Lost

outsidethebeltway

In another piece written by one of my students, a young teenage girl from Guatemala writes about her harrowing journey from Central America to the United States. Freshly arrived, she wrote this as an essay in Spanish and translated it via Google translate.  As I read through the piece in my editing stage, I thought it read more like a poem.  To me, it captures the inner struggle that these children must face and the constant fear they endure during their voyage.  Check out Lost...

I am a Guatemalan with dreams of overcoming my problems

My trip started on December 4, 2017

With a prayer to God to take care of me on the way

There I left my childhood, my family

To come to this new place

With a lump in my throat, I said goodbye

Time progressed and with each moment

I was moving farther way from them

Two days by bus, we reached the border with Mexico

We crossed at night, in fear, ,among so many strangers

We arrived, locked away for two days until finally they came for us

A truck, ready to start crossing the desert

They dropped us at 3 A.M., 

with nothing but backpacks, water and a garbage bag

To protect us from the cold and the rain

In the morning, we were separated into three groups

Told to look for the famous line with guides who "knew where we were"

By the fourth day, we were all supposed to meet again

Unfortunately it was not meant to be

What happened to the rest of the group, I do not know

The guide went back for the rest, leaving us

On our own, to get to that line

I know he feared something would happen to us too

But he left us anyway, to walk through the desert on our own

Two days, no water, and the fatigue was surely fatal

The only thing we had was to ask God

To give us the strength to follow on

I don't know whatever happened to my travel companions

But I wish them the best since their decisions weren't easy either

As always, thanks for reading.  Stay tuned for more...

P!nk in the Classroom

I'd like to preface this post by stating that yes, I am a P!nk fanatic, and perhaps I've become a little obsessed with her over these past few months, but well, her songs move me like no other and I'm sure I'll get sick of her one day....maybe?  So if you're already tired of me talking about my new favorite musical artist, then click here.  Otherwise, read on...

maximumpop

One of the things I like most about teaching ESL is that I pretty much have free reign as to the things I decide to teach.  Anything I plan on using in my classroom is English, and so as long as my students learn some in the process, it's a good thing.  Many times in the past I've used music (surprise!) in my classroom, and earlier this week I decided to go back into my iTunes library once again for a little English lesson.

One of the things I like most about P!nk is her songwriting.  Her lyrics are just so well written and often meaningful, and so after an impromptu event in my classroom a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take some of the more meaningful ones and teach them as a whole new thematic unit for my class.

The event I'm referring to was a practice essay I had my students do about changes in communication and transportation over the years and how they've changed people's lives.  One of my students chose to write about transportation, and in his essay he commented that one day we will have "molecular transport' as a means of getting around.  Light bulb!

Beam me up, give me a minute....

Bam, it hit me!  My creative juices started flowing and I immediately went into planning mode.  I printed out the lyrics to P!nk's Beam Me Up and started looking at them.  As it turns out, there are plenty of things to teach from that one song: vocabulary, theme, mood, imagery, rhyming, etc.  I was ecstatic!

I printed out a lesson plan (sorry, the plan itself is going to be published in another forum), and got to thinking about extending the theme into other P!nk songs.  Oh yeah, I've since worked in a lesson using Who Knew, and tomorrow's is The Great Escape.  Don't Let Me Get Me, Just Like a Pill, Dear Mr. President, Sober, Glitter in the Air, Family Portrait, and others.  They've all got great lessons in them, lessons on life and love, self-image, politics, family and so much more.  So far, the kids have loved the first two songs and the whole thing has made me enthusiastic once again about teaching.  Yeah baby!


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December 13th, 2011 - The Time Has Come; Giving Thanks - My Students

Well, it’s Tuesday, the 13th of December and the Christmas grind is on! In the past three days I’ve spent hours upon hours Christmas shopping and decorating, all in between working and tutoring, eating and sleeping. Looking ahead there doesn’t seem to be any letdown, but it only happens once a year, so…

What happened to the old John, huh? I once actually wrote an article called, Why I Hate Christmas, and I meant it when I wrote it. I still kinda mean it now, but yeah, there are things about Christmas I like, and besides I’m still riding a high where my mood is elevated and I don’t know why, but I’d like to keep it bottled up for awhile. Maybe it’ll change later this week, but I hope not.

