Flashback

Good afternoon, my name is Ms. Tejada. I am here to cover for your ESL teacher. Here is what you need to do. As I circulated about the room, I asked each student the following question:

Me: Where are you from?
Students: Africa, The Dominican Republic, Peru, France, Mexico

Me: How nice! Here we have the United Nations

Students: hehehehehehe.

Ten minutes later, one of the students raises her hand and asks me to come to her desk:

Student: "Can you please help me? I don’t understand what I am supposed to do?"

Me: Let's see -I said.

Directions: Underline the last sentence of the paragraph.

Me: Use your pen or pencil to put a line under the last sentence of the paragraph -I pointed the exact location where she needed to underline, and indicated what to do with the pen.
Student: Ah, I understand now. Thank you!

A few minutes later:

Me: So, have you made any progress with the underlining of the text?
Student: I don't understand you.
Me: Were you able to do any of the work?
Student: I don't understand what you said.
Me: Did you finish the homework?
Student: Ah, yes. Thank you.

As I sat in that ESL classroom, I was transported back to 1992, when I, also, was an ESL student lost in humongous school in the Bronx… I thought of each, and every time, I did not understand when someone spoke to me in English, when my teacher made me read aloud or present something in front of the class –those were difficult times. Suddenly, the teacher in me gave way to the child I was back then; suddenly, I felt the agony of not understanding what the directions were for the homework, and I pitied her and me.

Memories kept rushing through my mind: some of them were blurred, but others were not. I could not avoid thinking of Alexander, the newly arrived Russian boy, who could not get over the fact that there were tons of stores in one single block. He was fascinated with colors, and choices, and being able to buy whatever he wanted. He had never experienced that. Instead of nostalgia for his homeland, he told me, he wished never to return... I also remembered, Yim, the shy Korean boy, who, out of the blue, gave me a cassette of Korean music. He never told me why he did it; neither did I need an explanation. I took it for what it was, and I did not read into it. I still keep the cassette, and I still have no idea of what it says. I also remembered Damaso, big and strong Damaso, who was killed a few years ago in one of the ghettos of New York City –or so I heard. I remembered, Juan who is now in prison...; suddenly, the bell rang, and I had to rush to teach my own students, it was time to experience the classroom from a different perspective; I walked away, leaving my memories in a safe place, in a place where they could be understood -they would be too foreign, and too unreal in any other place.