On Wednesday I was at school, hanging out in the office at lunchtime as I often do in an attempt to offer triage to the wide variety of lunch- or recess-related problems that can find their way to the front desk between 11:20 and 12:50. It did not take long for something interesting to happen, of course.
Two very small boys, in Kindergarten, come running into the office. The first is pulling the second by the wrist, and the second is screaming. In Spanish.
"Teacher!" the first one said, screeching to a halt in front of me while at the same time taking his friend by the shoulders and firmly pushing the screaming child down into a sitting position in one of the brown chairs lined up against the wall. "My friend is hurt!"
"Yes," I said, coming around from behind the desk where I had been practicing my one useful office-related skill: peering into the tiny, black-and-white video monitor to see who is at the front gate when they ring the bell and then buzzing them in. "From how loudly he is screaming it sounds like he is very hurt."
The young chaperone wheeled around to his hurt friend who was still screaming at the top of his lungs while sitting in the brown chair, eyes squeezed shut, face red and streaked with tears as he cradled one hand in the other. "Silencio!" the chaperone demanded, poking the hurt student in the shoulder for emphasis. Immediately the screams subsided to hiccupy sniffles.
Handing the sniffling casualty a tissue, I knelt down in front of him as he continued to sit in the brown chair. "Hey," I said gently, "What happened, how did you get hurt?"
"Teacher, he don't speak no English," the chaperone said impatiently, hands on hips and tapping his foot. "That's WHY I came with him to the office."
Ahh, yes. At a school with English-only kids as well as two bilingual strands (Spanish and Filipino) communication can be more complex at times than one might expect. "Does he speak Spanish?" I asked the chaperone.
"Yep, we're in (name of Kindergarten Spanish bilingual teacher)'s class," the chaperone said by way of explanation.
"Okay, great, so this means you speak Spanish too then?" I continued.
"YES I speak Spanish!" the five-year-old's patience, both for his hurt screaming friend and this ridiculously clueless teacher, were very evident.
"Great," I said definitively, "Ask your friend how he got hurt."
The chaperone turned to the injured and a not so much a conversation but rather more an inquisition began, with the chaperone yelling at the injured and the injured bursting into tears once more before yelling back. This continued for a few rounds until finally the chaperone turned back to me, shrugging. "I don't know. What he's saying, it makes no sense."
I took a deep breath, all the while looking over the injured for open wounds, compound fractures, and freely-flowing blood yet finding none. "Okay," I said, trying not to lose patience. "Did you not understand his words, or did you not understand his idea?"
"I understand his words just fine, but it makes no sense what he's talking about!" the chaperone protested, so agitated now that he was jumping up and down and pumping his fists.
"Well, let's start with what we have. What words did he use to tell you what the problem was? What did he say about how he got hurt?" I asked, faux-patiently.
"He said he was playing and someone stepped on his hand when he was picking up the fish," the chaperone explained in an exasperated tone.
"When what? He was picking up the what?" I demanded, now completely impatient and as annoyed as the chaperone.
"Picking up the fish!" the chaperone yelled.
"Can you please ask him again? I just don't understand what that could mean," I said doubtfully.
"He'll only say the same thing! Just give us an ice pack so we can go back outside!" the chaperone pleaded, sensing his own frustration was not getting him anywhere with me and instead resorting to groveling. "I just want to go back to recess, please Teacher, come on!"
In complete confusion I turned back to the injured. "Picking up the fish?" I asked him, as if he would understand me.
"Si," the hiccupy tearstained Kindergartener nodded. "Fish."
I stood up and reached behind the desk to the mini-fridge, wrapping an ice pack in a paper towel. "Here you go, little man," I said to the injured. "You two have a good rest of your recess." And the chaperone grabbed the injured by the wrist again and dragged him back outside to play.
All in a day's work.
No comments:
Post a Comment