I smiled as I sat on the school bus watching the children around me. Inwardly I was laughing at my situation. I, the careful decision maker, could not believe that I was teaching kindergarten. \u00a0I was a high school teacher.\u00a0 Yet here I was, on a school bus surrounded by my little charges on the way to the county health clinic for immunizations.\u00a0 I stifled my laughter.<\/p>\n
How had I gotten into this?\u00a0 When we moved from Tucson to Texas, the school superintendent offered me a job teaching English in the migrant kindergarten.\u00a0 I immediately refused.\u00a0 I was not interested.\u00a0 In fact, I was not too sure what a migrant was.\u00a0 I knew they worked in the vegetable and citrus harvest and followed the crops northward.<\/p>\n
The superintendent approached me again in mid-October. This time he told me that the job was from November through April and paid a full year salary. \u00a0That was more interesting.\u00a0 That was how I found myself on the payroll.\u00a0 I was in an unfamiliar environment doing something I would never have imagined I would be doing.\u00a0 My students were non-English speakers. \u00a0Fortunately, I had a full-time bilingual aide who was an excellent helper.<\/p>\n
My education began the first week of school. The kindergarten classrooms were self-contained.\u00a0 I noticed that the children went into the bathroom, flushed the toilet, flushed again, and often flushed once more.\u00a0 This struck me as a little strange.\u00a0 After several days, a light bulb in my brain came on and I asked the aide if the children had indoor bathrooms at home.\u00a0 She thought for a few minutes and said, \u201cI can\u2019t think of any who do.\u201d\u00a0 We had done a lesson on hand washing.\u00a0\u00a0Now it\u00a0was back to the drawing board so to speak, and past time for a lesson on the use of the bathroom.\u00a0 When I told my husband this, he laughed and asked, \u201cWhat did you think all of those little buildings were behind the houses?\u201d\u00a0 I said that I had not really noticed,\u00a0 maybe they were tool sheds.\u00a0 Of course, he told everyone and this was a joke for a long time.\u00a0 It was a case of looking, but not seeing.<\/p>\n
Another lesson about things I took for granted came at Christmas.\u00a0 I had set aside money to give each child a \u201cgoody\u201d bag.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The aide and I put them together.\u00a0 Each bag had a small toy, some fruit, a little book and some candy.\u00a0 When the children returned to school after the holiday, I was waiting expectantly to hear what they had gotten for Christmas.\u00a0 Not one child mentioned Christmas.\u00a0 After they went home for the day, I questioned my aide whether they had\u00a0received Christmas presents.\u00a0 She thought and said, \u201cProbably not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the children\u2019s parents spoke English. My aide acted as translator for those who did not. The parents soon learned that I was interested in their children.\u00a0 We became friends whether we spoke in English or with a translator.\u00a0 They had little money, but they brought cookies or refreshments when needed.\u00a0 If I needed volunteers for an event, they were eager to help.\u00a0 They found out that I liked homemade tortillas and often brought me warm tortillas.<\/p>\n
The adjustment to this new experience was traumatic for some of the children and they reacted in various ways.<\/p>\n
Angelica* was angry about having to leave her mother.\u00a0 She cried and had a temper tantrum every morning.\u00a0 She also had tantrums during the day when she did not get her way.\u00a0 Another problem was her language.\u00a0 She could cuss us all out without taking a breath.\u00a0 I did not know what she was saying, but I knew from the reprimands from my aide and the gasps of the children that it was bad.\u00a0 I thought that I was going to have to learn to cuss in Spanish.\u00a0 She got mad at me one day, looked me in the eye and shouted, \u201cDiablo.\u201d\u00a0 I did know that word.\u00a0 My aide was quickly beside me. I told her to tell Angelica that if she called me the devil again that we were going to the principal\u2019s office and call her mother.\u00a0 A look of surprise came over her face as she realized that I knew what she had called me.\u00a0 She could no longer be sure that I did not know what she was saying.\u00a0 Her language began to be more acceptable. \u00a0One day at rest time she was crying loudly and kicking her feet.\u00a0 One of the children, laughed, pointed to her, and in a whisper called her a baby. I wanted the children to be kind to each other, but somehow, I did not hear that comment. \u00a0Angelica did not care what the aide or I thought, but she didn\u2019t want her peers to think she was a baby. The tantrums stopped.<\/p>\n
