Nine months later…

I teach Spanish at a middle school in Queens. I’m responsible for half of the 8th grade, which ends up being about 350 students. As far as inner-city schools go, I got the country club version. We have air conditioning and don’t share the building with any other schools; both are rarities. My school, which shall remain nameless until I decide it’s a good idea to publish its name, opened its doors in 2002. Our student body of about 2,000 is 37 percent Hispanic, with the remaining students pretty much all being from Bengal, Pakistan, India, or something of the sort. My students speak mainly Spanish, Punjabi, Hindi or Urdu, plus a little Guyanese and Italian. (Yes, I see a lot of turbans.) We have a few security guards on each of the four floors, and several NYPD officers who work at the school full time.

My first day was awesome for several reasons. Just as the day began I attempted–in complete futility–to console a hysterical 6th-grade student from El Salvador. (He was not as excited about the first day of middle school as I was.) In the midst of talking him down from the proverbial ledge, I turned just in time to see another 6th-grade student puke all over the hallway. It was amazing. And apparently puke control hasn’t evolved since my own middle school days, because one of the assistant principals radioed down to custodial staff for the special vomit-dissolving powder while I illegally rubbed the puking student’s back.

My classes (all 11 of them) were pretty well behaved. The only drama came when I kept one girl after class for dropping an f-bomb. By Friday, though, I was calling students’ parents at work to report flagrant misbehavior–speaking only in Spanish to one of them. One funny moment occurred in class while giving a lesson on why it might come in handy to know Spanish. I showed the students various
statistics regarding the number of Spanish speakers in the states, and asked them why this is important to us. One student (seemingly of Indian descent) raised his hand and said, “It means that George Bush
didn’t secure our borders.” After stifling my own laughter, I informed the class that we would not be making politically-charged comments.

Aside from school, I have two great roommates, go to an awesome church, hang out with friends from college who live in the city, and in general feel very blessed with God’s provision here in New York.