progressiveteacher 81 is a pseudonym for a first-year elementary school teacher in Manhattan.
I began teaching in a first/second grade classroom in the fall of 2006. I graduated from education school prepared for a lot. I had already substituted. I had already worked in a range of schools – from low-income public to very privileged private. I had taken my education school coursework seriously, focusing as much as I could on classes that mattered to me and specializing in literacy. I had curriculum and lesson plans ready and had even tested them on students.
And yet, neither my coursework nor my student teaching nor my substitute teaching had prepared me for having a student who did not speak English. I knew through the New York City teacher rumor mill that it was likely that I would have at least one if not many ELL students in my class. I had briefly considered what I would do if I had a child who spoke Spanish – I could translate in the conferences, integrate Spanish books into the curriculum. We would all learn some Spanish. But a child who did not speak any English and spoke a language and came from a culture that I had no familiarity with? That was beyond my field of vision entirely.
On August 27, while I was endlessly cleaning and arranging my new classroom, 6-year-old Jigme walked through the door. The most I could get from him was his name and a smile but, his mother (having memorized the stock phrase in English, I now know), said, “He will be in your class. He wanted to say hello.” I attributed his quietness to shyness. I had been told that I was being given “an easy class” that year to ease my transition into teaching. A child brand-new to the school, country and language — this didn’t fit into my sense of easy.
On the first day of school, it became clear that Jigme spoke very little English and by the second day it was apparent that he was perhaps coping by acting out. He was aggressive with other students and defiant towards me. My feelings of frustration and bewilderment, I’m sure, came through to other children and, coupled with their own confusion and frustration, he quickly became ostracized. I was horrified but lost about how to change this dynamic.
Academically, though he had been well-prepared in English writing and basic vocabulary, he was also lost. Our progressive classroom, with the focus on ideas and learning through games, was incredibly confusing to him. Discerning the difference between free time and serious work (like doing a math “game”) was initially impossible. During “writing workshop,” Instead of constructing his own stories, he copied words from the board and other books to the horror of his classmates and one NYU volunteer. At recess, he picked up on kids’ friendly teasing of each other but they were less welcoming to such poking and joking coming from him. The principal told me, “the poor child is terrified,” and I agreed but didn’t have a clue how to ease this.
And yet, slowly, we made progress. By Friday of the first week, he showed me on a map which country he was from. The next Monday he and I built a block structure together. We started communicating in writing – mostly in basic phrases he had seemingly memorized. After being sent out of the classroom in the third week for being wild and disruptive, his behavior became not easy, but work-with-able. In November, after reading another student’s writing, he started writing his own story that he wrote again and again for about a month. By teacher conferences, his mother said, through a friend-translator, “He now likes school. He wrote and put up on his wall. I love my teacher.” Other kids began to voluntarily include him in activities.
In February, he began to share with me — more than just answers to comprehension questions and complaints about classmates. He began to tell me about Tibet and his journey, he told me that his brother was coming, he told me about his old school. He began to really participate in class discussion as well. In March, I finally and belatedly bought a book on Tibet with lovely pictures. I brought it to the class. He spoke to me about it excitedly for the entire 40 minutes of reading workshop. Other children poured over the book though the text was too difficult for most to read. Jigme shared pages with the class. The tension had broken. Despite the huge breakthrough that we had, a multicultural book is not a multicultural education. No one thing that I did is. Instead, any success with Jigme came through my own year-long and massive attitude shift. A change from asking, “What are you doing in my dream?” to finally welcoming him as an integral part of and participant in this dream.
When at the beginning of March I got another new student from Tibet, I was ready to welcome her. Now, approaching, April, Jigme’s brother has also joined the class. And although, he speaks no English, less than Jigme did when he began, and although his name is also Jigme, which makes things confusing. And although, he too can be silly in school, I’m not as worried. I am not an expert, but I can now picture his trajectory in learning better. Having an ELL student now at least fits into my understanding of myself as teacher.
Jigme D. (as we now call the first Jigme) tells me, “Someday my father say, I will not remember Tibetan, only English because I speak so much English. Already it gets hard to speak Tibetan” and he is perhaps right. Already he says, “When I was little boy and came to this class, I didn’t speak English. I was scared. Now I do.”
And I wonder whether this transitional year will fade with the Tibetan and I wonder, with time, how much he will remember of his journey to this country and of the world he left behind as his life becomes filled with a different world. I wonder how much there will be room to integrate both. I hope that I have finally been able to convey to him that I value the complexity of what he brings, that he always had a right to this class. I have never been a preacher. As a teacher, my strength lies as a storyteller and a questioner. And so, after telling this story, I will end with this question? Who enters your dreams, who is welcomed, who seeps in, and is anyone kept out?