Joaquin* was small for his age and very shy. He spent most of the first weeks crying and needed much reassurance.\u00a0 A day came when he made it through the morning without crying.\u00a0 By rest time he was still trying not to cry.\u00a0 He sat rigidly on his rest mat with his dirty little arms clasping his thin knees to his chest.\u00a0 His unkempt curly hair formed ringlets on his sweaty forehead above eyes that were wide fighting tears and tiredness.\u00a0 There were so many things this little boy didn\u2019t understand.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t understand why his mother had left them when his baby sister was born.\u00a0 He was too young to understand death.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t understand why he had to come to the school or why the strange Anglo lady kept talking to him.\u00a0 He began to rock back and forth and to whine softly.\u00a0 I quietly moved a low chair beside him and gently enveloped him with my arms.\u00a0 He lifted his arms to be picked up. It was difficult for us to get comfortable on the small chair, but we managed.\u00a0 He snuggled into my lap and began to sob softly putting his little thumb into his mouth.\u00a0 The sobs became quieter as he relaxed.\u00a0 My heart broke as he kept murmuring \u201cmama, mama.\u201d\u00a0 The aide helped me lay him on his mat when he fell asleep.\u00a0 This became a pattern at nap time for several months.\u00a0 I needed a rocking chair in that room.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the biggest challenge was a deaf boy named Guillermo.* There were no experts to consult. I was told to make him feel accepted and work on socialization.\u00a0 He did watch the other children and followed along.\u00a0 The biggest help was a cousin who had the uncanny ability to tell exactly what Guillermo wanted.\u00a0 They had been together since birth and the cousin seemed to sense what Guillermo was thinking.\u00a0\u00a0He \u00a0obviously could not follow the English lessons.\u00a0\u00a0 He did other learning activities during that time. \u00a0We did a variety of activities including manipulatives, coloring, and painting.\u00a0 Guillermo used only black crayons and paints.\u00a0 We were thrilled in February when he picked up a red crayon to color valentines.\u00a0 He began to use other colors after that.<\/p>\n
We had a mesh container in the classroom for the children to observe live things. \u00a0They had an affinity for bugs and worms.\u00a0 We would observe their treasures for an hour or two and then release them back into their own environment.\u00a0 Guillermo\u2019s instinct was to smash all bugs and insects found on the playground.\u00a0 We had to watch him carefully because he did not understand why we just looked and did not destroy.\u00a0 One day a small bird flew into the open window of the classroom hitting the window sill.\u00a0 Stunned, the bird fell to the floor.\u00a0 Guillermo rushed to it, grabbed it and had his arm ready to throw it to the floor when I reached him.\u00a0 I surprised him by taking his arm, causing him to release his grip. Fortunately the little bird had recovered enough to fly back out the open window.<\/p>\n
During the last week of school, I watched the children looking at something on a shrub at the edge of the playground. Suddenly Guillermo raced toward me holding something in his hands.\u00a0 He opened his cupped hands slightly so that I could see a beautiful butterfly. When he turned from me, I was ready to rescue the butterfly.\u00a0 I fully expected him to throw it on the ground and step on it.\u00a0 Instead, he raised his arms, opened his hands wide and released the butterfly.\u00a0 As we watched it take flight, I had tears in my eyes.\u00a0 He was learning without words.<\/p>\n
I remained in the program for another two years until my husband was transferred. These were just a few years of many in which I continued to learn from my students, their parents, and situations that I encountered.<\/p>\n
*names have been changed<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I smiled as I sat on the school bus watching the children around me. Inwardly I was laughing at my situation. I, the careful decision maker, could not believe that I was teaching kindergarten. I was a high school teacher. Yet here I was, on a school bus surrounded by my little charges on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1955-to-1972"],"yoast_head":"\n