Shestories

The first time I was in F 128 was the day that I interviewed for my job. After the committee had asked me a set of 20 questions in a conference room, we moved to this classroom where I was to give a teaching demonstration. I had to pretend that the committee were ESL students, to whom I was to teach a lesson on thought pauses, one aspect of English pronunciation taught to ESL students. I remember liking the room that day because as I stood in the front of the class facing the “students “, behind them was a row of floor to ceiling rectangular windows that faced a large stretch of green grass and picnic tables scattered under several towering shade trees.

I have grown to love this classroom, having taught at least one class every semester in F 128. Sometimes, but not very often, I am in there alone. All the students have left after a class and I am putting my textbook and notes into my briefcase. Before I walk out the door, I take a long look at the empty desks and I remember students who have sat at those desks. I remember the blackboard covered with my handwriting, teaching them one thing or another. I remember their laughter, I remember their problems, their sadness. I remember students who always sat together, inseparable friends. I remember the romances between students, resentments between students, the look on their faces when they passed a test they thought they had failed, and vice versa. I remember the young man who always fell asleep in that last desk in the first row. He was a cab driver… all night, every night.

From time to time I try to explain to an acquaintance about my students. I have learned over the years that it is difficult for someone who is not in my field to understand these students whom I have come to love and cherish. Over the years, I have written several stories about them in further attempts to explain them to others and, at times, to myself, if truth be told. However, I have never felt I did them justice.

Recently, in an advanced reading class which met in F 128, my students read a short story written by a man who was raised as a migrant worker, with his family moving from farm to farm, and the memories of both the good and the bad of this experience which in retrospect he cherished. The author was especially fond of the one cooking pot his mother had to feed her large family, explaining it in great detail to his readers. After reading this story, and discussing it in class, the students were asked to write a paragraph about an item that they remembered from their childhood or a memory from their childhood that they feel shaped them into who they are today.

Any teacher will tell you that the same assignment given to two classes will yield two very different results. This assignment with this class yielded wondrous results. After reading and rereading what my students  had written, I realized why all my attempts to explain them was in vain. Here, in these short stories, they had done it themselves in their own words. My intent in sharing them with you is that in reading their stories, they can touch your life as they have mine over the years in F 128.

My family and I have kept a video tape player for 17 years. My father bought it brand new. Since then, we have collected all the Disney VHS tapes, movies of all kind and even our own life in tape. Thirteen years ago, my family and I moved to Montreal. We took about ten suitcases, some bags and a box with the VHS. Three years after, we moved back to Venezuela. We took back our VHS to show family back home how was Canada. Our family did not have a VHS, so it was really helpful for us to have one. When we were there the video player started to have problems with the recording and also each time the tape was playing the player burned the plastic inside the tape. My sisters and I felt sad knowing that the VHS was not working well and that we would not probably see more movies or record any movies ever again. My father knew that we loved it and he decided to send it to a friend to fix it. I remember going with him. I felt so happy that we would finally have our VHS back to enjoy more movies and memories. My father’s friend fixed it cheaply and taught him how to fix it incase it breaks down in the future. Three months passed, when we finally left Venezuela to United States and I remember carrying that same box with the VHS that have brought us many memories. Not too long ago, we start seeing DVD and Blue Ray, but for my family and I our VHS will always be the best.

Loida Dongarra Venezuela

When I see oranges it remains me of Christmas. I would get them only in December because it was the harvest time for this fruit in Southern Russia. Parents would stay in line a long time so they could buy some for their children. I do not know why but oranges were sold outside of the stores all time. The streets were covered with snow and oranges looked so shiny. This fruit was a part of Christmas presents and a symbol of celebration. The smell of oranges was everywhere and it reminded people about vacation. The day before Christmas parents let us open our presents. We ran out on the street and compared our oranges. Who had the biggest became queen or king of the street. I was queen all time because my uncle sent me oranges from Moscow. Boys and girls never had been in my position because they had actually a mandarin that much smaller than orange. But I had a REAL ORANGE which was sent by my uncle who bought it in Greece. Only one time I had been beaten by a new girl but she brought a grapefruit. Later we discovered this fake, and we dethroned her from the queen position. We were allowed to eat our oranges, but we had to return the skin to our mothers. They dried the skin and used it for cooking some cakes. I live in America now, but I give my neighbor’s children oranges each year making their parents confused. I just explain that it is a Ukrainian tradition and the parents smile and I am happy.

PS Mrs. Boland If it ever snows in Virginia, put oranges on snow, it will look amazing.

