All I have for you today is sending a smile your way
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
2.33 years ago I woke up in my car at a parking area on Interstate 90. I drove 15 minutes to the nearest rest stop, somewhere in central New York. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had wireless internet, as I hadn't been able to check my e-mail in ages. I'd left California six days before. This was the last day of the voyage. I was planning to try New York City again after four and a half years away. So you can see why I was very happy to open my e-mail and find an invitation for an interview at a language school.
7 days later I arrived for the interview. I emerged from the underground on Broadway and saw a 100. I must admit, the first thing I thought about the school was that it was very... limited in space... but not in people to occupy said space. I met my future supervisor and she has been very kind, helpful and friendly ever since. The funny thing was that when she brought up all of these names for grammar tenses, I was initially confused, because a few of them had different names where I'd previously taught, and we'd admittedly made grammar a smaller part of a still balanced diet of speaking, reading, listening, writing, vocabulary, and whatever else worked. After we got past the label confusion (labels can be so confusing) I got hired.
The thing was, I was hired to work at a different location. But first she wanted me to observe a class, so she sent me a few doors down to see what this particular job was like. I walked over to Room 3 and watched the teacher review homework with mostly smiley students. I remember thinking that the room was very small, as I had to sit in the back and the aisles between chairs seemed to be nonexistent. Afterward I got sent up to the Bronx to meet their director, and I started the next day.
I worked 6 days a week, 24 hours per week, because that's what they had available, and that current position required teaching a weekend class. This put me in an ironic situation of not having enough money to make ends meet but not having enough free time to visit family or friends on the weekend's.
After 5 or so months of that I thought I was going to tutor the SAT for a company that paid twice as much per hour, so I informed them that I would need the weekends free. They capitulated, and I thought that was that.
But then the SAT job didn't materialize for several reasons. I had gotten all the way to a final interview, which involved a mock tutoring session with an experienced tutor. Even though I'd done plenty of practice ones with the trainers already, my mock tutoring session with an adult via a shaky Skype connection went terribly, initially because I explained how to do a math problem much faster than their patented fool proof acronym system would have. Demonstrating that their system wasn't always the best way was very much a faux pas, and I was asked to brush up on their methods of how to teach information to humans, or, that is, how to pump them full of acronyms that might help them manipulate the curved results of a standardized test. I fumed (I'd been training unpaid for more than a month and visiting their offices to interview and meet with them for several months) on the hour long train ride home, walked to the river, thought for a while, and decided I very much did not want to do that job, and I e-mailed them to tell them I would not be trying again.
Okay, so I took the honest route instead of the better money. I may not have been working a dream job, but I was meeting adults from around the world instead of teenagers with backgrounds similar to mine. Most of all I was teaching the way I wanted to, even if I wasn't completely teaching the material I wanted to. Then again, when my hours got reduced further, I realized I had to make a change.
I wrote to my supervisor informing her that I loved working for them, but wouldn't be able to continue to do so with so few hours. Soon enough we worked it out that I would be transferred to midtown Manhattan, where I still work. They also arranged to have me substitute some night classes on the Upper West Side, which is the small branch where I had originally interviewed and watched a class in Room 3. They said that eventually I would have my own night class as well. So after 7 months of the adventure in the Bronx, my NYC teaching journey began a new chapter.
Well, Midtown is working, and although the Upper West Side class was lots of fun (having a visiting scholar from Columbia University helped lift the level of intellectual discourse), there weren't enough students, and I was down to 24 hours. Luckily, midtown has many other opportunities for extra hours (chaperoning events, private students), so I was able to get by during 2014.
Then, at the beginning of 2015, I got a call asking if I wanted to substitute at night on the Upper West Side again. I said sure, and once I got there I was also informed that the position might continue into the next week. And it did. I've been there ever since, sacrificing week nights and teaching 36-38 hours per week.
