Being a teacher

Hello again

I am reporting below a passage from F. McCourt's Teacher Man, a book that deeply moved me, particularly in the experiences reported by the writer in his being a teacher:

“A few years earlier I could have been one of them, part of the huddled masses. This is my immigrant comfort level. I know English, but I am not so far removed from their confusions. Rock bottom in the social hierarchy. I could drop the teacher mask, walk down the aisle, sit with them and ask them about their families, what it is like in the old country, tell them about myself, my meandering days, how I hid for years behind the mask, still hiding as a matter of fact, how I wish we could lock that door and shut all the world outside until they spoke enough English to make them feel so cool they can tell that foxy white chick they’re ready for a little action.
Wouldn’t that be pretty?
I look at this collection of kids from all continents, faces of all colors and shapes, God’s plenty, this garden: Asians with hair blacker and shinier than anything ever seen in Europe; the great brown eyes of Hispanic boys and girls; shyness of some, rowdiness of others, posturing of boys, coyness of girls. […]
In class she [Nancy] says, You were lucky you knew English when you came to America. How did you feel when you came to America?
Confused. Do you know what confused means?
The word goes around the room. They explain it to one another in their own languages and heads nod, yeah, yeah. They are surprised the man up there, the teacher, was once confused like them and he knew English and everything. So, we have something ion common: confusion.
I tell them that when I came to New York I had trouble with language and the names of things. I had to learn the food words: sauerkraut, cole slaw, hot dog, bagel mit a schmeer.”

Frank McCourt, Teacher Man, Green Peril Corporation, 2005: 131-132, trad. italiana Ehi Prof!, Milano, Adelphi Ed, 2006.

Apart from the setting (an Irish teacher in the USA) -which could however in many ways apply to our multilingual and multicultural classes today -what struck me is the feeling of empathy McCourt innerly expresses towards his students, which he barely dared to express. When he does, the students seem so surprised to find out he is a "human being", who can also feel confused.

How often do we dare expressing our human side to our students, who often long for a smile or a look of complicity to feel they are appreciated as persons, too? And to feel that the class is not only a cognitive but an affective place, too? Where it may be worth belonging?

I have often asked myself these questions, and still do even in university wide classrooms, where establishing rapport seems more a challenge than an opportunity. And I find that the effort is always worth it, as responses generally come - often just a matter of time and patience.

What do you feel and think?

Paola :-)