Natalya Robinson Ukraine

One of the most memorable memories that I have from my childhood is when in my country, the Dominican Republic, we would have blackouts. Most nights all you would see were the stars and the moon. All of the children from the neighborhood would come out from their houses and gather up in the park that was across the street from my house. We would tell stories and riddles. We would laugh so hard that our stomachs would hurt. We would also light a fire and keep ourselves warm. Some of the older children would scare the smaller ones saying myths like the “chupra cabra’ would eat us if we misbehaved. I was part of the smaller children and that was scary when they would say that. We also had times when we would all gather and play hide and seek. Around Christmas time when everyone was asleep one family would wake up and take their instruments and go from one house to another singing Christmas songs and playing their instruments. They would stay there in front of your house until you came out or until you turned on the lights. Then you would join the group until everyone gathered together. We would go to the park in front of my house and light a camp fire and make ginger tea. We would stay there till morning and then from there we would go to church. I really miss those moments from my childhood.

Roxanny Monegro Dominican Republic

My childhood was not bad, but it was not great either. Both my mother and father worked, and they made just a little money. My family lived in the city. The children went to school on weekdays. They did not need to work for money. Also, there weren’t jobs for the children. So we helped our parents doing the housework at home. There were six people in my family. Because I was taller and stronger then my older sister, my parents assigned me to work on the yard all the time. It was easy in the summer, but it was very hard in the winter because the temperature reached -15C at daytime. We used coal and wood for heat. Every weekend I had to make the wood and coal from big pieces into small pieces so it could be fitted in the firepot. I wore a very long winter coat, thick gloves, a hat, a scarf, and a pair of big boots while I was working. After an hour, my feet were numb, but my body was already sweating. We had about twenty chickens. We sold eggs for a little extra money for our family. It was my job to go to a very far place to buy chicken food. I used a sledge to carry the food home. It was not easy for a twelve year old girl. We couldn’t have eggs every day. So two eggs would be my reward for the hard work.

Zhe Wang China

I am the last child of my parents. My dad was a farmer. When I grew up my older brothers had got a job and they were moved to the city. In our culture men work outdoors jobs only. After my eight years birthday I started working outside to hold the cattle. We had a lot of cows, ox, sheep, goats, donkeys, and horses. I was responsible to protect them to wild animals like hyenas and fox. It was very dangerous especially nighttime. After my ages of ten, I started working the farm with my dad and his employee. Farm work can be very hard hours and long, often sunrise to sunset. I rarely had a day off. For all the the workdays I went to the farm early, my lunch and my book bag was with me because I went to school straight from the farm. I washed my hands and foot on my way with running water. There was no transportation from my village to the school. I walked one hour and half every day. I slept in class and I felt so tired at the time. Most of the time Sunday I washed my clothes in the river. My family they don’t know about homework and assignments. Sometimes it was hard to explain for them. I always woke up early with my mom’s hand clapping sound and I always remember that was the time to breakfast. I miss it.

Dawit Habtemariam Morrocco

When I see a chocolate which is shaped like an egg it reminds me of my childhood. The egg chocolate was little treats from my father. A little toy was inside the chocolates, and I used to collect the toys for treasure. My father was a very busy man. He used to come home from work after I went to sleep, and he left the house before I woke up. So, I did not have a chance to see him on weekdays. However, I did not miss him not much because every night he putted the chocolate on my bedside when he came home. When I woke up every morning, he was gone, but I received treats from him told “Good Morning”. My mother told me “Your father loves you very much, and if you are a good girl, he will give you a treat.” I always tried to be a good girl because I wanted to show my father how much I love him too. I also anticipated receiving the treats from him. When I was a child, I don’t have much memory of him, but I felt much of my father’s love because of the chocolates.

Sachiyo Browning Japan

I have an unforgettable memory that occurred when I was 7 years old. My hometown is a snowy area. However, that year was an extremely heavy snow. It was Tuesday or Wednesday in January. I went to school as usual. Because many snow tracks worked to remove the snow, the road was clean. However, I noticed that snow did not stop at all while I was taking the morning classes. At the lunchtime, the teacher informed that the afternoon class was cancelled. Therefore, I left the school. First I walked with 100 students. I was still comfortable although bad weather. After walked 30 minutes, half of students had already reached their home. When I reached my village, only several students were with me. Then I reached quarter miles from my home, but I was alone. I became fear because I could not see any footprints on the road. I attempted to walk several steps, but the snow was higher than my waist, and I stopped the snowstorm. I cried aloud, but no one through the road. However, the old woman who lived near the road noticed me. Then she invited me in the warm room. While I was eating mandarin orange, the old woman called my home. Then my grandmother came to pick me up. After that, I walked again the snowy road with my grandmother. There were strong snowstorms, but I was comfortable because I was not alone. Even though it occurred a long time ago, I remember when I walk on the snowy road.

