Root hairs

I know the room, way down at the end of the building and up at the top of the stairs, and how hot it can be on summer evenings. I know the material: writing and reading skills with grammar, vocabulary and so on thrown in. I know my own style, the way I speak carefully and with enough volume to be heard, the way I repeat  things, the way  I explain, my lame jokes. I even know the students: from Brazil, Central and Latin America, Morocco, China, Vietnam, mostly young people, divided between raw newcomers and longer term residents.

But each class needs to be, and is new. Each one of the students has their own story--and I know this because I've been moved when in the course of the course, they have occasion to speak from the heart. Each of the students has a style that jazzes us up in a certain way. Each of them will grown in a discernible way. Each, or most. In any case, who exactly and in what way will become clear over the course of the nine weeks. We'll grow together as a community of learning.

Also, I'm trying a few new things, I want to realign the backbone syllabus. There's work on speech units I want to try teaching. I want to try more poetry, though I'm not sure how. I've got some ideas for sentence building exercises--and this before I've even seen any of their writing. Even the old stuff I know I can teach better.

These students aren't in my class for fun. Some of them drive long distances. Many are squeezed hard for time. There are child-care issues. However, they are determined to learn English. My job is to help them go beyond that to actually loving the language.

Some will drop out and some go the distance. This class that I regularly dread in prospect (the time, the committment), I'll come to find comfortable, even inspiring, something sad to see end.

First class over. I know the names and I've seen the faces. I can already start to feel in me the sprouting of the root hairs of relationship. Let's see where it goes.