
him back on the promotional exam. I make a dummy score sheet for
him. It indicates that he's failed every test and I've written, in
giant blue letters “GO DODGERS!” I'll let him sweat a second
before I replace it with his 99% passing score.
There are only four more meetings with
my current class as the 13 week trimester winds down. I finally know
all of their names and we're finishing up the final tests. For many,
the speaking test is particularly onerous. Ordinarily poised and
confident, Marina perspires and shakes. “It's just me,” I remind
her. She soldiers on. When I ask her about her daughter, a freshman
at UC Santa Barbara, her anxiety abates and she passes the test
easily. Other students are barely able to open their mouths and I
have to prod them to even grunt.
I am teaching a lesson at the
whiteboard and I hear the students tittering. “What? What is it?”
Finally, Donna grabs a pair of scissors and snips off a price tag
from my sweater. Ever confident Donna, despite the remarkably bad
(for having lived in the U.S. for fourteen years ) English remains an
effective communicator. She tells me about her three adult kids in
Guatemala. A boyfriend, with a cat, has moved in with her. Donna
hates cats. She is disgusted when I tell her that I have three.
Apparently Donna's in ultimatum mode and the boyfriend isn't primo
enough for her to endure the cat.
Most of the students settle down once I
get them speaking for the promotional exam but the acrid aroma of
fear-sweat wafts through the classroom. I like the part of the test
where I can get them to talk about themselves. A sweet guy is the
oldest of eight with seven sisters. He's twenty-one. The three
older sisters, a twenty year old and seventeen year old twins live
with him. He supports them. The rest of the family is in Guatemala.
One student works at a meatpacking plant. There are a couple truck
drivers, a few mechanics and a number of gardeners. Three of my
students have domestic positions with incredibly famous Hollywood
personae. A couple of the women clean houses and some work in
restaurants. Not a single student has reported unemployment. Most
of them do physical labor yet manage to drag themselves to school for
ten hours a week. A handful have green cards but I assume that most
are undocumented. While there are a couple of drips in the class,
most of the students are very likable. Some buzzwords used to assess
the generation coming up are “lacking grit.” I realize that the
segment of population that is so committed to self improvement might
not attest to the character of all of the undocumented. But my
students coming from where they come from, mostly not highly
educated, leaving family and friends and managing to eke out a life
in this strange, vast foreignness are grit personified. There is no
one else to do the work that they do and the news in Spanish or
English blasts constant reminders that by a large swath of the U.S.
population and its chosen leader, immigrants are unwelcome.
I have to rush the groups through their
presentation as there is so much testing. The Lions are supposed to
read some statements about a picture and then ask the class
questions. Don Gonzalo, as the students call him, has taken charge.
He ignores my instructions. The Lions just read the questions and
then answer themselves, losing the participatory element but they
hold their heads up and speak loudly and clearly. All of their
writing is more legible now and they use capital letters, periods and
question marks correctly, more often than not.
The Pandas are to write a story, a
conversation and a description. The group is the largest and no
matter how much I encourage them to collaborate, they work
independently for the most part. Between them they come up with
three passable stories and a lot of incoherent crap so we bag the
conversation. I flesh out the stories a bit and the Pandas take
turns reading them aloud to the class. They sound pretty good and
the class is responsive to their questions. Next term, if the class
is just as large, I'll divide them into five groups instead of four.
The Tigers are to model some commands
like “put, give, take” as preparation for the speaking test.
Poor attendance has taken a toll on the Tigers and their plans to
make a little movie are shelved. They nicely demonstrate a good
variety of imperatives. I ask them, no little avail, to make sure
that other students participate, but their demonstration is well
executed.
The Bees are the highest level group
and require little supervision but, they too are plagued by rampant
absence. They take turns as server and receive each other's orders
from a restaurant menu. Then they distribute copies of the menu
(from the local Masa) and take orders from individual students.
They're very enthusiastic about the menu, choosing Echo Park burgers
and deep dish pizza. There are complaints about the prices being a
bit steep, but the extensive menu abounds with vocabulary
opportunities.
The final week is spent on make up
tests and ESL computer games. On the final night they will register
for new classes and there will be a party. There are a few who are
hoping to be promoted to the second level but just aren't ready. I
know that they will feel bad but they would be completely at sea in
the next level. The hard workers will get little certificates of
merit in 99¢
Store frames. Some of them just need a bit more work before moving
up and some need so much literacy remediation that they'll likely
never make it.
The
class of eighteen months ago was small. It's takes me longer to get
to know this larger class. But, now that it's only a few days more,
I know that I'll feel bad when most of them go. I still don't have a
rhythm down and am often ineffectual. Sometimes I happen upon
something that really clicks. And there are times when I fall flat
and waste an hour or so. The other teachers don't talk much to me.
Many of them teach an early morning class and then drudge back with
their rolling carts six hours later to teach nights. I suspect that
they're just too tired to interact. I imagine that most perk up and
teach energetically, but for me, even going for three hours is
exhausting. It's no wonder that those who teach ESL 20 or 30 hours a
week are too wiped out for small talk.
I
know that if I teach a few more classes it will become more
automatic, a job and less some grandiose moral atonement. For all my
passion, my memories of my class of 2015 are hazy. I struggle to
remember names and faces of people who for thirteen weeks are the
center of my life. While I pretty much think about nothing else, the
current large group too will fade I'm sure. A year from now and three
classes later Martina, Don Gonzalo, Donna and all the rest, will
likely become memory shadows.
I
remember the name and can see the face of every teacher I ever had
from kindergarten through college. I recall a few wounds, mostly
pertaining to my backwardness at mathematics and handwriting, but
mostly it's moments of revelation and epiphany that these instructors
proffered that remain remarkably vivid, still in my mind's eye.
While I am destined to forget most of my students I suppose that I
will be remembered. The onus of this, particularly in these times
of Trump, overwhelms me. To the best of my knowledge I've not been
fired. The new trimester starts next week. I worry that being
effective, even as I have a bit of experience to work with, will
require too much of me. I dream about coming home from work, making
dinner and tv binging instead of forty five minutes of rush hour
traffic and gulping a quick sandwich a few minutes before being on my
feet for a three hour class. I may well lack the grit to persevere.
Still, the Pandas are speaking and writing much more clearly. The
rest will likely thrive in the next level and more and more will
better navigate the strange vastness, essential yet reviled.
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