The Time Has Come!

This Friday, my neighbor and friend Terry is having her annual Christmas party and for the first time ever, I am led to believe that Joe and his new love will be there. There’ve been a couple of close calls in the past, but it never materialized, much to my relief, but this time I think it’s finally going to happen. I’m going to meet him and the butterflies and the weirdness are already beginning to settle in. Stay tuned…



Giving Thanks – My Students

I’m catching up on my thanks today with a nod to my students, both past and present. I’ve already said how thankful I was to have found the job I was meant to do, and I am fortunate enough to get up every day looking forward to going to work. My students mean a lot to me, and I to them, and almost every day I get to experience a special kind of love and appreciation for my second family. Here are just a couple of examples:

Food Love

A couple of weeks ago when I was on my way to work, one of my students texted a photo to me. It was a picture of a Turkish breakfast his mother had prepared that morning and the caption beneath the picture said, “Mr. Myers, don’t eat your Pop Tarts. I’m bringing you breakfast.” This wasn’t the first time a student has done that for me, and yes, I do eat Pop Tarts (Brown Sugar Cinnamon) a couple of times a week. Whenever I get a new student I always give the same speech:

Now Mr. Myers loves to eat, and he especially enjoys trying new foods, so if your mom ever makes a dish from your country, I would always gladly take some.

Of course I say it in jest, but I kind of mean it, lol, and over the years I’ve had plenty of delicious things brought to me, like pupusas from El Salvador, tamales from Guatemala, stuffed Turkish grape leaves (or “dolma”), Russian beet salad (surprisingly delicious!), and a whole host of other things I can’t even remember, and they always seem to take pleasure in bringing it to me. It’s just one of those special perks about being a teacher.





We Are Family!

Last week a new student arrived in my class, a 12 year old Colombian girl, and once the usual introductions were done I decided to ask the students to tell her what to expect from ESL class instead of me running through my regular spiel. One of my students, Eli, said this to her in Spanish (I’m paraphrasing):

This class is like your home while you’re in school and us, well, we’re like Mr. Myers children.

I was taken surprise by what she had said, because it wasn’t what I expected her to say, but it was a really nice thing to hear and well, it’s true. My students are like my children, and I tell them that whenever they ask me why I don’t have any of my own, which is true. I believe that’s part of my purpose in life; that I was born gay and leaned towards teaching so that I would have some sort of fatherly role in life, which I think I do pretty well.





My classroom is like a family in a lot of ways. We argue with one another, we laugh together and we learn a lot of things about life from each other along the way, in addition to them learning English. I am their teacher, their advocate, and I try to give them the kind of care that these special kids can only get from someone in my position, and the joy I get out of them is truly immeasurable, and it is everlasting.





I’ve long considered my classroom as an extended family of sorts, and just because one leaves my program or graduates from high school doesn’t mean that they’re out of the family. I keep in regular contact with many of my former students like the Sandovals, Supi (who now lives in Bonaire), Eddy, Angelo and Steven, Henry and Sonia, and of course Max. Max was my first student and he graduated my class back in 2007, but he’s managed to stay in my life in a special way, dropping by to shoot the breeze with his teacher every once in awhile. We’re never at a loss for conversation and in a lot of ways I still am his teacher.





So there’s a big, special appreciation that I carry with me each and every day of my life. I am blessed in a lot of ways and I think learning to appreciate them is a great way to live life and enjoy it for whatever it is. For whatever it’s worth, thank you again for reading my blog. I know I’ve expressed appreciation to my readers in the past, but I want those who remain to know that I do appreciate your readership. Have an awesome day!





