There's something about a new beginning in September that's embedded in our life's rhythm no matter how far we are from school. New season. New wardrobe. A new fall line-up.
A scrubbed and purposeful self ready to begin crisp new things.
Parents and teachers. We feel it more acutely. We live by bells and alarms.
Rrrrinnnnnng.
"Get up!"
"Get to work!"
"Go, go, GO!!!"
Are we talking to the kids or to our own inner wild things?
I'm a parent and a teacher and a playwright. My son is ten, just beginning middle school. I teach in Los Angeles in a high poverty elementary. Lots of recent immigrants, mostly from Oaxaca, Mexico. Families without a lot of experience with formal education. I usually loop (stay with the same group) for a couple of years. 1st, 2nd, 3rd. 2nd & 3rd. After potty-training and before hormones: that's how I map my territory.
This is one of my go-back-and-pick-up-a-new-crew years. 2nd.
What a crew. Wilder than wild things. They roar their terrible roars. They twitch their terrible twitches. They turn their eyelids inside-out with alarming frequency.
11 boys, 6 girls. Only 3 English speakers. Several who are in an English class for the first time in their lives. A few who can't read the word 'thing'.
"Be still!" I say. Three or four of them listen.
For a moment.
Then...
Manuel dances around the room. Juan twirls in his chair. José plays Total Battle Airplane with his and Kyle B.'s erasers. Osvaldo sings. Evan spins on the rug. Roberto builds houses with his fingers. Brianna excavates in her backpack. Griselda teaches Yadira how to turn her eyelids inside-out. (This eyelids thing is positively viral!)
It is the 10th day of school. Summer is a distant memory.
For me, at least.
And for them?
They seem not to have heard the sound of an adult voice in recent memory. They seem to be able to block out grown-ups with amazing ease. They're deeply talented in selective deafness.
Be optimistic, I tell myself. How would you want your son's teacher to view him?
They have excellent imaginations! Rich! Vivid!! Compelling!!!
But directed inward.
Lost on their own islands.
Creating their own private shows.
Lost on their own islands.
Creating their own private shows.
How do I bring them out to play together? And learn English and one or two other things in the process. That's the question for the year.
Let the working rumpus begin!
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1 comment:
I wonder how much of oxaca remains in their Imaginations... Mostly through their language I would think. I envy them as I try to teach my two year old daughter Hindi, open her up to concepts beyond her english world, a be more concretely let her partake in the different worlds in India
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