The first major paper in my residency at Drexel was a cultural experience project, in which we immerse ourselves in an event where the majority of attendees do not speak English, to try and better understand how an English Learner (EL) feels in the classroom.
When I was postulating ideas on where to go, I experienced choice anxiety to the extreme. I feel culturally
awake for the first time in this residency, and with that, an eagerness
presents that I have trouble containing and focusing. Language, beautiful and
eloquent language- there are so many, all sharing common genesis with children
who must only be alive and comfortable to grasp it organically through
comprehensible input (Wright, 2015, p. 23). If that is not a miracle, I’m not
sure what is. And with language, culture- all the cultures of the world, each
unique and important. I sat with my wife and told her all my ideas. I
considered going to various events this past weekend and tying them all
together to a common universal theme. That would make for an amazing experience
and paper! She quickly grounded me, an act of love.
I happen to be at the top of the
privilege sector of the United States- a white male who came from a privileged
upbringing. I don’t question it, nor am
I thankful for it. I’m thankful for being loved and surrounded by love daily,
not for the fact I am a white male. It certainly does not define me. It is, as
they say, “what it is”. I am 6 feet tall, athletic, academic, and I like to
think that I am personable. I’m scared to death for my first classroom
experience, but that’s a story for another day. I have it made! I married a
beautiful behavioral pediatrician who sees the world through the same lens from
another angle. She is my world- she also considers me her world. And she was concerned.
You see, as a 6-foot tall,
athletic, and clean-cut white male- I resemble an ICE agent. Not consciously,
no. There are plenty of 6-foot-tall white males, and I don’t spend my time
trying to figure out who is an ICE agent and who is not. That could drive
anyone crazy. For this project, however, that fact was quite limiting. My
beautiful, brilliant wife saw that from the jump and requested that I not put
myself into any situation where harm could befall me. She loves me, and we’re trying to start a family. I understood. It sucks, and this country needs to do a whole lot better, but I understood.
This could be another paper, at
this point, focusing on the perils that we currently face as a country, and how
abundantly unfair it is to most of its citizens, but it will not be. For this
is a cultural experience project- and so I will focus my efforts there. I wish
I could follow the project instructions to the T, but again, as they say, “it
is what it is”. And, as they say, happy wife, happy life.
I chose the historic Temple B’nai
Abraham Chabad, a place that was abundantly safe, to fulfill my wife’s request.
Safe- because I am white, and so is everyone else there. I speak English, and
so does everyone else there. And a fun bonus! My dad is Jewish, and my mom
became Jewish when she married him, although she practices Catholicism. Basically,
the Vegas triple cherries.
Temple B’nai Abraham Chabad was
built in 1910, although the congregation has been together since 1874. A lot of
history- The Russian Jews who immigrated here were a bit different than the
German Jews who came before them- a bit stricter in their prayers and practices
(Friedman, 1993). In other words, Orthodox. All the Philadelphia Jewish at one
time lived in a rectangle stretching from Old City to South Philadelphia
(Friedman, 2024).
I spent an hour in the temple. This bastion of prayer is beautiful, spacious, and open- it used to be a church, and it
has stained glass windows. It once was topped with huge Russian onion domes- those sadly burned down in a fire long ago. The people who worship there (and there
were 11 men ranging from 24-70 years of age on the Sunday morning I visited) are kind and modest. They quite simply show up to do their duty:
prayer (the women handle cooking- a bit too, what’s the word, not at all modern
for my tastes but I was not there to judge, only learn).
I was lucky to show up 45 minutes
early- because a kind layman named Kirby arrived at about the same time, sweaty
from his bicycle ride from Mt. Airy in oppressive heat. He greeted me warmly
and with a handshake- I explained who I was and what I was doing. My project
instantly excited him and he seemed eager to explain everything. He was eager
to meet me on my ground, as suggested by Igoa Cristina as a strategy to connect
with ELs (Cristina, 1995, p. 68). He began by telling me the fundamental reason
for his excitement, explaining that the Orthodox Jews in general “spend too
much time inward looking, and not enough time explaining what we do to others,
to our detriment”. I found that openness magnetic, and his sentiment related
greatly to the text we are reading in EDUC-565. Like learning language, we can
perhaps learn religion by simply sitting in a place of worship and coming to a
place of understanding. However, it certainly greatly helps if we have someone kind
to help lower our religious affective filter and scaffold what is going on (Wright,
2025, p. 58).
The prayer service was entirely in
Hebrew, and from there on, even though I was comfortable in the setting, I did
feel quite uncomfortable as the 11 men (representing a true quorum as 10 are
needed to initiate group prayer) walked around the synagogue with their prayer
books, bowing, and praying- an organized chaos if I ever did see one. I, like Igoa
Cristina’s students without an initial nest (Cristina, 1995, p.66) , felt
confused and alone as I was the only person not in “uniform”. They all wore
large Tallit and wrapped themselves in Tefillin, custom during these types of
group prayer services. Other than that, there was no dress code. Two of the men
were in Phillies hats, for instance. They were clearly brothers and clearly
loved to tease each other.
These men pray hard, and they cover
a lot of ground. They don’t even keep the same pace. There was a lay leader at
the central raised platform, called a Bimah, praying alone as well. Just
louder. At one point, a certified rabbi in the group corrected his prayer, and
the man accepted it with a smile. These men are taught that ego belongs in the
trash- a universal truth to true self-discovery.
I was thankful to have Kirby beside
me explaining the rituals and giving me a history lesson in parallel- without
him, I would have felt far less comfortable. I was just lucky. I wonder if I
would have been so lucky if I was not white- who knows. I venture yes, but I
fear no. And if not, I would have experienced my own “silent stage” (Cristina,
1995, p. 38) longing to fit in but unable to do so just yet. That would have
been a profound connector that I am disappointed to miss out on. Happy wife,
keep going.
The men closed the prayer session
(only about 30 minutes total) with a Psalm reading in English- lucky me! The
sentiment was universal- simply understanding a single word was relieving. In
that, I partially understood the moment of happiness an EL experiences when
they can speak and be understood for the very first time. Thus, the experience
ended on a positive and profound note.
The Jewish people are very familiar with a
term called “diaspora”. It literally means “the dispersion or spread of a
people from their original homeland”. The Jews have faced exodus for centuries by
various groups, the most notorious coming in the 1940s. As EL teachers, we will
encounter many students going through their own version of “diaspora”, as
brilliantly summarized by Igoa Christina in her encounters with her ELs
(Cristina, 1995). It is beyond our privilege to help them acculturate in our
classrooms so that they can acculturate in American society. It is our duty.
References
Friedman, Murray, et al (1993). When
Philadelphia Was the Capital of Jewish America. Philadelphia: Balch
Institute Press.
Friedman, R (2024). Jews and
Judaism. The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Jews and Judaism - Encyclopedia of
Greater Philadelphia
Igoa, Cristina. (1995). The
Inner World of the Immigrant Child. New York: St. Martin’s
Press. (ISBN#: 0-8058-8013-5)
Wright, W.E. (2015). Foundations
for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy, and
practice (3rd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Caslon Publishing. ISBN:
9781934000366
Comments
Post a Comment