Yuki Takashima Japan

Every weekday morning, shortly after I have opened my office door and turned my computer on, I walk down the hallway to the supply room to make myself a cup of coffee. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, AJ and Annette are always sitting at the table just outside the supply room, she reading the newspaper, eating a snack, he strapped into his wheelchair, chatting with her. AJ has trouble speaking. He speaks very loudly, and I had heard his voice quite a lot as it carried down the hall to my office.  I could never understand what he was saying, but I think this was because I walked by too fast or did not listen long enough because I would see Annette watching his face and nodding her head as she spoke with AJ, engaged and in complete comprehension.

Annette takes exceptional care of AJ. She wheels him to his class before it starts, picks him up when it ends, feeds him his lunch, wheels him to the library, and chats with him between his classes. They seem to have quite a friendship and it is beautiful to watch. One fine autumn day the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the air was fresh. As I walked to another building for one of my classes, I spotted the two of them. She was sitting on a bench overlooking a pond and AJ was pulled up close to her in his wheelchair. Annette was spoon feeding AJ his lunch. I find myself wondering if AJ’s mother knows how well her son is looked after. I guess because I am a mother I have those thoughts.

I can pretty much see AJ’s problems. He does not have control of his arms and legs, so they are strapped down in his wheelchair. I suspect that he also does not have control of his tongue, which accounts for his difficulty in articulating sounds. One cannot walk by AJ without admiring him. With all his limitations, with all his struggles, he gets up and gets on with it each day.

Nobody can see my problems. Sometimes I wish my problems were as visible as AJ’s. Perhaps then people would be kinder, more forgiving, more gentle with me. Perhaps I would even have an Annette who completely understood my burdens and stayed beside me all day. But when I take a long honest look at the students coming and going on my community college campus, I understand that I am not the only one with invisible problems. And with all our limitations, with all our struggles, we all get up and get on with it each day.

I have AJ and Annette to thank for this lesson. So one morning last week on my march to the coffee pot, I presented them each with a bar of chocolate. Annette sweetly thanked me. Then, as clear as a church bell,  AJ belted out “God Bless You”.

God Bless us all.

I remember the first time I noticed her. It was the second time that class met in that fall semester, and the we were working on asking a question in English, which is not an easy task for basic level students at the community college where I was teaching English as a Second Language. My students were taking turns going to the front of the room, where they were to write the name of someone whom they knew. Then the rest of the class would ask questions about this person, until the class had discovered who this person was, what they did for a living, where they lived, how their classmate knew them, why they had chosen to write their name on the board, etc. When it was her turn, Be walked to the front of the room and wrote a “Joana” on the board.

Be was an older woman, and she immediately stood out. All of her classmates were between 18 and 20, graduates of local high schools. Their written English, upon taking the placement test at the community college, was not up to speed for freshman composition. In fact, their English skills were so low that they were placed in a course which began with simple tenses, simple sentence structure, and how to ask a simple question. It was a slow and painful process, which would take all the 16 week semester ahead of us, to also get them to put on “s” on “he gets”, to take the “s” off of “informations” , to put the “s” on the verb – not the infinitive, as in “he like to eats”. This was hard enough for my younger students, but not impossible.

But Be was to present a real challenge to me, as she was a senior citizen, who could take classes at the community college for free if there was an empty desk. Her writing sample from the first day of class made me suspect that she had very little education in her first language, Vietnamese. However, this woman had a presence that was disarming. It was not a verbal presence – she was actually very quiet. But she was just there all the time, looking at you, the teacher, waiting to be taught, waiting to be told what to do next, her written work showing how very little of what you said she understood, so little, yet …..

But I am getting ahead of myself. The first time I noticed her was the day she waddled to the front of the room and wrote “Joana” on the board.

Who is Joana? Is she your daughter? Is she a friend?

Be stared ahead of herself, lost in thought, pointing vaguely to the empty space on her left side. Then finally across her face came a hint of a smile, and than a hard point to the empty space on her left side, and then she said “NEIGHBOR’ rather loudly.

OK. The class had that question answered, and Be clearly had everyone’s attention.

Does she live near you?

“My apartment. No. Next one. ” This information was given with a series of hard points to the empty space at her left side.

We were all curious now about this short, pudgy woman in front of us, with long, stringy dark hair, streaked with gray, which hung down to her thickish waist. She was dressed in polyester pull-on pants and a matching pastel-colored sweater that had seen better days. She wore open toed shoes, revealing callused, yellowed malformed toes which seemed to wrap around each other, almost resembling the roots of an old tree. Be was not a day under sixty. Her deep brown eyes were set between high and wide cheekbones, over which was her soft light brown skin was ever so gently wrinkled. But there was something in her dark eyes that was quick. Some understanding, some knowledge, something there that made me want to know more about her.

Then a student asked – “What she do? Joana? She work?”