I still remember those first classes. I remember the faces, some of the names, and lots of laughter. The 6 pm advanced students were a little more reserved, because they were mostly working professionals from Europe and Asia. Friendly, but with normal levels of enthusiasm and appreciation. The 8 pm beginner-intermediates were different. I just remember winter of '15 as laugh after laugh with that class, and that's because of them, not me. Sure, I can be funny, but if they're not light-hearted, it won't work. They'd all worked hard all day, so they wanted to lighten up in the evening, and I was happy to oblige them. They were warm people from hot places, and I'm used to these cold places, so we kept up the energy to help us get through the harder part of the year.
I bring all of this up because many of those students in that class continued with the school for a long time. The sole remaining member from that original group had his last class with me (and the school) on Thursday. He was in his mid-20's, from Honduras. He was always filled with this insane exuberance, and a heart-warming yet almost unsettling giggle after he said certain things. His laughter almost seemed to be overcompensating at times. Then I figured out why: he's probably seen things I'd care not to think about.
You see, this student used to be a narcotics officer in Honduras before he came here, and he says he's never going back. I learned this when I had the students complete the sentence, "People tell me I would be good at..." and he answered, stone-faced for once in his life, "People tell me that I would be good at killing people in Iraq." I don't think any of us expected him to say that. Then came the smartphone photos of him in his uniform with his fellow officers, brandishing his favorite guns and standing near recently confiscated contraband, beautiful green plants that have the magical ability to help people laugh almost as hard as the same officer who took it away. I must say, many a classmate of his was happy to find out he was a former narc, and not currently practicing his craft. I won't bust his chops for participating in the wasteful war on drugs, because in his country, however misguided the governmental policies may be, my student knew what it was to face risks: Honduras has the number one murder rate in the world, mostly because of drug gangs. So although I feel for the plants he confiscated, I obviously don't feel for the gangs he took them from.
Anyway, today was the first day we didn't see his smiling face around. So we all enjoyed bong rips in the hallway. Just kidding. He's working several jobs and fixing computers and hoping to go to college, moving forward with his dreams.
The students come and go. That's just how it is. Even if they stay a long time, they will move on. They have to. We all do, to some extent. I guess now I know a little more about what it's like to be a real teacher who has students for a full year. You have the same students, the same class, the same material to teach, without it changing every two months.... maybe that's why I don't want to be a "real" teacher. I'm more interested in playing with the language of the universe than explaining gerunds and infinitives, but the latter pays my electric and my rent so I can work on the former.
Today the universal language reminded me that some things that appear to be small can come full circle and make a smile in the presence of a little more beauty. When I met my new students this evening, I met them in Room 3. As I entered the room I realized something very strange: I'd taught in six of the seven classrooms in that building, but never had I taught in Room 3. I'd barely even been in Room 3 since the day I interviewed (they had leftover food in there once)! Even stranger, I've been teaching right next door, in rooms 2 and 4, practically the entire time.
Best yet, Room 3 opens onto 100th and Broadway, so I can see all these people walking by while I'm teaching. Yeah, I should be focusing on the class, but I've taught one of the books 3 times already. And they're always on us about reducing teacher talk and increasing student autonomy, so the class runs itself pretty well now anyway. That leaves plenty of time for people watching in my periphery when the students are working on something together. Then again, the people aren't that interesting right now, because it's night and it's cold and they're all walking with their heads down to get where they're going as fast as possible. If it were warmer, they'd at least be staring at their phones and bumping into each other, which is always funny.
I must say though, the rest of the scene makes it hard to concentrate between the hours of 6 and 10. There's a pizza place diagonally across from us. I don't even go to that one, but it reminds me of the other one a few blocks up, and my mouth starts to water while I try to demonstrate perfect enunciation.
A couple times a week I use one of the breaks to go up to Sal & Carmine's (often voted the best slice in New York) up on 103rd, and those large "PIZZA" signs everywhere don't make that 10 minute break come any sooner.
What's more, there's a diner across 100th, constantly in view through the large window in the back of the room, so I can see people eating there all the time. There's also an Indian restaurant directly across from us, so I can see it on my right whenever I'm grabbing my book, folder, papers, or playing a listening track on the stereo. The place used to be called Indus Valley, but now it's called Manhattan Valley, perhaps to remind me that New York City, and specifically this experience of living in Manhattan and teaching here, has been a journey in and of itself. It also reminds me to complete that book that begins in India.
