In their own words
Maribel Gonzalez

Maribel Gonzalez attended UCLA and majored in Sociology and Spanish Literature. She is a 2003 corps member and, this past June, she finished her first year teaching 5th and 6th grade bilingual at IS 216 in the Bronx.

October 10, 2003

I've been teaching for a month now and everything has been running smoothly on the whole. But, there is one student in particular who has been requiring a lot of my time and attention during class. His name is Jorge Lopez. He is significantly older than the rest of the class. While most of my students are 10 or 11, Jorge is 14 years old. He didn't enter school in the Dominican Republic until he was seven years old and then he was left back once, setting him three years behind. He refuses to read aloud in class, but from what I can gather, he is reading at a third grade level. I am still trying to assess his writing abilities. It is difficult to decipher his writing, which is one continuous strand of words, all stuck together with no spaces, no breaks of any sort, just lines and lines full of letters. He refuses to sit with any of the four groups the class has been arranged into and instead chooses to sit in the back of the room by himself.

I've kept him after school for detention many times for not turning in his homework. He is the only one in the class choosing not to do it. I admire my class because even though my students are only 10 and 11, they know why their parents brought them to this country and are all so engaged and invested in their education. They are all so motivated and eager to learn. Every once in a while I can see that same hunger in Jorge's eyes, but something's stopping him. I think he knows all the hard work that awaits him and he's afraid of failure. When I ask him "Jorge why didn't you do your homework?" his response is always the same, "Teacher you're lucky I even come to school because in Santo Domingo I didn't even do that." Yesterday I tried to motivate him by telling him that his father loved him very much and had brought him to the United States so that he would have a chance at a better education and life. He looked at me with indignation that I would dare tell him why he was here. "Teacher I didn't even know my father before this past August. My grandma and grandpa raised me, and this past July they both passed away. That's why I'm here living with a stranger and missing everything I left behind. So don't you tell me why I'm here!" With that he was out the door, leaving me sitting there with a little better understanding of why I'm here.

January 6, 2004

Today after I announced that Janet would be the student of the month for December, Jorge wrote me a note. In it he asked: "Teacher, how can I be student of the month?" I called him to my desk and asked him "Jorge, why do you want to be student of the month?" He told me, "Teacher everyone knows I'm the dumbest one in the class. I want everyone to think that for that one month I was the smartest one, even if it's not true." I told him that he is not dumb, that none of the students in our class are. I reminded him that class 5/621 is brilliant and that he is one of the smartest, hardest working kids in the class.

I can't stop thinking of how Jorge views himself. How can he think he's dumb? How can he hold himself in such low regard?

Four months of hard work and dedication and he doesn't see it. It's his relentless pursuit that keeps me coming back every day despite the challenges I face in an under-resourced, low-income, and, as a result, highly disorganized school. How can I not feel motivated by someone who keeps coming back to my desk every day no matter how many times I send him back to his chair to re-write an essay for the fourth time? He keeps trying despite the countless "2s" on his assignments, never complaining that he was really aiming for a "4". Just the other day I handed him a paper with a "2.5" and as he walked away I heard him say, "Yes! I'm getting closer."

When I first began planning how I was going to help Jorge I stopped to think of how I was helped back when I was his age, growing up in South Central Los Angeles. My parents and I were immigrants to this country too, I too had to struggle with poverty, crime, and attend under-resourced inner city schools. I've always known it was she who did it. How though? She never tutored me. She never came in early in the morning or stayed after school to help me with my writing. She did what no one had ever done before. Michelle Carey, a 1994 Teach For America corps member, and my ninth grade English teacher showed me what owning your education was like. She showed me what real teaching and learning looked like, and once I'd seen it I never accepted anything less for the rest of my education. No one had ever offered me so much quality learning and when I finally had it, I took it and ran with it on my own. It's the same thing I've seen with Jorge. I don't have to bargain with him to do work. There's no convincing or bribing to keep him going. There are many kids like Jorge who simply need someone to show them the path to learning because they'll take care of the hardest part—the catching up.

April 20, 2004

The year has been passing so quickly and I realize that I haven't stopped to tell Jorge how brilliant I think he is. He came into my room during lunch today and I took out his writing folder, his reading log, and his math quizzes, and we looked through them during lunch. We had a few laughs at his old squiggles and marveled at his published poetry book, his book reports, essays, and top math scores. "Oh my God teacher, I didn't even know how to write and now I'm writing essays!" I agree with him and ask him "Jorge, how did you do it?" "No, teacher," he says, "how did YOU do it?"

Jorge is by no means done yet. He has jumped from a third grade level to a fifth grade level, but in less than two months I will have to decide whether he is ready for the seventh grade. It worries me to think that despite how hard he has been working and how much he has progressed, I may still have to keep him with me for another year.

Not settling for less is what I have tried to teach Jorge. He is old enough and strong enough to take control of his education. If he moves forward when this year is over, he won't be able to take my tutoring with him, but he will have himself, the most important factor in being able to succeed in learning. It's not the corrections I make on his paper that will help him, but his willingness to change them. When it comes to the education of kids like him and me, kids without a strong socioeconomic background, I've learned that you have to teach them that they can't wait around to receive an education, but must go out and claim one.

Note: Some names have been changed in order to protect the privacy of individuals.

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