etguas adarkan storminit,
It took a while (in it’s original handwriting) before I broke the code to three pages of allthewordswrittenwithoutspacesbetweenthem. Reading aloud the same sentences over and over, listening for meaning, I sounded like I was practicing lines for a play …full of sound and fury, etc.
Because I told Jose how proud of myself I was that I had been able to break the code, and thus discover how great a writer he was, I was then drowned by his prolific pencil – dooming myself to more 45 minutes per page read-alouds.
Damn, and he learned fast too. In the US for less than a year, he guas an assimilation superhero – thirsty for everything, learning the local culture of the projects at light speed.
So he came in one day using the N-word, (much to his wiser friends’ delight) in the way he had heard it used. Trying it out, and in the eternity of a few seconds, each utterance getting such a positive response from the audience that he uses it again and again, Jamelia and Sameka were rolling with laughter pointing to my flustered panic.
In the hallway:
“Jose, that word does not mean the same thing as hombre.”
“No?” he asks, genuine misunderstanding clouding his expression.
So now I what, teach the word?
Wow that’s a stomping on eggshells thing to do in an elementary classroom.
Having done just that for years now, here’s the thing. I felt freer this year to be far more directive in my approach.
This year I was transferred across the segregation line of prosperity to a school where the PTA raises nearly 100k a year. I moved from a school where there might be one Anglo kid per grade-level, to a school where there might be one African American kid per grade-level.
So, again, here’s the thing. I felt freer to speak of the use of the N-word this year because there weren’t any “black” kids in my class. No fear of making African American kids uncomfortable, I could go at Racism in A-merry-ca (thanks F. for that) with both guns blazing.
I recently watched a movie that included a depiction of a 40’s “juke joint” and it looked so fun, I wanted to go. Sadness – that my “white” presence would be disruptive, no matter what my intention – underscored the director’s segregation theme. Reminded me of the freedom I felt in my classroom.
Self-segregation felt then like a comfort zone, and like a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, needed to be examined for it’s escapist qualities. “What am I avoiding?”
