Oh, George

I think the best part of teaching in my school is that we have a very high ESL population. A lot of teachers look at this as a drawback when it comes to SOL scores, but the sheer joy of being around these kids dramatically outweighs the struggles. My school has very high Hispanic and Asian populations, and the number of Middle Eastern students is going up substantially every year. Most of the time, when these kids come through our doors they are "right off the boat" as we inappropriately put it. This basically means they know how to say "hello," "goodbye," and "Where is the bathroom?" That's pretty much it.

This year I am blessed to have a young man named George in my room. George is 11 years old and from Egypt. Funny enough, that was all he could say to me the first week of school. I would ask, "George do you have your lunch money?" And he would respond each time, without fail, "I am George. I am from Egypt." The sad thing is, the reason why he probably just said that is when someone finds out that a kid is in the ESL program, they just ask them their name and where they are from, that's about it. But George made it through his first week beautifully, smiling the whole time. We found a way to communicate through a lot of nodding, pointing, and repeating things very loudly. I only have George for homeroom, Science, and Social Studies, two subjects that he doesn't get a grade in because of his limited English proficiency. He goes to another teacher for Math and Reading, so his time with me is intended basically as a way for him to just absorb as much English as possible within a context different from reading books and writing sentences.

Teaching George has been a challenge. Everyday I am left with no choice but to stretch my teaching abilities to the limit, looking for ways to make information accessible for him, to present it in a way that helps his language skills and knowledge of the material grow. And I love it so much. We have so much fun together and his smile is one of those that makes you belive in God.

Last week, I had the privilege of meeting with George's parents. They speak no English whatsoever, but we were able to secure an interpreter for our meeting. In my time teaching I have sat in on several conferences with our ESL parents, but never have I been part of a meeting where I truly realized what these parents and children go through when they decide to come to this country. First, the majority of the conference was conducted in Arabic which has a cadence and tone that bares no resemblance to English whatsoever, so I had no clue what was being said. Not only that, I found out that these parents left their own successful businesses in Egypt to come work factory graveyard shifts in the U.S. so their kids would be able to have an American education. Meanwhile, they are unable to even help their kids with their homework because they don't understand the language it's written in, or even how the grading system works. But the thing that really got to me was that never once did it seem like they were complaining. All they wanted to know was if there was anything more that they could be doing at home and if we needed anything here at school. One of the few phrases these parents knew was "thank you" and they kept turning to me and saying it over and over again, knowing that I would understand how much they appreciate the work I do with and for their son. I was completely blown away.

I really don't know the point of this post, except to just explain how lucky I am to be where I am. Within our county, my school is definitely one of the "have nots" as we call them. Parental involvement is almost nonexistent and, consequently, our kids have to go without a lot of the time. But, I'm just sayin', I'd rather have a kid like George than a new computer any day.