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September 15th, 2011 - A Post Presentation High

It’s Thursday night and we’re in the middle of a big weather change at the moment. Right now, the wind is kicking up and the skies are dark…a cold front is moving in. Yes, it’s supposed to get quite chilly tonight, with temperatures, gulp, plunging down into the 40’s. Yikes, way too early for temps that low, but cooler is definitely welcome after the hot, sticky days we’ve been having around here…


My Three Heroes

A Post Presentation High

All last night and today I’ve been on one of the highest of highs ever! I told you the other day that I had a presentation to do for the faculty at my school yesterday and I was one hot mess all day (What else is new?). After having done two well-received presentations last year, I felt pressure that I had to top them and I had trouble deciding on what to do or how to do it. Luckily for me, my pal Rita teaches a couple of classes in my classroom and it was she who pushed me to do what I ended up doing. It ended up better than I could have ever imagined.

The whole idea behind the presentation was to advocate for my students. As one who teaches English as a Second Language, part of my job is to make sure that my students get as much empathy as they can get from their teachers. They’ve got it hard and I can’t imagine being in their shoes, having to go from class to class, walking through the rough and tumble halls of high school not being able to understand or speak English. Teachers, though, have it hard enough themselves, with big caseloads of students and the pressures of “teaching to the test,” so my students often get the short end of the stick, so to speak, and end up falling between the cracks.

At the advice of Rita, I decided that the best way for teachers to understand my students a little better would be to let them hear my students talk about what it’s like to be them. I enlisted three of them to accompany me to the meeting. Two are current students of mine: Yunus, a 9th grade intermediate level English speaker and Eli, an 11th grade beginner. The third is a former student of mine, Kevin, who I first met when he was just six years old.

I asked them some practice questions beforehand and I have to say I was impressed that they were brave enough to help me out, but they knew it was also going to help them and their fellow students as well, so they went along with it. I was introduced at the start of the meeting and I in turn introduced Yunus, Eli and Kevin, letting the audience know why they were there.

I started by asking them about their first day at school here in the US and from there it went. The three of them were eloquent, honest and articulate and they had everyone’s undivided attention for about twenty minutes. Of course I had to help them out here and there when they became a little nervous or stuck for words, but all in all they did an awesome job. A few of the teachers had their own questions for the kids and I sat there like a beaming parent watching my students make the best cases as to why they need special attention. I couldn’t have been more proud!

As we wrapped up our discussion, a couple of teachers chimed in with some unexpected, but welcome accolades for me and my students. One of the special education teachers, a colleague and a friend named Dan, openly stated his appreciation for me and what I do and the room burst out into applause. I had to stop him because I was starting to get all choked up, but another teacher raised her hand to commend the kids directly for our yearly magazine and how she loved reading it. She wanted them to know how it showed their progress through the years and that they should be very proud of it.

After one more complement by the principal followed by even more applause, the four of us felt like rock stars, if only for a moment. Though the whole thing was a little embarrassing and I am a little bit of a sap, it was nice to get such recognition from my colleagues, especially with the principal and superintendent in the audience. It just goes to show that way back in 2000, when I quit my 15-year career in banking, I definitely made the right choice. I love what I do and I am so proud of my kids!

Needless to say the euphoria that came afterwards carried into today, and I just wish I could bottle up that feeling and keep it for whenever I need it, but life happens, ya know? Yeah, problems persist and moods swing, but I’m definitely gonna try and hold on to this one for awhile.

Some pictures of me and my kids:










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Praying for a special someone

This is a hard post to write. It’s Thursday evening and the end of another long day. Work has been absolutely, mind-numbingly crazy all week, but thankfully I got a reprieve from that today. The reprieve was only short-lived because on top of all the busy-ness of my day at a conference and running errands, I had an exasperating visit with a special someone.



