While I’m getting warmed up as far as blogging is concerned, let me explain why I chose the title of my blog. A few years ago, I fell in love with the Broadway hit (and 2008 Tony Award winner for Best Musical), “In the Heights.” I taught the song lyrics for months and took the class to see it on Broadway in April 2009. On the surface, it has great stories about the experiences of Latinos, immigrants and young people in the U.S. On a deeper level, however, it spoke to me about how we interact with one another and support (or don’t support) goals, dreams, etc. One of the recurring symbols is a streetlight as the play takes place in the Washington Heights neighborhood of NYC. The main character, Usnavi, acts as a narrator-lead, guiding the audience through the interactions of the characters. He’s a cultural broker of sorts, making sense of these interactions of characters from all kinds of backgrounds. In the finale, he sings,
"Yeah, I'm a streetlight, chillin' in the heat.
I illuminate the stories of the people in the street.
Some have happy endings, some are bittersweet
But I know them all and that's what makes my life complete."
Those lines have become very important to me, particularly in the way I frame my job. Being an ELL teacher is very different than being any other kind of teacher. On the surface, when kids don’t know grammar, I teach them grammar. We write essays, read articles, hold debates, etc. Not too different from any other class with a language bent. Sure, there’s a challenge in that I often have students who function much less in English than any native speaker. I’ve had students who turn white when I say the unfamiliar word “welcome” or who haven’t been in school since sixth grade. All of those are unique challenges. Especially when non-speakers end up in classes where they are assigned 3-page essays on parallels between the responsibilities of today’s young adults and the baby boomers. But I digress…this is not a venting session.
The phrase I came up with in my first year of teaching to encapsulate the world of ELL is that “we deal in stories.” While on paper, our responsibilities are grammar, writing, reading, etc., those are not what flash through my mind when I think of my job. I think of the day when a student called to say she couldn’t come to school because the family had run out of oil and were freezing. I think of standing in the parking lot of a student’s apartment complex, being offered a beer from his father after celebrating his son’s graduation. I think of calling a student’s health insurance company to help her add family members to her plan. I think of what felt like the weekly visit to the nurse to announce the latest pregnancy in ELL-world. Teaching ELL is really an exercise in managing, triaging and often absorbing the stories that flow through the classroom daily. It means being the first responder for every student’s story, good, bad or indifferent. The hardest part of my job, as I see it, is teaching students that DON’T understand that kind of struggle. This year, I am constantly wrestling with how I interact with students who feel and act entitled, unsympathetic and/or rude while wanting to devote all my time to those who carry heavy burdens and even heavier stories. It’s a delicate balance of professionalism and superhero syndrome.
Somewhere in between there, though, is where I see the streetlight. I’m an observer but hopefully, I can bring just a little light into some lives that need an advocate. And if they can distinguish between a noun, verb and adjective when I’m done, that would be stupendous as well.
