Bienvenidos, Students! No habla español.

bienvenidos
When I started college, I wanted to be a news anchor.

Correction: I wanted to be the next Mary Hart (my love of Hollywood and obsession with the absurdity of celebrity life goes way, way back).

I could’ve totally rocked that hair

So I enrolled in the Walter Cronkite School of Telecommunications at Arizona State University and began my journey to the red carpet and the multitude of A-list parties and friendships I was certain would come with it.

About three months into my freshman year, one of my sorority sisters walked past me carrying a towering stack of children’s picture books.
I love books, but I love children’s picture books most of all.
When I discovered they were part of her homework for her children’s literature class and that she was an Elementary Education major, I was instantly intrigued.
A class where you got to read picture books?
A career where you got to read picture books? Sign me up.

I could be a teacher. I mean, I’d always liked kids. In fact, three of my many jobs during my college years were teaching dance and crafts at the Scottsdale Girls Club Summer Camp, working in the pre-school at the ASU Psychology Department’s Child Study Lab (where students studied kids instead of rats) and nannying an ASU Psych professor’s two adorable toddlers a few days every week during my senior year.
So I made the switch to Elementary Education, and instantly felt like I was meant to be a teacher.
Cut to four years later.

After student teaching 4th grade in a high-income neighborhood in Scottsdale, I was ready to find the perfect job in the perfect school with perfect students who, of course, loved their perfect teacher.
Then I graduated.

And over the course of the summer, I had to face the fact that
1.) nobody was hiring, and
2.) the few schools in the 40 mile radius that were hiring were not hiring fresh-faced 22 year old college grads with zero experience, no matter how cute she looked in her spankin’ new Julia Robert’s inspired polka-dot interview suit (with shoulder-pads, obviously).

About a week before school was supposed to start and I was thinking I’d be spending the next few years working at Taco Bell and reading the stacks of picture books I’d been collecting for the past three years to my cat, my best friend and college roommate’s mom (who just so happened to be the superintendent in a local school district) called. I’d interviewed with her earlier in the summer, but sadly there were no openings in her schools at the time.
But now there was.
One job.
And she wanted me to take it.
There was just one tiny problem.
Did I happen to speak Spanish?
Not one word.

She gave me the job anyway (thanks to our shared love of cats, her daughter and my kick-ass interview suit, obviously).
I took the job as a 5th grade ESL teacher in a very low-income school in a suburb of Phoenix three days before school started.
(ESL, for those of you who don’t know, stands for “English as a Second Language”, which meant my classroom would be the one where the 5th grade Hispanic kids would be placed — the 5th grade Hispanic kids who didn’t speak English.)
I quickly got to work decorating my very first classroom and tried to put the fact that I wouldn’t be able to communicate with a good percentage of my students out of my mind.

My very first classroom was located out in a portable, i.e., a small, decrepit metal trailer set out in the dusty playground about 50 yards from the main school building.
Not to be deterred, I put my mother and my boyfriend (now Husband) to work cutting out letters and hanging posters and trying, desperately, to make it look welcoming to my new students.

As the pictures above prove, by the time the first day of school arrived, I was listo para rodar (“ready to roll” for all you non-Spanish speaking folk…LIKE ME).

The morning of my first day, I was up before dawn primping and prepping and ironing and hot-rolling and spraying to make sure I looked just right; that I commanded just the right balance of authoritativeness and friendliness that I wanted to convey to my students, who, by the way, I’d discovered the day before included a few known gang members’ younger sisters.

As you can see, I nailed it.

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I remember waiting nervously for my students to arrive that first morning.

And when they did and took one look at me, the expressions of amusement and skepticism mixed with the looks of “We own you” on their faces was clear — I was done

Most of the girls were dressed in black, with long straight hair and very tall bangs or in a variety of neon colored clothes that were ripped and ragged (remember, this was 1991…the 80’s influence was still very present). The boys were looking at me through slitted eyes whispering what I could only imagine were extremely inappropriate comments or perhaps elaborate “sink the teacher” plans behind their hands. The Spanish-speaking-only kids were speaking rapidly to each other and were clearly thrilled when they realized I could not comprehend one word they were saying in their conversations, which I’m sure included many words that should not be spoken in a 5th grade classroom.

