I, Too, Sing America

On my last day of Institute, things were running kind of late. One of my co-teachers was working on something with our FA, and the other frantically searching for help to fix the projector. “Teach something, Hannah,” they urged, as I paced restlessly, waiting to start. They were only half-joking; I’d been running math drills during our random transitions. But today was my last day with our students and I was tired of math. It was going to be literature or nothing. With only five minutes, that meant a poem, and the first one that popped into my head came out so strongly it seemed to billow across the classroom.

From the back of the room I boomed out, “Droning a drowsy, syncopated tune, rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play.” The breakfast-rustling room hushed instantaneously. I strode around it, letting my voice wrap the students in Hughes’ melodiousness. “Down on Lennox Avenue the other night, by the dull pale pallor of an old gas light, he did a lazy sway. He did a lazy sway. To the tune of those Weary Blues. O’ Blues. Rocking to a black man’s soul.”

The class was dead silent, their eyes tracking me the way I wish they’d track me when I’m explaining equivalent fractions. I hit the board and wrote “Langston Hughes” across it, sweeping my eyes across the classroom for signs of recognition. “That’s the beginning of a poem by one of the most famous American writers. Did you like it?” The students nodded vigorously. “Is that what you think poetry sounds like?” No, that was like rap, they told me. We touched briefly on their experience with poetry and the history of the Harlem Renaissance as the projector was fixed, and then I slapped “I, Too, Sing America” on the screen. I read it out, allowing my voice to manifest its full pleasure at the gorgeous succinct punch of the poem. I told them about Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” without using the words “intertextuality” or “refacimento” once, a difficult achievement, and then asked what this poem was about. They looked at it intently, and a gentle murmur spread through the class. Had I planned this, I would probably have made them talk about it with their groups and used specific questions, but we were freestyling.

 

“It’s racism,” a student muttered.

“What?” I asked. He looked down at his desk. “You said it right. Say it louder,” I told him. “Listen up, class. He’s got what to say.”

“It’s racism?” he repeated in a louder voice.

“Yep, racism,” I told them. “This is Langston Hughes’ response to racism. They send him to eat in the kitchen while they, white people, eat in the dining room, but he laughs, and eats well, and grows strong. And someday the people who sent him there will feel ashamed that they sent him away.” As I made my circuits of the room, I could feel a care in my voice to say it right, conscious that I was the one white teacher in the room and was teaching Langston Hughes. As I said that there are often people who don’t like others for things like the way they look, or the color of their skin, or even their age, I let the students hear how that was wrong. And, in a quick moment of decision, I let drop that there are people who don’t like me because of my religion.

“Christian?” someone called out.

“Jewish,” I responded. Then I strode on. I spoke about how Hughes’ words have lasted, how they’ve reached across America. How he might have wanted to fight whomever wanted to keep him back in the kitchen, and that makes sense, but writing was more powerful—it reaches more people. “And what you write, my students, that is powerful too. That can reach across the country, and across time, all across America for generations, just like Langston Hughes did.” Pause for effect. “Now it’s time for reading groups. Split!” (I didn’t actually end it that way. I’d like to because it’s more my style, but you can’t do that with 6^th graders, you have to say: quietly and carefully WALK to your reading groups). Anyhow, it wasn’t teaching so much as a quick model of poetry explication, but it was a revved up start to our last day. And damn did I have it internalized, whatever may have happened during my math class.

One of the brightest students in my class told me she’s not sure what she wants to be when she grows up, but she wants to have time for her family. As we brainstormed together, I hoped to God that she gets a career that challenges her while making time for her family, and thanked God that she has the option.

My most earnestly studious reading group student wrote: I brag about my hoes.

Me: Huh. What does that say?

Student: I brag about my house.

Me: oh-oh-oh-oh. Let’s spell “house” together.

Two of my students are usually among the last to get picked up, and while we’re waiting, I teach them a word in Hebrew or Norwegian (first they have to guess which language it is) and then they teach me a new Spanish phrase. Usually I let them pick it, which has led to both such practical phrases as “necessito un trabajo” and “puedo tener agua por favor,” but also such gems as, “no me gusta encurtidos” (they showed up on the lunch menu a lot), which I’ll probably use never. But the last day I chose the phrase.

“Tell me how to say, you are an amazing student,” I told them. So they said: “eres un/a asombroso/a estudiante.”

When the first student sighted her car, I hugged her, telling her, “eres una asombrosa estudiante.” She smiled and told me, “eres una asombrosa m…” I knew the word she’d filled in the blank must mean “teacher.” I laughed and told her to keep being her, she was going to rock 6^th grade. I walked my last student to his car. He is the gentlest, most gentlemanly young scholar, utterly committed to his learning, and every day I wish I could tell his mother so. So today I held the car door open and told him, “eres un asombroso estudiante” so that she could hear, and waved the car away, wiping away quick tears.