#11

11 is a Vietnamese American who does not speak English at home. She is the middle of three very bright, very quiet girls. I was told by her fourth grade teacher that she was incredibly shy and would hardly ever speak. What I witnessed was a 10 year old girl who was trying to come out of her shell but was not only unsure about her personality, but also about if people would understand.

11 spoke to me from early on. Probably out of necessity but it also must have been a safe bet. She would ask me questions about the work we were doing and about how to say something the right way in her writing. She wrote a lot. Her answers were almost always right on and only sometimes incomprehensible. Most of the time the verbs were not in the correct tense, but that was the only problem and is a very common problem. She seemed so competent and, yet, would sit at snack time just observing. At recess, she often wandered alone, or sometimes hovered at the outskirts of a group, many times being left behind as they ran off to some urgent situation by the playground or off in the field. It reminded me of myself, watching, understanding, but somehow finding it hard to jump into a conversation. I tried multiple seating arrangements. I tried asking my girls to look out for her, but after a while, they gave up because she was just too hesitant to really join the group.

What it took was Vietnam. And unfortunately it was at the end of the year, but like everything else, it was a learning experience. Our new principal decided that our school needed to study some other countries. So Global Studies week was born. And teachers chose a country and figured out how to "study" it since that was the extent of the directions for the week. So I asked my class what country they wanted to study. I was thinking about Vietnam, but didn't want to put 11 and 10 on the spot if they didn't want to be. So I had everyone write down a country. 11 put Vietnam and 10 wrote that she didn't care which country. So I rigged the vote and our class was studying Vietnam - paired with the third grade class that 11's sister, J, was in.

11 came alive during that first week of June. I had some things planned, but 11 had even more and most of my plans fell to the wayside in order to incorporate all the things 11 wanted to share. She told us stories, she brought in posters from home showing the fashion and the zodiac animals, she laughed at our pronunciations and tried to teach us, she shared her red envelopes from New Years, brought in chopsticks so we could try them, and even printed out pictures of some traditional food and festivals. The best parts of that week though were seeing 11 talking during snack time. Interjecting and interrupting and having a personality. She had a group of girls working with her at the back table on making 3D drawings of all 12 zodiac animals. She was playing four square at recess and having one-on-one conversations. But the absolute best part of the week was on the last day of "Global Studies" she and her mother made fried rice. She brought it in to share with both classes. She and J were both dressed in their traditional "long dresses" and these two shy, hesitant girls wandered around the classroom of 40 kids showing everyone how to use the chopsticks to eat the rice. All she needed was to be an authority - to be able to share and have something that people could connect with. Again, I wish this had happened at the beginning of the year, so she could have grown and expanded her friendships, but I can only hope that the bonds she made will continue into next year and that the self confidence she found will carry over into her everyday actions.