This schedule has made it difficult to give optimal focus to my literary endeavor, but there is still focus, and I am still endeavoring. And when I'm at work, I am reminded that I must keep writing and working to overcome the obstacles, because the restaurant next to Manhattan Valley, as of a few months ago, is Naruto Ramen!
Okay, so maybe you're into ramen, maybe not. And maybe you're aware of that small chain in the city and don't think it's that intriguing. But remember, there's poetry everywhere. I wrote "Heroes" a couple years ago, and I still remember the student from Turkmenistan introducing me to the character of Naruto. I had asked the students to tell me about their personal hero. He was the first one I asked, and he told me about Naruto. He is his hero because he never gives up. That's fair enough, but I'm sure he slows down at times and needs his share of relaxation and recreation.
Speaking of which, it's 12:30, and I'm hungry...
I ate something. Now, another thought:
I really wanted to publish a book right around the time Bayram was telling me about Naruto. If I had, who knows... but I do know what wouldn't have happened: I wouldn't have met all the new students. Yes, that could go on forever, but there were some milestones tonight. You see, 1 of them was from Paraguay. That was a first! If you don't count those three tiny countries up above Brazil (Suriname, French Guiana, and Guyana), I've had students from every country in South America! In San Francisco I taught students from Brazil and one each from Venezuela and Bolivia, but as of now, this New York experience has helped the world greet me and me, in turn, greet the world in the form of Argentinians, Chileans, Peruvians, Ecuadorians, Colombians, and many more (almost universally delightful) Brazilians and Venezuelans. As if their peppy Spanish-Portuguese charms weren't enough to balance out my pale northern European roots of reservedness and rigidity, the good Earth had me encounter souls from Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. I haven't met anyone from Belize yet, I'm guessing because they apparently speak English there already. I should visit and find out for myself. I've already checked out our mutual neighbor.
Now, you've likely been informed by certain people (who could use a few refresher courses in the English language themselves) that Mexico is "laughing at us" because it keeps sending us all of its unwanted people. I must clarify this. Mexico is laughing, yes, but that's the only truth of it.
1st of all, they're not laughing at us, they're laughing with me (and at me, sometimes, when I deserve it). And second, if they are laughing at us, it's only because they know that they can get the most delicious food in the world, two enormous street tacos in Mexico City, for two bucks total, whereas fools north of the border are paying $10 for poor imitations of the glorious treasures, the idea of which may have wandered north, but can only truly "Viva!" beyond our border. And the ones who are here laugh because they know they were brave enough to undertake the hero journey into the unknown, whereas most us Americans are afraid to check out what's beyond the border anywhere that doesn't have a luxury beach nearby. I don't mean to accuse. It takes all of us time to overcome our jitters about the unknown, yours truly included.
Speaking of which, I finally met my 1st student from the island nation of Cuba (non-sarcastic "thanks Obama!" for that one). Of course, I also met many new students from other countries as well: Burkina Faso, Russia, Libya, Dominican Republic (of course!), Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, etc., etc. And yes, there were many students from Mexico. In fact, at 8 pm, there were 5, but for the first 20 minutes or so, there were only 3.
The first was from the city of Puebla. I've been fortunate enough to see their dignified, colorful architecture and enjoy the sensual adventure of their tantalizing, easily affordable foods... The second was from Vera Cruz. I saw a drug mule get busted by just about half the Mexican military while having dinner by the seaside. One of the soldiers nudged another one and pointed at me when they saw me taking pictures. I quickly hid the camera's memory card... The third was from Mexico City. The perfect taco.
Somehow these three had retraced my only 3 steps from my journey in Mexico and come together in Room 3, because of their own destinies, which somehow also served me. And then of course some guy from Guerrero had to show up. I secretly hoped he might have been born in Cabo San Lucas (where my cousin got married) or Juarez (where I'd first briefly crossed the border once).
In any case, people from everywhere learned and laughed, and I got a slice of pizza.