And Be replied: “She dancer. You know? Go-Go Dancer?” And with this, Be slowly raised her arms to her shoulders, and then she stretched out her hands towards the class, placing her hands seductively on her hips. Then she began to roll her hips. The students sat in silence. Then Be leaned forward and drew her shoulders together, the position a dancer will take to show her cleavage, keeping her head up and looking straight at her classmates. She started a slow turn to her left, and proceeded to dance slowly and seductively in a little circle in the front of the classroom. By now, my students were howling with laughter.

I was trying, unsuccessfully, to get them to calm down while her back was turned to us. I was terrified that Be would be insulted. I glared at them, and kept signaling with my hand for them to calm down As Be completed her circle, I saw her smile again, a smile that would become so familiar to me over the next two semesters.

“You like? Yeah, me old lady. Me know.” Be stood at the front of my classroom, beaming at each of her newly-found friends, beaming at me, obviously delighted with herself. She stood as straight as she could at the front of the room with her arms now limply at her side. The show was over. She smiled, pointed to herself, and said

“Yeah. Me Be.”

That was the day I first noticed Be Pham.

The fall semester ended, and Be had to repeat this basic level class in the spring, as she had made no progress at all. This was not a surprise, since learning a language at her age is difficult enough without the handicap of very little education in your first language to further slow you down. But through her weekly writing assignments during the fall and spring semesters of my first year with Be, I managed to find out more about Be. She had had a son by an American GI during the Vietnam War. Since her son’s status as an Amerasian put him in jeopardy in his country, the two f them were able to come to this country. A year after Be’s arrival in the states, she was able to bring her mother, who was still living, over here as well. Be explained to me that she lived alone with her bedridden mother. I asked her what had happened to her son.

“He fly away. He no like me.” She paused for a short moment, and went on to tell me how much she liked to be with the young people in my class. They made her feel good.

The final exam for this course required that students had to write a short essay of about 200 – 300 words that demonstrated a command of several tenses – simple past, past perfect, simple present, present perfect, present perfect continuous, simple future. Once this was accomplished, students would advance to the second level of English language courses where they would learn about complex sentence structures, gerunds, infinitives, and relative clauses. Be failed the final again at the end of the spring semester, so I assumed I would see her again in the fall.

When I read down the roster of students for my fall class, Be Pham was listed as a registered student, but I did not see her, at first, sitting in the classroom. Then I saw those quick dark eyes. I did not recognize her at first because Be was wearing a wig that gave her shoulder-length wavy brown hair cut into a shag, fashionable at the time. She was also wearing a wrist- length fake fur coat that zippered up the front. The coat was the same color as the wig. When I called her name on the roll “Be Pham?” expecting to here the expected response of “Here”.

Instead, Lucy replied: “Me Lucy now. American name, Teacher.”

“Lucy?”

A big smile, and she said “Here.”

I had often come across students who preferred to take an American name, which they usually chose by themselves, over their given name. This was most common when their given name was difficult for Americans to pronounce, or the American pronunciation sounded like another word in English which was offensive. Young men whose given name was Dung on my roster, most always had an American name. However, I suspected that the wig and the fur coat was closely associated with Be’s name change.

Anyway , in the fall semester of my second year, Be became Lucy. And Lucy knew her way around campus. And she also knew how to make friends. The other students, though I knew they found her funny and often made jokes about her, liked Lucy. I would see the young Vietnamese boys carrying her books for her as they made their way to the cafeteria for a snack between classes. She finagled rides from students with cars so she would not have to take the bus to campus. If she was absent, someone in class always knew why – they had talked to her the night before, or Lucy had told them about another appointment she had with the foot doctor. Be was always having trouble with her feet. The students knew what was going on in Be’s life outside of the classroom. They seemed to keep tabs on her. I suppose one could attribute this to the Asian respect for age, but I was certain that it was more than this. It had something to do with Be. She was important. I am not sure why, but her well-being was important to everyone in that class.

She failed the final again, and enrolled in my class for the fourth time that spring. The administrator of the program noticed this fourth enrollment, and began to ask questions. It was explained to me that college policy states that students could attend as long as they were making progress in their studies. Be was clearly not making any progress. An review was done of her record, and it was proclaimed that Be Pham really belonged in the adult education program run by the city. They had teachers there who could teach her how to read , which was not in the realms of the remedial English program at the community college. The writing was on the walls that Lucy would have to leave. A meeting was arranged around the middle of that spring semester.

At the meeting there was a the department chair, myself, and a translator to help communicate with Be. The department chair spoke first. Through the translator, she explained to Be the college policy, and how that related to Be’s record at the community college. The chair proceeded to explain her recommendation that Be attend the adult education classes offered by the city.

Then it was Be’s turn to speak. She pleaded her case, through her translator, telling us how much she enjoyed her classes, enjoyed the other students, enjoyed “teacher” – looking directly at me with those dark eyes that now looked sad and pleading.

