A teacher narrative about Ms. Sorondo's 9th through 12th grade "Developmental Langauge III" course at Coral Gables Senior High:
On that Thursday, March 12th of 2015, Ms. Sorondo was preparing for another day with her high school class. These kids sitting in beige, metal desks before her looked more enthused than she did, which isn't saying much. She scowled. Crossing her arms on the walk from one end of the classroom to the other, she touched the light switch once, then again, and another time. Flickering on and off, the fleeting darkness signaled the class to sit at attention like soldiers. Their enthusiasm was now wiped from their faces and Sergeant Sorondo threw quizzes before them. "Phones off and away. Now! I don't want to see them," she barked. This was the first sound that left her lips since entering the room and it was clear that everyone preferred the silence.
She walked about the classroom as children bit their nails and tapped their pencils, trying to complete a close reading quiz. Even a fourth grader could do this assessment with ease if they were proficient in English, of course. These high school aged students, however, were not. The anticipation filled their faces as the time ticked by on the black and white clock in the front corner of this prison.
Just below it, a new face appeared through the doorway. He was scrawny and tanned, visibly Latino, and unbelievably timid. Ms. Sorondo demanded why he must interrupt her class when they were in the middle of an assessment. He didn't answer her immediately. Smoke might as well have erupted from the sides of Ms. Sorondo's blonde head. She walked close to him, only a foot away, and asked again why he was in her classroom. The boy opened his mouth and began to speak, not in English, but in Spanish. In response, a student sitting in the corner farthest from the pair, blurted out this boy's response but translated into Standard English. Even before he could even finish, Ms. Sorondo blurted out, "he's now in an ESOL 3 class, he will speak English." Surprisingly she bypassed another awkward exchange and just introduced him to the class as "Julio who is coming from Spain but was born in Cuba." Julio from Spain but born in Cuba shriveled his face into the tiniest ball it could possibly morph into and the class could feel his discomfort even though they themselves did not share the same emotion.
Ms. Sorondo and her students were used to a constant flow of new kids. They never stopped coming. It was the middle of March, and still, they were coming. Her harshness was a reflection of this predictability. And so, she sat him down then in a random beige, metal desk in the middle of the room, where he could sink in his shyness and feel the stares fall on his somewhat un-welcomed face.
"Cayaté," Ms. Sorondo shouted as the class took this interruption as an opportunity to break the silence of a quiz and talk. "Shut up" was most definitely not a vocabulary word in these kids's curriculum. They began to pound their pencils back against their desks and chew away at their fingers, trying to end the agony of yet another quiz. Ms. Sorondo once again took her place back in the front of the class, occasionally walking around to individuals who appeared more distracted than the rest. And Julio, he squirmed in this seat that was warmed by another student who was once in a position just like his: new, afraid, and unprepared for the education ahead of him.
No comments:
Post a Comment