Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [53]
The ELL kids needed help with self-definition. I wanted to put their birthdays on the calendar and take their pictures. I wanted to identify what each child did best. Question games might help. What was their favorite food? What games did they like? What was the scariest thing they ever did? The bravest thing? What was their earliest memory?
With ELL classes, I really understood the value of classrooms small enough that each child could be given individual attention. The kids were at very different developmental and acculturation levels. Some kids were precocious from war experiences but had missed kid experiences. Some children cared for younger siblings, cleaned and cooked, or even did factory piecework at home. A few had no play in their lives.
There were differences in intelligence, motivation to learn, energy, confidence, and likability. There were differences in the amount of trauma the kids had experienced and in the amount of family and community support they received in America. They all had much in common—they were strangers in a strange land, eager to be accepted. They liked games, music, puppets, and cookies. And they had a thousand needs. Compared to American kids, they tended to be better behaved, more respectful of adults, and less spoiled. Grace said the longer they were in America the more likely they were to act up.
It helped me to remember that these kids had simple needs as well as complicated ones, needs to be hugged, helped with spelling words, smiled at, and read to. Even small acts of kindness made a difference.
I had been in class three hours and was ready for a nap. How do teachers do this five days a week, eight hours a day?
September 22, 1999
I approached Sycamore on a crisp morning, with the sky blue, the leaves red and gold, and the light hitting the sycamore just right and turning its trunk silvery. When I walked into the classroom, Khoa jumped up and hugged me in an exaggerated, self-mocking way. He was both affectionate and embarrassed to be seeking affection. Pavel shouted out that there would be a fishing trip next week. I looked at Grace and she shrugged. I apologized, and she said, "Don't feel bad. The kids are really excited about this."
Ly plopped on my lap. Today she wore a Yum-Yum T-shirt and faded bell-bottom jeans. She weighed about forty pounds and reminded me of a hummingbird, light as air, but pure energy. She had a cough and twice I offered her cough drops from my purse. I invited Mai to join us and I read them a Laura Ingalls Wilder story. Ly snuggled in. Mai sat stiffly, but she listened carefully to my voice.
Today Walat was student helper. As he handed out paper and pencils, Grace wrote tool words—"hammer," "nail," "scissors," "screwdriver"—on the board. Walat looked at pictures of these tools with great interest.
Abdul and Pavel scuffled over a pencil. Pavel wore a green sweat suit from Goodwill that left a few inches of skin between his shirt and pants. Instead of watching the board, Pavel doodled and scratched his stomach. I moved over and sat between him and Abdul.
Trinh looked exactly as she had last week, with the same outfit and the same inscrutable expression. Beside her, Deena leafed through a picture book on animals of the jungle. Twice Deena tried to show Trinh a picture and start a talk, but Trinh ignored her.
Whenever Grace asked a question, Fatima raised her hand with ready, but not always right, answers. Fatima and Deena were both from Muslim families, but they were being raised quite differently. Fatima's family was more traditional. She wore long flowery dresses and a head scarf. Deena dressed in a sweat suit and wore her hair in a ponytail.
Ignazio wandered in late. The ELL students were often tardy and Grace was casual about time. She permitted table talk and interruptions in the lessons for side discussions. She limited her discipline to a soft "Let's use our quiet voices now."
Deena and Fatima argued about a book. Grace stayed out