It was my turn to speak, and I told Be that I enjoyed her, too. But as her teacher, I felt she would learn more with teachers trained to teach her the skills she needed first, like how to read, before coming to the community college. The teacher in me knew I had to say this, but my heart just silently listened to me speak. Be sat silent as the translator explained what I had just said, but I think Be could read me by then. No translator was really needed for her to know how I felt. I knew she would never be able to come back to the community college, and from her sharp dark eyes, I could tell she knew it too. With grace, she gave into us. “I will go.” she said. ” Be go.”

After our last class that spring, Be shuffled into my office with a large cardboard box, about 12″ by 12″, in a K-Mart bag.

“For teacher” she said.

I opened the box, to find a plastic wall clock in the shape of a large heart. It was bright red, with a small clock in the lower right hand corner, and a ghastly ornate arrangement of neon-colored dried flowers in the upper left hand corner.

I told Be how beautiful I thought it was, but I scolded her for spending her money on me.

“Oh! You no worry , Teacher. It real cheap. But so nice.” And then those dark eyes looked deep into mine, as if she understood everything I could not say, and she assured me “You nice too, teacher.”

I never saw her again, nor have I ever been able to forget her.

There is no doubt that we have outgrown the agrarian school calendar. However, I would argue that by sheer serendipity, our national character is rooted in the experience afforded by the long summer months away from school. In fact, what makes us so darn good, when contrasted with our international colleagues in the global marketplace, is not so much what we learned in school, but rather what we learned from our summer job.

Several years ago I was teaching pronunciation to an executive from one of those highly-cultured European countries – let’s call it France- that keeps insisting, verbally and nonverbally, that they are smarter than us. When I arrived at his Kempsville home for a tutorial session one evening he was outraged about an assignment his oldest son, an eighth grader, had done that day in school. His son had spent the better part of the afternoon on a computer typing a five page report on some suitable eighth grade topic. His fury was over the fact that his son spent an inordinate amount of time typing. With a very strong – but highly cultured – accent, he exclaimed : My zon (read son) will have a zecretarY (stress the last syllable) to do zis type of work. He does not need to know how to type.”Type” was pronounced “tip” – one of his pronunciation problems that had me there in the first place. But one did not need a Masters in linguistics to know EXACTLY what this guy was talking about.

It was the way he said secretary that really ticked me off. His intonation suggested that such a person was beneath him – and his 12 year old son. The perfect lesson for the evening would have been for me to wave my magic wand and turn this ragiing dinosaur into a secretary for a couple of months. But he couldn’t really help himself. After all, he was hired right out of university, which had been preceeded by twelve years of year round elementary and secondary school. No primitive agrarian calendar over there!

About two years ago I attended an evening workshop at a local high school entitled “How to Write a Good College Entrance Essay”. A woman from the admissions office of one of our most prestigious state universities was there, and she read to the crowd of 100 juniors a really good college essay she had recently received.

The writer explained that while a junior in high school, he was not sure he even wanted to go to college, never mind medical school to follow in his father’s footsteps. That summer he took a job in local garage and worked long hours alongside the two men who ran the garage. When he wasn’t pumping gas and changing oil, the men patiently and thoroughly taught him how to do other jobs around the station, like fixing a punctured tire or checking brake linings. He was always dog-tired after working all day in the unairconditioned bay, and he would sit out front waiting for his ride home. He explained how every day at the same time one of the men would be picked up by his wife who always had their two toddlers in the back seat. The rising senior never could figure out where this man found the energy to run to his kids, pick them up, twirl them around, and chase them around the station every evening before they all got in the car to go home.

Over the summer he developed a deep admiration for these two men who were as committed to to doing their job right as they were to their families. One day he hoped he could be a Dad like that. But more than that, from his summer job experience, he realized that it did not matter if you were fixing a puncture in someone’s tire or a puncture in someone’s heart – we all have to depend on each other to make it work.

I was mesmerized by this essay. But what really blew me away was the response from the crowd of 100 high school juniors. They cheered. They clapped. They got up on their chairs and hooted and hollered. They got it. I’d like to think that every 18-year-old American would. I’m not sure that French guy ever did. And I ‘m not sure that if we do away with the summer job experience, our national character will stay on course and intact.

I had been teaching English as a Second language at the community college for four years when my husband was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where we were to be stationed for two years. The last day of class was a beautiful spring day, and my students had many questions about what courses they were supposed to take in the fall semester if they passed all their final exams. Using the blackboard, I went step-by-step through the sequence of classes, writing the title of each course they were required to take next. These students knew that I taught two courses; the writing course they had just completed, and the reading course for the next level up – the one to which they would be advancing. They asked if I would again be teaching that reading course in the fall.