For any of you who know me from my earlier days at Associated Content, you may remember a series I wrote called “Family in Crisis.” It was about a young man who was a student of mine that was diagnosed with lupus a couple of years ago. To make a long story short, about a year and a half ago he got sick and needed to have his gall bladder removed. Rather than go through with the surgery, he checked himself out of the hospital to save enough money to pay for his stay there (over $18k), and then save for the operation. Fortunately, with a little help from some very caring people, we raised over $9k for him and his siblings (their parents abandoned them a long time earlier), and we found a doctor to perform the surgery gratis.

Since then, Arnoldo had recuperated and has gotten engaged to a wonderful l young lady named Jill. The whole family brought her to meet me for dinner back in February and I immediately liked her. I wrote an update in February after that dinner, and it contains all of the links to the previous pieces should you care to read them (just click here). I used false names in the articles to protect their identities, but for today and from here on in this blog I will call him by his real name: Arnoldo.

Arnoldo has recently become very ill once again, and this time it’s as serious as it ever was. I was prompted to visit him today at Stony Brook Hospital after his brother told me yesterday that his condition had worsened. I’d visited him last week and he hadn’t been as bad as I thought he would have been, but as happens, you leave the hospital and go back to your own life, and his situation sort of faded into the background for me…until today.

When I got there, Arnoldo was sleepy. I tried to sit down and just wait for him to wake up, but he sensed my presence and gave me a big smile when he saw me. He did look a little drawn in the face, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. I don’t know if it was luck or not, but while I was there, Arnoldo’s future mother in law stopped by, as did a few of his doctors. She’s a nurse, and so just like her daughter Jill, she was asking the tough questions and trying to dig into Arnoldo’s situation. I won’t get into all of the details here and now, but there are a lot of serious issues going on and I can only hope and pray that things take a turn for the better.

As I sat there listening to all of the doctors give their prognoses and suggestions for treatment, with all of the possible effects, I couldn’t help but think that no matter how I may feel about God for letting this happen to such a good, decent and innocent person such as Arnoldo, I believe that Jill is his gift from God. It’s obvious to anyone who sees her around him that she is completely devoted to this young man and she’d doing all she can to help him. As a person with English as his second language, Arnoldo may not be getting as good care if she weren’t around. He’s very lucky in that respect and I couldn’t be happier that she’s there.

The most noticeable difference in Arnoldo from today and the last time I visited him was the distant look in his eyes. As people all around him were talking, Arnoldo just stared away into space, almost like he wasn’t even there with us. That scared me a little and kept him in my mind throughout my evening. I don’t pray as often as I probably should, but I’m going to pray tonight, for Arnoldo. I pray that he finds a way to get through this crisis, move on with his life and his future marriage to Jill, and live the American Dream he came here to live. He deserves it!
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X is for Xenophobia

Xenophobia – the hatred or fear of foreigners or strangers or of their politics or culture

Phobias in general are irrational fears. There are all sorts of phobias, and they often get confused or coupled with hatred. Just like animals, people lash out and go on the offensive when they’re afraid of something and we see it all the time with phobias. From my corner of the world, I’m especially sensitive to homophobia, which is the root of most hate crimes against gays.

Xenophobia, I believe, is fairly common amongst people. We inherently tend to stick with our own crowd, so to speak, in most situations. Given this great big “melting pot” of ours, it’s no wonder we’ve had a long history of not getting along. As an ESL teacher, I am as sensitive to xenophobia as I am to homophobia because I see it all the time. The hatred coupled with the fear of foreigners is everywhere and it’s not a good thing.

If you ask a person who obviously has a dislike for foreign people, especially Hispanics, they’ll tell you that it’s because of their legal status. Well I have some students that are legal and some that are not, but I treat them all the same. The whole legal issue is a convoluted one anyway, and besides, who’s to say how our ancestors got here in the first place? There was a time when all you had to do was get a boat ticket over here, be healthy and know someone. Welcome to America!

So, aside from the legal issues surrounding the foreigners who come to live here these days, and maybe the language barriers, there’s really no reason to fear them. In many ways, they’re very similar to us, with families, friends, hopes and dreams, etc. So if you feel you might be a sufferer of xenophobia, try and be aware of it…and the next time you see someone from another country, give em’ a smile, or even say hello. You never know, you might just make a new friend!