7 days later I arrived for the interview. I emerged from the underground on Broadway and saw a 100. I must admit, the first thing I thought about the school was that it was very... limited in space... but not in people to occupy said space. I met my future supervisor and she has been very kind, helpful and friendly ever since. The funny thing was that when she brought up all of these names for grammar tenses, I was initially confused, because a few of them had different names where I'd previously taught, and we'd admittedly made grammar a smaller part of a still balanced diet of speaking, reading, listening, writing, vocabulary, and whatever else worked. After we got past the label confusion (labels can be so confusing) I got hired.
The thing was, I was hired to work at a different location. But first she wanted me to observe a class, so she sent me a few doors down to see what this particular job was like. I walked over to Room 3 and watched the teacher review homework with mostly smiley students. I remember thinking that the room was very small, as I had to sit in the back and the aisles between chairs seemed to be nonexistent. Afterward I got sent up to the Bronx to meet their director, and I started the next day.
I worked 6 days a week, 24 hours per week, because that's what they had available, and that current position required teaching a weekend class. This put me in an ironic situation of not having enough money to make ends meet but not having enough free time to visit family or friends on the weekend's.
After 5 or so months of that I thought I was going to tutor the SAT for a company that paid twice as much per hour, so I informed them that I would need the weekends free. They capitulated, and I thought that was that.
But then the SAT job didn't materialize for several reasons. I had gotten all the way to a final interview, which involved a mock tutoring session with an experienced tutor. Even though I'd done plenty of practice ones with the trainers already, my mock tutoring session with an adult via a shaky Skype connection went terribly, initially because I explained how to do a math problem much faster than their patented fool proof acronym system would have. Demonstrating that their system wasn't always the best way was very much a faux pas, and I was asked to brush up on their methods of how to teach information to humans, or, that is, how to pump them full of acronyms that might help them manipulate the curved results of a standardized test. I fumed (I'd been training unpaid for more than a month and visiting their offices to interview and meet with them for several months) on the hour long train ride home, walked to the river, thought for a while, and decided I very much did not want to do that job, and I e-mailed them to tell them I would not be trying again.
Okay, so I took the honest route instead of the better money. I may not have been working a dream job, but I was meeting adults from around the world instead of teenagers with backgrounds similar to mine. Most of all I was teaching the way I wanted to, even if I wasn't completely teaching the material I wanted to. Then again, when my hours got reduced further, I realized I had to make a change.
I wrote to my supervisor informing her that I loved working for them, but wouldn't be able to continue to do so with so few hours. Soon enough we worked it out that I would be transferred to midtown Manhattan, where I still work. They also arranged to have me substitute some night classes on the Upper West Side, which is the small branch where I had originally interviewed and watched a class in Room 3. They said that eventually I would have my own night class as well. So after 7 months of the adventure in the Bronx, my NYC teaching journey began a new chapter.
Well, Midtown is working, and although the Upper West Side class was lots of fun (having a visiting scholar from Columbia University helped lift the level of intellectual discourse), there weren't enough students, and I was down to 24 hours. Luckily, midtown has many other opportunities for extra hours (chaperoning events, private students), so I was able to get by during 2014.
Then, at the beginning of 2015, I got a call asking if I wanted to substitute at night on the Upper West Side again. I said sure, and once I got there I was also informed that the position might continue into the next week. And it did. I've been there ever since, sacrificing week nights and teaching 36-38 hours per week.
I still remember those first classes. I remember the faces, some of the names, and lots of laughter. The 6 pm advanced students were a little more reserved, because they were mostly working professionals from Europe and Asia. Friendly, but with normal levels of enthusiasm and appreciation. The 8 pm beginner-intermediates were different. I just remember winter of '15 as laugh after laugh with that class, and that's because of them, not me. Sure, I can be funny, but if they're not light-hearted, it won't work. They'd all worked hard all day, so they wanted to lighten up in the evening, and I was happy to oblige them. They were warm people from hot places, and I'm used to these cold places, so we kept up the energy to help us get through the harder part of the year.
I bring all of this up because many of those students in that class continued with the school for a long time. The sole remaining member from that original group had his last class with me (and the school) on Thursday. He was in his mid-20's, from Honduras. He was always filled with this insane exuberance, and a heart-warming yet almost unsettling giggle after he said certain things. His laughter almost seemed to be overcompensating at times. Then I figured out why: he's probably seen things I'd care not to think about.