I lied and said yes. I had practiced telling this lie the night before, in front of my bathroom mirror, just in case they asked. I feared that I could not tell my students that I was leaving without choking up. Although I was looking forward to the experience of living in Guantanamo Bay, the saying of good-bye to my students, and the community college student body that I had grown so fond of, was far too difficult for me. So I lied, and said I would see them in the fall.

They filed out of the classroom, with See you next year coming from every other one. Finally, no one was left in the room but one young man from Japan. Yoshi was about 19 years old, slim, short, shiny black hair, gold wire-rimmed glasses, and immaculate clothes. He stood by his desk in the room that was now still and quiet. He walked with purpose to where I was standing by the teacher’s desk until he was standing directly in front of me. Yoshi proceeded to scan my face, but with a softness in his jet black eyes. Then, with the same softness in his voice as I saw in his eyes, he said “You are not coming back.”

An enormous knot lodged in my throat, and all I could manage was one nod of my head in agreement. Yoshi raised his chin, straightened his back, placed his arms squarely at his sides, and paused for one moment in front of me. Then, he gracefully bent forward, lowering himself in a bow of farewell to his teacher. Before I could recover, he had walked out of the room.

I am thinking about this moment from so long ago on another beautiful spring day as I sit and watch another set of students who will file out of the classroom upon finishing the writing of their final exam. Benjamin is not here for his final exam, but I will remember him as vividly as I have Yoshi over all these years. He was tall, unusual for a male student from Taiwan, and slim almost to the point of skinny. His hair was cropped, and stood up on end just a bit – dashing, and showing a sense of style unusual among my male Asian students. Benjamin certainly had style: he also had beautiful hands with long, slender fingers. Over the course of the semester, I had come to look forward to in-class writing assignments so I could watch Benjamin write. He began by scribbling a word or two, and then flat-out dropped his pencil onto the surface of his desk. He then closed his eyes three-quarters of the way, and seemed to think about what he was trying to say. At this point, both his hands were raised out over the desk, moving in unison with his thoughts. Benjamin was shaping his ideas with his long, graceful fingers. After a few moments, he picked up his pencil, wrote down two or three lines of words, dropped the pencil back onto the desk, closing his eyes, raising his hands again.

I have found that my Asian students have a tendency to think in pictures. It stands to reason, as their first language is not communicated in letters but in characters, which are actually pictures. Yong, a Chinese physicist who works as a researcher for NASA, gave me perhaps my best confirmation of this theory. I was under contract working one-on-one with Yong because Yong’s colleagues had trouble understanding his speech. “He mumbles. Perhaps he is not confident. He does not move his lips when he talks. For an audience , he can start out speaking clearly, but then when he gets engrossed in the material he is presenting, he slips back to this mumbling.” Further down on the initial assessment form, his supervisor noted that Yong was the top scientist in the world in his field, remote sensing, and that he has great potential. But he mumbles.

His supervisor was right. Yong’s lips did not move when he spoke, but most especially his upper lip which he kept glued to his top front teeth. I explained and demonstrated to Yong that consonants are made by holding the tongue or lip against a certain part of the mouth. By using a mirror, he could compare his own lip movement with mine. As he watched himself speak, I told him that it was impressive that he could manage to enunciate most consonants with his upper lip glued to his front teeth. However, I went on to explain that vowel sounds are quite different. Vowel sounds are made by configuring your tongue a certain way in the empty space of your mouth, and then shaping your lips in one of three ways to make the sound come out right. It is similar to how sound comes out of a musical instrument in that the sound omitted depends a lot on the physical shape of the hole – as in a trumpet, a guitar, or a flute.

My Chinese physicist caught on very quickly. However, the fixing of it was something else. Over the course of the next few weeks we studied the sixteen distinct English vowels sounds listing each one under one of these three lip shapes.

We had been working for several weeks when Yong had to cancel our session due to his attending an international conference for physicists. At the start of the next lesson I asked him about the conference, and he launched into a detailed analysis of the different presentation styles of scientists from different countries. His analysis

matched research I was familiar with on this same topic, and I drew the visuals for three distinct rhetorical styles. English follows a straight line. I had drawn a straight vertical line through three boxes representing the introduction, which includes a clear thesis statement, the body, which traditionally includes three strong examples, and the conclusion, which usually offers a plan of action or some wisdom gained. Then I drew the Asian rhetorical pattern, a small dot around which is a continuous tight line of enlarging concentric circles. The thesis – or idea – is represented by the dot, but the thesis/idea itself is never addressed directly by the writer. Rather, one goes round and round it. Yong nodded in agreement, and remarked that this often leads to miscommunication with non-Asian cultures, and that miscommunication leads to confrontation, and confrontation is something that is very hard for Asians…which is why they communicate in circles rather than direct, straight lines.

