who knew?
There's a girl in one of my "11th grade" English specialty classes who never talks, who has bad skin and hair like mine that she looks like she's trying to grow out, and for that matter has the same name I had in French class in high school.
While trying to get English, French, Yiddish, anything out of the mouths of her and her classmates on Tuesday, she admitted that she'd been rehearsing a play this weekend. Oh, what kind of play, where, when is it etc. I asked, and after drawing a map, getting metro details out of her and finally a name, discovered that the play was taking place right in my building.
Considering she never says anything in my class and looks most of the time like she'd really like to be somewhere else, I wasn't sure she'd want me to come, but I did anyway.
Who knew?
Maybe it's a little personal bias, but I think she might have been the best in the show. Certainly the most animated. I'd never seen her look so alive!
And then right after the show she greeted me politely with a few words and scurried off again...
Reminds me of a certain person in my past who never said anything in her 7th grade English class until tryouts for the class play, when everyone was startled to find out that she had a voice and, indeed, it could get very loud and emotive...
(in case you didn't get that, that was me...)
I wish whatever is caging all that energy in normally would let it out a little more often...or at least not be completely closed to anything related to English class...
How does one empathize with kids without trying to see them as earlier versions of oneself?
While trying to get English, French, Yiddish, anything out of the mouths of her and her classmates on Tuesday, she admitted that she'd been rehearsing a play this weekend. Oh, what kind of play, where, when is it etc. I asked, and after drawing a map, getting metro details out of her and finally a name, discovered that the play was taking place right in my building.
Considering she never says anything in my class and looks most of the time like she'd really like to be somewhere else, I wasn't sure she'd want me to come, but I did anyway.
Who knew?
Maybe it's a little personal bias, but I think she might have been the best in the show. Certainly the most animated. I'd never seen her look so alive!
And then right after the show she greeted me politely with a few words and scurried off again...
Reminds me of a certain person in my past who never said anything in her 7th grade English class until tryouts for the class play, when everyone was startled to find out that she had a voice and, indeed, it could get very loud and emotive...
(in case you didn't get that, that was me...)
I wish whatever is caging all that energy in normally would let it out a little more often...or at least not be completely closed to anything related to English class...
How does one empathize with kids without trying to see them as earlier versions of oneself?
posted by Etrangère | 10:03 PM
2 Comments:
Good question--I don't have an answer! But I'm glad you went and supported her--she will remember that for a long time and it will mean so much to her.
It's strange how that happens with the quietest kids--how they find their niche and then suddenly just open up the flood gates! A lot of musicians I know of are like that--they're silent to the point of disappearing, but when you get them on stage they transform into noiseboxes.
nice story! i don't really have a suggestion on how to empathise, but i feel like you already probably do far more than you realise.
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