Those first few weeks were tough.

One boy continuously jabbed scissors into the hands of anyone sitting near him; two girls refused to follow the school’s guidelines of not wearing known gang colors or writing gang symbols on their notebooks and had to be sent to the principal’s office every day; one girl was passing notes to another where she detailed the porn movie she’d watched the night before and I had to call her parents and, upon request, read the note; one boy told me outright that he had a major crush on me; a handful of students couldn’t understand anything I said.

But I stuck with it.
I stuck with that daunting, rag-tagged group of kids.
I set boundaries and listened to their stories and always — always — treated them with respect and didn’t judge.
And you know what?
We made it work…and became the unlikeliest sort of family.

By Christmastime, César had taught me how to say the days of the week, the months of the year, and a few questionable words in Spanish (and endeared himself in my heart forever with his sweet smile and chocolate brown eyes); Christina brought me a tree ornament as a gift when her family couldn’t even afford a tree of their own; the gang girls finally stopped wearing their ‘LA Raiders’ shirts and started drawing the lesser evil ‘skull & crossbones’ on their folders; Ricky still got sent out to the bench a few times a week for hitting people or stabbing them with his scissors, but I grew to recognize his triggers and helped him to understand them as well; and Danny finally came to terms with his crush on me (after the devastating blow of my engagement and a very long heart to heart).

And they even grew to accept (or ignore) my love of Chambray, shoulder pads and gigantic hair bows.

I only taught for a little over four years before I had my first daughter dangerously prematurely and had to quit, but I’ll never forget that first class and all that they taught me.
They taught me about resilience; they taught me about acceptance; they taught me that I could make a difference. 

Those kids are 32 years old now.
32 years old.
And I’d like to think that a just a few of them remember me with the same fondness and appreciation as I remember them.

**************************************
 

*Update — 24 hours after originally posting*
My 17 year old who has taken Spanish for about six years just told me that the title of this post is incorrect. Apparently it is supposed to say, “No hablO español.” 
Told you I didn’t speak Spanish. 

9 Comments

  1. Kenya on September 4, 2013 at 1:21 pm

    They were lucky to have you!

    • Michelle on September 4, 2013 at 5:26 pm

      Aw, thanks! I think it took awhile to realize, but in the end we were all lucky to have each other!

  2. Darcy Perdu on September 4, 2013 at 4:27 pm

    Great story — and I love those bows on your toes to keep up with the gang members!

    • Michelle on September 4, 2013 at 5:27 pm

      Thanks — and yeah, I was bad-ass, wasn’t I ?!? 🙂

  3. Simply Evani on September 4, 2013 at 5:22 pm

    Love this story. You have so many amazing stories to tell and I’m glad you look back on that time fondly. I would bet they do too.

    • Michelle on September 4, 2013 at 5:28 pm

      Thank you! When you get to be my age, you do collect a few good stories! I hope you’re right. I often wonder if any of them remember their old (very young) 5th grade teacher who always wore a giant hair bow in her ponytail and preached about making good choices. I hope they do…and I hope they did.

  4. Dyanne @ I Want Backsies on September 5, 2013 at 12:32 am

    I love, love, LOVE this story! (Of COURSE, Elementary Ed is the best major – have you gotten a load of the math classes those OTHER suckers have to take?! Calculus? Trig? Psssh! Try Math for Elementary Teachers instead!)

    You made an impact on kids who needed a positive influence in their lives, chambray skirt, poofy hair, shoulder pads and all. Even if they don’t remember YOU (but how could they NOT?), they still carry a part of you with them.

  5. Sparkling on September 5, 2013 at 1:53 am

    They do. But probably for ridiculous reasons. Think about the teachers you remember. I always remember crazy things they didn’t mean for me to even notice, let alone remember.

  6. Amy FunnyIsFamily on September 10, 2013 at 1:10 am

    I love this story! At first I was crying because I was laughing so hard, at both your delightful humor and that picture, but then I was crying because of the sentiment. What a special year for you and your kids. And then I was crying again because of the wrong title. Full circle moment, right there.

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