I picked up my pencil and next to the three-box English rhetorical pattern, I drew another one. I suggested to Yong that with the English pattern, and so in the English-speaking mind, there can be two legitimate arguments on the same issue, yet each one reaches a different answer. People may then agree to disagree.

“Ah”, he said. “But Susan, this is the problem. In English you think there are two answers. In this approach” and he pointed to the continuous circle around the dot, “we know that there is only one answer….just different ways to look at it.”

Then he took my pencil from my hand and divided the Asian circle into six pieces, as if it were a pie. He then put a dot into each piece of pie. He drew a line to show that the dot in each piece of pie represented a person looking at the one answer from a different point of view. I am ashamed to say that I had been working with these rhetorical patterns with students for close to 15 years, but I had never thought of this in this way.

I was lost in thought about this when I realized that it was the end of the examination period, and all my students were turning in their papers. I walked back to my office to grade their essays. My office walls are covered with tokens of remembrance and appreciation which my students have given me over the years. Many of my students come from cultures which require the giving of a gift to their teacher when the class ends. Centered over my desk that day was one empty hook. A few months ago, around mid-February , I arrived to my office to find a traditional Chinese knot laying on my desk. Next to it was a yellow sticky on which was written Benjamin. The custom was to do this gift-giving at the close of the semester, so I was a bit surprised.

After class the next day, I asked Benjamin about the knot, for I knew each one had its own significance. We were both looking ahead as we walked down the hall talking, and Benjamin replied that the knot would bring me wealth. I did not expect this at all; I turned toward him and he instantly sensed my being puzzled. “No, not that kind of wealth. The other kind.” We smiled at each other in silent acknowledgement.

Later that week, I hung the knot Benjamin had given me in my office, centering it over my desk. The next time Benjamin was in my office for some help with a paper he was writing, he saw where I had placed the knot he had given to me. After we had finished going over his paper, I asked if he could tell me some more about the knot. He first explained that the stones were jade, as jade turns bad luck into good luck. The larger piece was harmony. The second in the string was bliss, or fu in Chinese. The third was thriving with exuberance, or chun in Chinese. The pattern in which they were strung together represented the idea of welfare. As he explained this to me, he wrote the Chinese characters next to each of the English words. When he finished, we were both silent. We sat that way for a while, considering harmony, bliss, and thriving exuberance woven together by welfare.

It was towards the end of the semester that he came into my office, visibly upset. He had failed an exam, and he feared he may be dropped from the program. On top of this, his girlfriend who was in Taiwan was having difficulties, and he was concerned about her. He thought, because of all of this, he would have to return to Taiwan, but maybe he’d come back. We sat there and read each other’s faces in silence. We both knew he was leaving, and we both knew he was not coming back. But neither of us spoke of it, for there was that other kind of knot in each of our throats. I stood up and took the Chinese knot off its hook and put it into his hands. Benjamin, this will bring you wealth. Then he walked out of my office.

In trying to explain something both to you and to myself, I unconsciously set out to follow the traditional rhetorical pattern of some one who speaks English as their first language as I set out with three examples of Asian male students. In fact, my working title was Three Asian Men. But I skipped the formal introduction and I failed to include any thesis statement anywhere. I wrote but I was not certain exactly what I was writing about. I felt to be writing around something. And now, I can offer no conclusion, no plan of action, no advice, no wisdom gained. I realize that I am somewhere along the line of concentric circles around that dot, the only answer, which is to just say goodbye.

There is no place I would rather be on Easter Morning than the Naval Academy Chapel for nine o’clock Mass. The splendor of the ceremony itself moves me to doubt my doubts and surrender to the mystery of my faith. But I must confess, I spend as much time surveying the people around me as I do the priests on the altar. The chapel overflows with Midshipmen alongside their parents, brothers, sisters, and sweethearts who have traveled to Annapolis for the Easter holiday. The midshipmen, who at a young age chose a course most of their peers would not, renew within me great hope for our country as their generation comes of age and takes the helm. Mass stirs my soul, the mids my heart.

However, I also think of my own students at the community college where I teach English as a Second Language. At first glance, one may see no similarities between midshipmen and the immigrants and refugees in my classroom. My students, at a young age, chose a course that left all that was known in hope of
finding something better. But first, they must learn a new language, a new culture, a new set of values. And they must make new friends, for here all they have is each other. My readers can surely see that there are more similarities than differences between the midshipmen and my ESL students.