You see, this student used to be a narcotics officer in Honduras before he came here, and he says he's never going back. I learned this when I had the students complete the sentence, "People tell me I would be good at..." and he answered, stone-faced for once in his life, "People tell me that I would be good at killing people in Iraq." I don't think any of us expected him to say that. Then came the smartphone photos of him in his uniform with his fellow officers, brandishing his favorite guns and standing near recently confiscated contraband, beautiful green plants that have the magical ability to help people laugh almost as hard as the same officer who took it away. I must say, many a classmate of his was happy to find out he was a former narc, and not currently practicing his craft. I won't bust his chops for participating in the wasteful war on drugs, because in his country, however misguided the governmental policies may be, my student knew what it was to face risks: Honduras has the number one murder rate in the world, mostly because of drug gangs. So although I feel for the plants he confiscated, I obviously don't feel for the gangs he took them from.
Anyway, today was the first day we didn't see his smiling face around. So we all enjoyed bong rips in the hallway. Just kidding. He's working several jobs and fixing computers and hoping to go to college, moving forward with his dreams.
The students come and go. That's just how it is. Even if they stay a long time, they will move on. They have to. We all do, to some extent. I guess now I know a little more about what it's like to be a real teacher who has students for a full year. You have the same students, the same class, the same material to teach, without it changing every two months.... maybe that's why I don't want to be a "real" teacher. I'm more interested in playing with the language of the universe than explaining gerunds and infinitives, but the latter pays my electric and my rent so I can work on the former.
Today the universal language reminded me that some things that appear to be small can come full circle and make a smile in the presence of a little more beauty. When I met my new students this evening, I met them in Room 3. As I entered the room I realized something very strange: I'd taught in six of the seven classrooms in that building, but never had I taught in Room 3. I'd barely even been in Room 3 since the day I interviewed (they had leftover food in there once)! Even stranger, I've been teaching right next door, in rooms 2 and 4, practically the entire time.
Best yet, Room 3 opens onto 100th and Broadway, so I can see all these people walking by while I'm teaching. Yeah, I should be focusing on the class, but I've taught one of the books 3 times already. And they're always on us about reducing teacher talk and increasing student autonomy, so the class runs itself pretty well now anyway. That leaves plenty of time for people watching in my periphery when the students are working on something together. Then again, the people aren't that interesting right now, because it's night and it's cold and they're all walking with their heads down to get where they're going as fast as possible. If it were warmer, they'd at least be staring at their phones and bumping into each other, which is always funny.
I must say though, the rest of the scene makes it hard to concentrate between the hours of 6 and 10. There's a pizza place diagonally across from us. I don't even go to that one, but it reminds me of the other one a few blocks up, and my mouth starts to water while I try to demonstrate perfect enunciation.
A couple times a week I use one of the breaks to go up to Sal & Carmine's (often voted the best slice in New York) up on 103rd, and those large "PIZZA" signs everywhere don't make that 10 minute break come any sooner.
What's more, there's a diner across 100th, constantly in view through the large window in the back of the room, so I can see people eating there all the time. There's also an Indian restaurant directly across from us, so I can see it on my right whenever I'm grabbing my book, folder, papers, or playing a listening track on the stereo. The place used to be called Indus Valley, but now it's called Manhattan Valley, perhaps to remind me that New York City, and specifically this experience of living in Manhattan and teaching here, has been a journey in and of itself. It also reminds me to complete that book that begins in India.
This schedule has made it difficult to give optimal focus to my literary endeavor, but there is still focus, and I am still endeavoring. And when I'm at work, I am reminded that I must keep writing and working to overcome the obstacles, because the restaurant next to Manhattan Valley, as of a few months ago, is Naruto Ramen!