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A field trip...

Thursday was a long-awaited field trip for my students. As an ESL teacher in a 7-12 school, I am in the unique position of teaching the same core group of students year after year, and so we all get to know each other pretty well. At the beginning of each school year, they always ask me if we’re going to go on a field trip and I always start out with good intentions, but invariably I get caught up in the day to day duties of my job and I haven’t necessarily been a good teacher as far as field trips have been concerned.

This year I made a promise to myself that we’d take at least one, and I wanted to make it a good one, so I planned a long day trip to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island with my students. We took the two-plus hour journey into the city on Thursday, April 7th and it was a great experience.

My students and I are very much like a family. We have fun together. We learn together. We argue and make up together. All of the personalities in the group are well defined and every single person has their place within the unit, and so the trip was more like a family outing than your typical school field trip.

Once we arrived in the city, we walked across Battery Park towards the streets in search of lunch, and that was where the real fun began. Perched on a pedestal near the entrance to the park stood Lady Liberty herself. She was one of those neo-peddlers who earn their wares dressed up as statues and posing for pictures with unsuspecting tourists. Of course this one was decked out in a green robe and crown.

Once the kids spotted her the cameras came out. They started clicking away as some of them made their way towards the figure to be in the photos. Lady Liberty wagged her finger in a no-no motion…she wanted money. Two of my students, Jaqi and Sonia, went to pose for a picture with the figure. Jaqi hadn’t noticed the finger wagging, and from my vantage point I could see Jaqi arguing with the statue. Within seconds, she pulled out a $5 bill and the cameras got busy again. The two of them went into model shoot mode as Lady Liberty struck funny poses for the cameras. A couple of other students got into the action and laughter was everywhere. It would be the first bit of genuine fun we’d get from the day.




After a quick lunch at Burger King, we had to head back towards the ferry to catch our boat. On the way, some of the kids were drawn to the many street vendors stationed on the sidewalk. As I crossed the street back towards the park, I turned back to see that some of the students had stopped to peruse the tables. The other teacher was with them, so I wasn’t worried about, but I knew we didn’t have much time to catch the ferry.

“C’mon, we’ve gotta catch the ferry!” I shouted back at the shopping students.

“We’re coming, we’re coming!…Ooh, Mr. Myers,” Sonia said, “look what I got.” She proceeded to show me the ten rings that she had bought from a costume jewelry peddler down the street. All I could do was roll my eyes and move on as I lead a dash to the ferry terminal. In the end, we missed the boat, the first of three we’d miss.

Even though the little shopping spree took us off our schedule, I took it in stride and just enjoyed every minute. We went to Liberty Island to see the real statue, where we had a group picture done and then went up inside the pedestal. A trip to the gift shop was the culprit for us missing our second ferry, and we ended up staying on the island until almost three o’clock, the time we were supposed to meet the bus driver at Battery Park…and we still had to make a stop at Ellis Island.



After a quick call to the driver, we hopped on the next ferry and sailed over to Ellis, where we’d only have a half an hour. We skipped the bulk of the museum and headed straight for the famous “Wall of Immigrants.” The kids did some etchings on the wall before we headed back to the ferry, which we ended up missing too. Another half-hour’s wait and we were finally headed back to where we started from. Soon we were on our way back to school.



All in all, the day was great fun. During the long ride back, some kids slept, others did homework, while still others had some more fun together. Without prodding from me, they all pitched in to clean the bus before we got back to the school. That’s the kind of kids they are. They made me proud throughout the day. We pulled into the school parking lot around 8PM and the long day was over.

The kids came in to school Friday morning exhausted and exhilarated, just like I was feeling. Many of them thanked me for the day, and I reciprocated. I had as much fun with them as they had with me and I feel honored to have given them a memorable day that they’ll keep in their minds for years to come. I love my job!

Here are some photos from the day:























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