But one student, Daniel, was heavy on my mind last Easter as I sat in Sleepy Hollow and my eyes followed the priests making their way down the center aisle. Daniel had fled the violence of his Dinka village in southern Sudan, walking through sub-Saharan heat and jungle, losing friends and brothers along the way to wild animal attacks, starvation, dehydration, and the guns of their enemies. The Red Cross provided the young refugees with food and shelter upon their arrival in Kenya, and to make a long story short, arranged to have the children, mostly boys, sponsored and settled through out the United States. This is how Daniel came to be in my classroom at Tidewater Community College.

In my composition class, Daniel could write letter-perfect essays about his native Dinka traditions, but when writing about the world around him now, he simply could not write coherently. He explained this to me one day in my office; “Dinka is clear to me. This place is not clear to me yet.” I worried a lot about Daniel; as his teacher, I saw that this lack of clarity was affecting his grades and could hold this determined student back. These thoughts of him led me to abandon the celebration of Mass to ponder the walls of the chapel, as I have done so often before. Two-thirds of the rectangular blocks have been painted a creamy white, while the remaining third are a soft camel color. One would expect there to be a symmetrical pattern

between white blocks and the camel-colored ones; everything else on the grounds of the Academy is in good symmetrical order. So I return regularly and study the walls, certain there is no pattern yet hopefully looking for one. The chapel walls bewilder me. My only guess is that so many grads who return to the chapel are moved to ask their God why they are still here, and their shipmate is not, just as Daniel may wonder about himself and his own lost brothers. Perhaps the lack of a pattern on the Chapel walls is intentional as it serves to address the mystery of how God works; this is as far as I ever get.

Last Easter morning, Daniel’s dilemma was heavy on my mind, and those randomly placed camel- colored blocks stared back at me from each of the four walls. I recalled having read somewhere that the human experience on this planet is similar to that of a dog in a library. The answers to all of our questions are right in front of us, but we just can’t read at that level yet. From my pondering of Daniel’s situation in my culture, I understood that Daniel was in my library, trying to make sense of it all, but he can’t read this place. Not
yet. I, too, am like a dog in a library. Every Easter, I return to the Naval Academy Chapel to experience the hope amid the young brigade and the faith reflected in the ancient ceremony of Mass. This enables me to doubt my own doubts and to hope that one day I will understand the pattern on those walls and be given the answers to all my questions. But I am not able to read at that level. Not yet.

When I was twenty-one, I needed a second chance. I had been living overseas for several years, after having left my own country towards the end of the sixties. I was walking along a country road on a wet day in the southwest of England and mulling over my situation. My student visa, and student life, had long come to an end; the only jobs available to me were waiting on tables or mucking out stables. I was hungry, too – not only for something more nutritious than tea and toast, but also for a job more fulfilling than mucking out stables. I walked and thought, and thought and walked, as leaving would be difficult, but finally I decided to return to the USA. I did not come into this country through Ellis Island; I entered at JFK. And no Statue of Liberty looked down on me in welcome; I walked into my own mother’s arms.

Now, some thirty years later, I have the fulfilling job teaching English as a Second Language. In my classroom, I look out on a collection of faces from around the world, many of whom are here looking for a second chance. Juan was one such student. He was also perhaps one of the hardest working students I have ever had in my classroom.

Juan’s plan was to complete a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, but first he had to pass TOEFL, the standardized Test of English as a Foreign Language. Just as our own seniors in high school struggle for an SAT score to get into the college of their choice, international students struggle for a TOEFL score that will get them admitted to a US college. Juan’s TOEFL score, upon his arrival, fell far short of the required score, but after seven weeks of applying himself to the task at hand, he far surpassed the score he needed. However, he could not afford tuition at any local college. He did some research and discovered that he could study computer science at a technical school and have an associate’s degree in two years. And, most importantly, Juan could afford this.

But this was where his trouble started. Due to the new INS regulations, Juan’s student visa could not be transferred from the college where he studied English to the technical school until the technical school had admitted him. There was much paperwork involved before he could be admitted, as well as many questions between INS, the technical school, and the college. All institutions of higher education are struggling to understand and comply with the new regulations. While this paper chase was being run, Juan was terrified that the INS would declare him “out of status.” The INS limits how much time students can remain in the United States without attending classes. In waiting for his transfer to be completed, he might overrun this limit. In this case, he would be deported back to Columbia.

I saw him several times on campus with papers to be signed, duplicated, and faxed. But what I really remember is the sense of anxiety on this Juan’s face. Here was an honest, hard-working young man so close to his second chance, but terrified that he might not make it through the paper chase.

Unfortunately, this war on terrorism requires us to be more careful with whom we let into our country and our classrooms. The previous lenient policy for international students has already been changed, and I understand the necessity for that. However, in the process of implementing those changes, we must ensure that we do not let young men and woman like Juan slip away from us. He got his second chance, and this is to our advantage as much as it is to his. The energy of this country relies on the steady flow of people such as him to fuel not only the engine of our economy but also the integrity of our democracy.