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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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Substitute Bad Ass
"You're Freaky." The above words were spoken to me on Wednesday, by a seven-year-old girl named Elisa, a second-grader at the school where I taught that day. And I thought, looking down into her wide brown eyes: Yeah, well, you don't know the half of it, baby. So, yes, I've been absent from my little diary for the past several days because I've begun substitute teaching. On Wednesday and Thursday, I taught third grade in an elementary school in the "poor" part of town, near where I grew up in the same town. There were fewer than twenty students in the class on Wednesday--and nearly twenty-five the next day when all the absent students decided to show up. The school was largely made up of Hispanic, Latina/o, and/or Mexican and Mexican-American children and the students have all levels of language ability: solely English, bilingual to varying degrees, and solely Spanish. That's right. Some students speak only Spanish. Guess how much Spanish I know. Well, okay, enough to greet the aunts and uncles at family gatherings and not much more. I understand a lot more than I speak. But when confronted with a child who speaks only Spanish? I head for the nearest bilingual student to translate--and then I thank them and tell them how important people who speak more than one language are to me. The students were eight, and it was like trying to wrangle kittens. Loud kittens. One little girl (Chantelle) kept up this kind of running conversation with herself and anyone else nearby all. day. long. All day. All day long. She travelled from table to table, from desk to desk. When I returned her to her seat for the fiftieth time, I looked down into her cute little eyes and saw that she was just high. I seriously have before only ever seen such wild eyes stuck into the sockets of people high on acid or peyote. She was just out there. Another little girl cried when her friends wouldn't speak to her. This was during a math lesson. The students turned their eyes to her as her wails began. Then they turned their eyes to me. I was at the board, explaining a math problem. I went over to her, asked her what was wrong. She kept wailing. I said, "Would you like to read quietly on your own?" She kept wailing. I stood up. I said, "Okay. Our job is to do math. Katharine's job is to cry. Let's do our jobs." They turned their eyes back to the board and went on as though Kathering wasn't crying. After a while, devoid of an audience, she went and sat and read quietly, then rejoined the class. I rewarded her by asking her to be my helper. The children were not allowed to go anywhere on their own, the teacher lets them pick a buddy to take with them to the restroom, office, and so on. Whenever anyone asked to go to the restroom, I said, "Katherine's the official buddy for the rest of the afternoon. Katherine, would you please take soandso to the restroom/nurse/office." Later, I thanked her for performing this important duty. And the next day, Thursday, as a reward, I brought in my motorcycle gear to show them at the end of the day--if they were good. They were thrilled by their badass motorcycle mama of a substitute teacher. One little boy drew me a picture of a dragon and told me that he wanted a motorcycle when he grew up. One little girl wrote in her journal about wanting to go to rally in Sturgis with her father who rode a Harley-Davidson. "Won't You Miss Your Family?" What an eight-year-old asked me when I explained that in June I would be moving to Japan to teach English.
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