Notes from public school - day 99

Notes from public school - day 99


There is a wonderful scene in Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird (which, by the way, is in Trevor’s top 10 favorite books of all time list) where the all-white jury has returned an unjust verdict against Tom Robinson. Atticus begins to wearily walk out of the courthouse. Jem and Scout are in the balcony with the black folks of the county. They all rise as Atticus walks out—except the children—so the Rev. Sykes says to Scout, “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.”

Maria sat down and looked across at me with earthy brown eyes. She is one of the many English Speakers of Other Languages at my school. Her parents speak only Spanish in the home. Carola and Marcelo Suarez-Orozco have written brilliantly and eloquently about children like her in their book Learning A New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society. They remind us how valuable and vulnerable our immigrant students are in the first years they are in America.

Maria is learning a new land.

"Maria, do you speak Spanish at home? Do your mamí and papí speak Spanish at home?” I asked.

"Yes,” she answered.

"And you speak English at school."

"Yes, I'm bilingual!"

"You are bilingual. You have to be so smart to be able to speak two languages and to help your mamí and papí understand your teachers. You’re my hero.”

You do have to be so smart to live in one language and learn another.

After Maria finished her benchmark test, after she translated my English into Spanish and her Spanish back into English for me, she stood up and walked with me down the hall.

I felt like saying, "Teachers and administrators, stand up. Maria’s passin'."