Miss Pope from Bishop's High School in the East had been calling me religiously for at least a year before I finally gave in. She wanted me to teach English to some teenage boys and young men who had desperately been looking for an English teacher. None of them were attending secondary school. "You will enjoy working with these young men," she said. "They are respectful, eager to learn and they can't find anyone to help them. Call Ms McDonald. She will arrange for you to meet them." Miss Pope happened to get me on the right day. I had always argued that I could not afford any free work, but on that day, there seemed to be something more important in this world than money.
Something told me a little community service would be good for the soul. After all, these were young men who wanted to learn English. No one was forcing them to take an English class-not even their mothers. And so it was that last year, on October 16, I had my first class. I was scared. I had never taught a CXC English language course before, and I didn't relish the notion that I might let these young men down. Twenty-eight guys showed up for my assessment to determine who was at CXC level. None were nerds. They were tough boys-at least on the outside. They came from different communities, mostly poor and rough-the places that the police now raid during curfew.
Only one boy stood out from the sea of serious faces: Jamai, with his mouth full of gold teeth, that he flashed when he smiled. The rest just looked aloof and puzzled. The only thing they wanted to know about me was where I was from originally. I handed out a passage from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: "...sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get going, I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.'" No one smiled; everyone seemed to ponder Hemingway's advice.
And then I gave them their assessment. You could cut the tension with a knife as I walked around the room glancing at what they wrote. Most of my students didn't know a noun from a verb. They wrote in Creole. They all tried to write one true sentence. Many students pointed to the notes they had written on the bottom of their papers. Some whispered the message: "Please, Miss. Tell me what you want me to do. I'll do anything you want. Don't leave us. We've waited a long time to find an English teacher," they said or wrote. All I was sure of that first class was that this was an English teacher's dream. My students didn't waste a minute of class time. They were sponges, soaking up knowledge.
We agreed to meet every week from 4 to 7 o'clock on Saturday evening and 1 to 3 pm on a Sunday because they wanted to sit the CXC English exam in June-last June. "That will be trying a t'ing," I said, "because it's two years of work we'll have to do in about seven months." "We'll do it, miss," they assured. That made me feel a twinge of sadness because I knew that meant I'd have to weed out the weak ones who could not keep up with the pace. Who would I choose for this class? All of these young men were united in their zeal to learn and their determination to fight against the odds and get their education. Nothing had come easy to these boys in their lives. I knew-indeed I still know-that they are about as far removed from my world-and probably yours-as they could possibly be. What I didn't know at that time is that they would teach me far more than I could ever teach them.
When I reached home that first night, I read the paragraphs they had written about what animals they wanted to be. I thought they would say lions or tigers, but most of them said birds because they could soar above their lives-soar above the problems of Trinidad and the world. If they could look down on the world like a bird, they were sure they would find it beautiful. Some students wanted to be dogs because they're loyal. And then there was Olton, a weak student, who wrote he wanted to be a turtle. "...because a turtle lives to be a thousand years old," he wrote. "I would be able to see generations of young people grow up, and I wouldn't have to be dead by the time I'm 20 or 30." I swallowed hard and tried not to cry. I spent the next week gathering the strength to go back to teach again in YTC.
• Next week: The forgotten boys of Trinidad
THOUGHTS
I had always argued that I could not afford any free work, but on that day, there seemed to be something more important in this world than money.
All I was sure of that first class was that this was an English teacher's dream. My students didn't waste a minute of class time. They were sponges, soaking up knowledge.
Nothing had come easy to these boys in their lives. I knew-indeed I still know-that they are about as far removed from my world-and probably yours-as they could possibly be.