Okay, so maybe you're into ramen, maybe not. And maybe you're aware of that small chain in the city and don't think it's that intriguing. But remember, there's poetry everywhere. I wrote "Heroes" a couple years ago, and I still remember the student from Turkmenistan introducing me to the character of Naruto. I had asked the students to tell me about their personal hero. He was the first one I asked, and he told me about Naruto. He is his hero because he never gives up. That's fair enough, but I'm sure he slows down at times and needs his share of relaxation and recreation.
Speaking of which, it's 12:30, and I'm hungry...
I ate something. Now, another thought:
I really wanted to publish a book right around the time Bayram was telling me about Naruto. If I had, who knows... but I do know what wouldn't have happened: I wouldn't have met all the new students. Yes, that could go on forever, but there were some milestones tonight. You see, 1 of them was from Paraguay. That was a first! If you don't count those three tiny countries up above Brazil (Suriname, French Guiana, and Guyana), I've had students from every country in South America! In San Francisco I taught students from Brazil and one each from Venezuela and Bolivia, but as of now, this New York experience has helped the world greet me and me, in turn, greet the world in the form of Argentinians, Chileans, Peruvians, Ecuadorians, Colombians, and many more (almost universally delightful) Brazilians and Venezuelans. As if their peppy Spanish-Portuguese charms weren't enough to balance out my pale northern European roots of reservedness and rigidity, the good Earth had me encounter souls from Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. I haven't met anyone from Belize yet, I'm guessing because they apparently speak English there already. I should visit and find out for myself. I've already checked out our mutual neighbor.
Now, you've likely been informed by certain people (who could use a few refresher courses in the English language themselves) that Mexico is "laughing at us" because it keeps sending us all of its unwanted people. I must clarify this. Mexico is laughing, yes, but that's the only truth of it.
1st of all, they're not laughing at us, they're laughing with me (and at me, sometimes, when I deserve it). And second, if they are laughing at us, it's only because they know that they can get the most delicious food in the world, two enormous street tacos in Mexico City, for two bucks total, whereas fools north of the border are paying $10 for poor imitations of the glorious treasures, the idea of which may have wandered north, but can only truly "Viva!" beyond our border. And the ones who are here laugh because they know they were brave enough to undertake the hero journey into the unknown, whereas most us Americans are afraid to check out what's beyond the border anywhere that doesn't have a luxury beach nearby. I don't mean to accuse. It takes all of us time to overcome our jitters about the unknown, yours truly included.
Speaking of which, I finally met my 1st student from the island nation of Cuba (non-sarcastic "thanks Obama!" for that one). Of course, I also met many new students from other countries as well: Burkina Faso, Russia, Libya, Dominican Republic (of course!), Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, etc., etc. And yes, there were many students from Mexico. In fact, at 8 pm, there were 5, but for the first 20 minutes or so, there were only 3.
The first was from the city of Puebla. I've been fortunate enough to see their dignified, colorful architecture and enjoy the sensual adventure of their tantalizing, easily affordable foods... The second was from Vera Cruz. I saw a drug mule get busted by just about half the Mexican military while having dinner by the seaside. One of the soldiers nudged another one and pointed at me when they saw me taking pictures. I quickly hid the camera's memory card... The third was from Mexico City. The perfect taco.
Somehow these three had retraced my only 3 steps from my journey in Mexico and come together in Room 3, because of their own destinies, which somehow also served me. And then of course some guy from Guerrero had to show up. I secretly hoped he might have been born in Cabo San Lucas (where my cousin got married) or Juarez (where I'd first briefly crossed the border once).
In any case, people from everywhere learned and laughed, and I got a slice of pizza.
Monday, February 1, 2016
I must admit, I don't really have much to say tonight, because I've already said plenty recently. But I still wanted to say something, because I can.
So... um... hi!
I hope everything's going well, and that my creativity returns to me sometime soon.
As for what I said in class, it was mostly about happiness. We also learned about feng shui from the text book. Energy flows more fluidly when your house faces the sun and you have an aquarium, because water and light are good for ya!
So... um... hi!
I hope everything's going well, and that my creativity returns to me sometime soon.
As for what I said in class, it was mostly about happiness. We also learned about feng shui from the text book. Energy flows more fluidly when your house faces the sun and you have an aquarium, because water and light are good for ya!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
