The bittersweet party
Our correspondent says goodbye to her last ESL class
I posted the invitation in my Google Classroom stream: Join us for a party celebrating the last class of the spring session.
On the surface, it was a standard invitation. It included the date, time, and location. In addition, I asked my adult ESL (English as a Second Language) students to bring a dish from their native country, decorations to make the evening more festive, and their favorite music. I asked them to invite a special guest.
In Merrill’s class, where we always think “outside the box,” surely there had to be a caveat to that invitation. And there was!
The party would be on Zoom, our modus operandi for the entire three months of the term. For a successful party, everyone would have to be creative.
Furthermore, not only would we be saying goodbye to each other, but I would be saying goodbye to a 33-year career teaching ESL — for the last five years, doing so remotely — at Jewish Vocational Service. As a victim of federal funding cutbacks, I soon would be unemployed. The party would be my final class.
It was going to be bittersweet.
First, the sweet part.
As the Zoom squares lit up with smiling faces, it was clear that everyone was in party mode. Beaudelin surprised us by wearing traditional garb from Cameroon. Kiya wore a beautiful embroidered dress with a matching turban. She is originally from Ethiopia but had spent the last 10 years in a refugee camp in Egypt. Lominy, from Haiti, looked like he was ready for church in his colorful buttoned-down shirt. Miss Merrill even put on lipstick!
Lydia from Haiti decorated the screen with a big-hearted stuffed animal. Who was it that contributed “Hip Hip Hooray” and “Congratulations Grad” balloons? It must have been one of our students in the class that evening from the Dominican Republic, Ivory Coast, Colombia, Peru, or Georgia. I placed a vase of fresh flowers on my desk. The décor was perfect.
The food was delicious. Imagine if we could have actually tasted it! Instead, we had to settle for pictures and stories about lalo and fufu, traditional dishes from Haiti and West Africa. Simply saying and spelling the alliteration made me smile.
For some of us, bringing a special guest was simple, since kids and significant others were at home. We recognized them from fleeting glances and stories we had been hearing during our evening classes. Now it was time for the official introductions. Our guests suddenly became the focus, with their names and ages, jobs, and grades in school.
For others, however, it wasn’t easy at all. Some partners worked the night shift. Sadly, some spouses and children remained in their native countries. Under the Trump administration, their futures are uncertain.
Coincidentally, my family was visiting on the night of the party. I had the opportunity to introduce each member.
I thanked my daughter, who had stymied my retirement plans when the pandemic broke out and the school moved to remote learning. She challenged me to learn new things: Zoom and Google Classroom.
I introduced my son and daughter-in-law, who had been my guinea pigs. “Can you hear me? Can you see me? Do you see the lesson?” I asked them, as I tentatively navigated these new platforms. How would I ever share a screen with 10 to 20 students on Zoom and assign homework in Google Classroom? And breakout rooms? Fugheddaboudit!
I introduced my husband, who has been my tech support once our house transitioned to my classroom. He was always on standby in case things went awry, which they inevitably did.
My three young grandchildren greeted everyone with giggles, waves, and kisses as they joined Bubbie’s classroom for a few minutes.
Finally, my daughter asked everyone to raise their imaginary glasses and toast her mom, who has been talking about her students for more than three decades, creating families from strangers and telling hundreds of refugees and immigrants, “We love mistakes.”
Emily told them how I identified with their plight. She had a point because I am only second-generation American and of the first generation to go to college in my family. My ancestors emigrated from Belarus and Romania.
After the introductions and the surprise L’chaim, we enjoyed an international music scene. Our screens burst with merengue and bachata YouTubes. What did I know about compas, the favorite Haitian dance music? I thought a compass showed you directions. The Cuban, Caribbean, and African influences in the music were like a mirror of our class.
When I looked at my watch, I knew it was time to put away our dancing shoes. The bitter part of our party was about to begin. We would say our goodbyes and wish each other luck. I wasn’t sure if I would start to cry before or after I clicked “End the meeting.”
I looked at the names and faces on the screen, but really I saw a montage of all the students I had met over the decades. There was the Albanian woman who didn’t know how to write her name, and the Ethiopian woman who didn’t know which way to hold a pencil. Some of the students had never seen or used a computer; others were much more tech-savvy than me. For some, English was their second language; for others it was their third or fourth.
I saw the poets whom I nurtured. “I come from the fear streets. I come from a soccer stadium on Saturdays and Sundays. I come from coconuts and chocolate.” Students from the tropics described their first snow as white rice falling from the sky, like an angel performing a show. How could I hate snow after those images?
Being a cheerleader for public libraries, I imagined the endless stacks of library cards my students had gotten over the years, and our “library cardholder” party. I remembered my backyard party, where virtual learners had the opportunity to meet in person for the first time.
I thought of the provocative questions that introduced each Zoom meeting and the answers filled with wisdom and hope:
“Be strong…have goals in mind…be optimistic…make good friends…be patient…learn the laws of the country…have faith in God…change is not easy – you will be lonely…No matter what is happening in America, remember: AMERICA IS THE LAND OF DREAMS, THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY.”
We had engaging conversations, from the mundane to the sublime. In our fantasy world, we forgot about the gangs, dictatorships, unemployment, natural disasters, and war that brought the students to America. Instead, they lit up with pride as they described the beaches, rivers, mountains, and even the elephants in the streets in their native countries. If I were to visit, they assured me that everyone I would meet would say hello, unlike in America. Lydia invited me to her home in Haiti!
Before we ended the class, I shared one last story. I told my class that I had found this job by answering a want -ad for a substitute teacher in tThe New Jersey Jewish News. It was for a two-week position. I stayed 33 years.
Was that something to be proud of, or ashamed of? I could never decide. Was it my own inertia or was teaching a calling? Maybe I heard the Torah commanding me to welcome and love the stranger as ourselves.
I answered that question when I realized that my students were teaching me more than I could ever teach them. Kindness, gratitude, resiliency, hope, and faith were more important lessons than irregular verbs and comparatives. So, curious to learn more life lessons and proud of my work, I remained in the same position for 33 years.
In the spirit of their vision of a better world, I ended the evening with my musical contribution to the party. I could have chosen Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” because that’s how I always visualized and heard my classes.
Instead, I selected something simpler. It sounds hokey as I write it now, but a YouTube video of Louis Armstrong singing “What a Wonderful World” felt like a better choice.
When we sang along with him, it was the perfect coda to our bittersweet party.
Merrill Silver and her husband live in Montclair; she’s a freelance writer and until recently she taught ESL at JVS of MetroWest. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Hadassah magazine, the Forward, the New York Jewish Week, and other publications. Find her at merrillsilver.wordpress.com
comments