Reaching the "Unreachable"

I promised a colleague I would write about this experience a while ago, and I am long overdue. It happened when I was student teaching at the high school.

One of my technical theatre classes was especially challenging. Many students came to class, plugged into an ipod, and closed their eyes. Some had been told that if they took the class they'd get to build things, and they'd been rebelling after a unit on playwrighting. Before I met the students, I'd selected a play by a Mexican-American playwright that involved puppets (that they would design and build) and themes of immigration that I hoped they'd relate to. Fiasco. So I threw out my lesson plans and started over. I had a pow-wow with my mentor and fabulous bilingual playwright Roxanne Schroeder-Arce. I ordered a few copies of her play, Sangre de un Ángel. It is based on the true story of a family in East Austin. Below is a brief synopsis found on the script:

"When his mother has had enough, her older son, Juan, and his family offer to take in his teenage brother, Ángel, thinking he can guide him to make stronger decisions about school and his future. Despite the efforts of a stable home and loving family, Ángel resists the help, looking to his troubled friends and their gang family for approval.

He is lured back to attending school by a caring auto-mechanics teacher who gives him responsibility and the opportunity to rebuild a classic 1957 Chevy. Eventually, Ángel begins to open up to his family and a hopeful future, but trouble follows him home when angry young men come looking for him—with a gun."

I'm pretty upfront with my students. I don't speak Spanish, but I hoped since 95% of my students did that the themes and opportunity to experience a story of their own culture and language would pull them out of their apathy and help them see that I respected them.

I only wish I would have had more time with them so we could have performed it.

As we read, some of the students started opening up about their own experiences with gangs. One young man, "R", confided in me after we had paused in our reading that he had once been in a gang. He realized that he a a responsibility to take care of his family, especially his mother, and he got out. It wasn't easy, and his former friends in the gang beat him badly. He said if he fought back, they probably would have killed him, but he took it, knowing it was the only way out. Now he goes to school 8-9 months a year, and works in the fields all summer to save money to go to community college and help his family. Much like Ángel, he liked to work on cars and hoped to go into collision repair.

Reading the script together out loud opened up some other surprises. The characters in the play speak bits of Spanish and English, and this really excited some of my students. "L" was normally very quiet or at least not participating, but when he found out some of the character were speaking spanish, quickly volunteered to read. He'd come in to class each day and shout, "I want to be Paco!" After class, he came up to me and asked, "Miss, can we read more Mexican plays?"

Each day we'd come into class, read little of the script, then talk about it. After a few days, I had a special treat for them. I asked, "How would you like the opportunity to meet the playwright and talk to her about the play?" They were in shock. I had shared with Roxanne the progress the students were making and asked if she would be willing to Skype in during class and talk with my students. She was more than excited at the idea. When the day came, the students surprised me over and over. They got really excited about asking Roxanne questions in Spanish and hearing her respond. I then asked "R" if he'd be willing to share his story with her. He was a little reluctant at first, but then went down closer to the camera and started to open up. A few minutes later, "L" got up, walked down to the front of the room, sat in front of the camera, and said matter-of-factly, "I want to tell my story." What followed none of us saw coming. He told us that he had served three months in prison...for murder. He had been at his house with some friends and fellow gang members when a group of guys came and set in motion a night that changed their lives forever. His brother got into a car and"L" climbed in and started chasing after some of them. His brother ended up killing someone with his car. "L" plead no contest and served three months in jail. His brother, the driver, will be there for a very long time. Now like, "R," he leaves the school early to work in the fields each summer and tries to steer clear from the gang life he left behind.

When we came to the end of the play we were short on people to read, so I was reading for the grandmother. I came up to a long section that was entirely in Spanish. Totally intimidated, I asked if one of the girls would switch parts with me. Before she could say anything, "L" walked up behind me and said, "It's okay miss, I'll help you." One line at a time he would read it in Spanish, and I would repeat it. Sometimes as teachers we think we need to know everything, or as members of a community we think teachers should always be the experts. How empowering it was for him when he got to be the expert.