Dog Days

"Whose legs are those?"  Prem asked randomly, during one of our pull-out sessions.  They sit on the floor, my students, with their Chromebooks on chairs and at times, various family members walk behind whoever is in class. 

"Hey wait, Veronica, is that Adriana?  Is that your mom?"  I asked, happy to see missed members of their families that I haven't seen in a while.  Identifying legs is hard.  I sit on the floor too, while I work.  But my back is to my shelf of records, so legs don't walk behind me.  

I have to get to my MEET groups first, before any of the students join.  Whoever gets there first controls the meeting.  I found this out the hard way when I couldn't mute a new student who tends to sing Islamic chants the whole time he works.  And he gets there early.

Everything changes when I get to remove my students from their virtual classrooms, for pull-out.  Some of the teachers try to dictate all of the time, yelling at me like they do their students, Ms. Wagner, you have ten minutes, get them back on time.... Others want me to take the kids all of the time, because they have a bit of a hands off approach to any child they view as "international".  Sometimes these kids aren't even ESOL students...just Asian, or Hispanic, or African.  I know most of them and don't mind helping, it's just a little weird.  They think I can speak every language in the universe and have an immediate line to every parent of a non-majority ethnicity kid and can just, you know, get it done, wether they are English learners or not.  Sometimes, ethnic confusion pops up even with the ESOL kids... Ms. Wagner, speak to her in Spanish so the other kids won't know what you're saying....but Ms. X, the student is Burmese and doesn't understand Spanish.... I respond.  

I do like it when we leave.  The snacks come out.  They show me the books I sent them this summer.  Many lay down on their beds and prop themselves up on pillows. It's not that I don't want them to do school work.  I just don't see why everything has to be so extreme - dress code, no water, sit up straight.  

And, I get to guess whose legs are those, and visit with everyone.