Aardvark is the pseudonym for a second-year high school English teacher in the Bronx.
It was Martin Luther King’s birthday. I was sitting around watching the Knicks, charging up to teach one last week before the Regents, surfing the net in my grey sweats. I pondered how to address this day in my high school ESL classroom.
I didn’t want to just show up Tuesday and move on without recognizing the man, his life, the difference he made. I stared at the blue links, Wikipedia, Seattle Times, MLK Research Center.
His Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech popped up, too complicated, I thought, a Wikipedia biography, too commonplace. Somehow I found myself reading about King’s trip to India. There he furthered his understanding of and belief in nonviolent protest. The length and reading level of this document seemed just right, a notch above the intermediate class’s comfort zone.
I printed about 10 copies of the two-page document — double sided, of course to save the trees and it would be easier to hand out.
I decided the Aim of the class would be: How should we recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day? And for a Do Now: Draw or write what you believe the word nonviolence means.
I almost always ask students to draw or write their Do Nows because it differentiates, so Jorge, who can barely write and Angel who is almost ready to pass the English Regents can both do their work. I really wanted to talk about how the prefix non before any word meant not. At first only a couple students could explain what nonviolent meant. They knew violent though and were happy to doodle little morbid images. As we discussed the word, and other words like nonflammable and nontoxic, I saw a few sleepy eyes light up. Many of the students have a tendency to give up if a word looks too long or complicated. But it was momentarily rewarding to see them getting the concept.
However, as so often happens the day after any type of vacation, the class was restless.
As I handed out the King Encyclopedia’s account of his visit to India, Rosa asked “Is this about how he died?” That seemed to be the question everyone wanted to ask. Were we going to learn about his death? I felt the class’s collective motivation waver. I wanted everyone to listen as I read aloud selections from the short article. I figured it would be a good little practice for the listening section of the Regents. Javier and Jorge kept messing with Carlos’s new PSP. I was trying to “plan ignore” them. In fact I finally turned my back, something I don’t do often. It just drives me crazy when kids are messing with their electronic devices. I know I could’ve called the Dean, but if he’s not there, then I’ve totally lost all authority.
As the selection came to a close, we discussed the main idea of the article. Finally we came back to the concept of nonviolence. I was pretty spent and felt as though no one had been listening.
Carlos called out, “Do you think you could use nonviolence to stop the war?”
“Which war?” I asked, dumbfounded that anyone had really been paying attention, especially Carlos with those damn video games.
“The war in Iraq.”
“Actually,” I said, feeling more and more like my ancient history teacher talking about the sixties, “that’s what we did. Just before the start of the Iraq war. I and all my friends and people all around the country cut college classes and marched against the war.”
I expected everyone to start laughing at the idea of their teacher cutting class.
But it was quiet. I wondered if our protest that long ago day had made any difference.
What does difference mean? These thoughts shot through my mind. You don’t have much time to think when you’re teaching an explosive class of high school students.
The school’s programmer walked into the class to hand me a coverage slip. “I never knew King went to India,” he said noticing the piece of paper in my hand.
“Yeah,” I smiled. “Me neither.”
That’s what made this discovery exciting to me. I had learned something, too. My favorite J.M. Coetzee quote rolled around my mind, “The one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons.”
I smiled, maybe I’ll make that our next Critical Lens.
