Day -33: On Language

I realized I've been counting my days wrong. I don't know how I got confused, but anyway, there were really only 33 days left of school today. It's close enough to the end that I've started to use fifth grade as a motivator and threat for my fourth grade students - i.e., "You should pay especially close attention to X because you'll definitely need to know X in fifth grade."

One thing I especially love about teaching my students is getting to observe their language development. Roughly half of my students in any given year were born in the U.S., a fourth came to the U.S. before they started kindgergarten, and another fourth came after kindergarten started. Usually two or three have parents who are extremely bilingual and speak both English and Spanish at home, and about half have parents who can understand a little bit of English - usually what is required for their jobs. Even if they were born here, most of my students started learning English when they started school here, though a few also learn from their parents and many learn from older brothers and sisters and from television. I have all levels of English proficiency in my classroom and a considerable range of Spanish proficiency, too. Though all my students understand Spanish perfectly and can read and write in Spanish, as they get older, some become more and more reluctant to speak Spanish - maybe because they perceive that English is the language of power.

Anyway, I love hearing my students play with their two languages. Occasionally, I will call individual students "dude" in jest, usually when I am with a small group of students outside of regular class time, usually when I'm trying to goad someone into doing something. "Dude, what's up with your biography project?" I asked Ramiro today when he was inside at lunch for detention. Biography projects were due last Friday and Ramiro has yet to turn in a rough draft. That got a laugh from the small group of students nearby.

A few months ago after a similar comment by me, Manuel started calling me "duda" - his invented Spanish-ified feminine version of dude. ("Duda" actually is a word in Spanish; it means doubt.) "Hi, duda," he'll sometimes say to me, knowing it will make me crack up. As Manuel, Ramiro, and Wilfredo were leaving detention, Manuel called out, "Bye, dudes and dudas."

Wilfredo, one of my more recent newcomers, added on, "Bye, dudos."

I laughed. "Did you just make up 'dudos' right now?" I asked.

He nodded.

More on language in future posts. I need to go to sleep. I think there is a direct correlation between the amount of sleep I get and my patience as a teacher. One exception is if I get almost no sleep, like less than 4 hours (which hardly ever happens!), I am so loopy and running on adrenaline and relaxed in a strange way, that those days actually usually turn out to be pretty good teaching days. I don't know if this holds for parenting and for other jobs.