Best Day in Education

I teach adult noncredit ESL to mostly Chinese immigrants in San Francisco. My students range from 17-90 years old. Some of my students have been in the US for decades but were working the entire time and didn't have time to study English. Some of my students arrived in the US days before coming to class. Beyond teaching English, a major part of my job is building a sense of community—both in the classroom and in the city at large. 

One unit I was teaching in my English through Film class was on the movie Milk. I framed the unit's importance on San Francisco history but was ready to talk about LGBTQ rights. I knew this would be difficult for some students as Chinese culture still has a don't-ask-don't-tell policy around LGBTQ people. During a vocabulary lesson on the first day of the unit, students started laughing. I would look up and they would stop. I think everyone was surprised when Danny, a middle-aged man who rarely volunteers to speak, raised his hand and asked to address the class. He came to the front of the room, took the time to look each student in the eye, and said, "I'm a homosexual man who wanted to stay in my home country of China. When my family found out, they made me leave the village. My friends would not talk or help me. I went to Guangzhou and made enough money to come to the US. I came to San Francisco because of Harvey Milk. When you laugh, you are laugh at me, my partner and my community. Shame on you." Then he repeated this in Mandarin and Cantonese, and then he sat down. After class most of the Chinese quickly left, but the non-Chinese , but the non-Chinese went up and shook Danny's hand.

Why was this the best day for me? One, I was so proud of Danny. It may have been the bravest thing I've seen in the classroom. Two, it meant he felt comfortable enough with the classroom community to speak his truth. Three, Danny also trusted me enough to have his back if things went south. Four, it was such an "American" thing to do. I don't mean my students have to totally assimilate into American culture, whatever that is. I mean it's important in this country to stand up for yourself. It's something I need to emphasis a lot in classes because many Asian cultures use back channels to get information across. 

The rest of the story is that all the students went back to treating Danny as they always had. The last day of the unit I had a union meeting to attend, and my sub was a non-binary friend of mine. They reported that my lesson was scraped because the students wanted to discuss LGBTQ perspectives and rights. Kate said everyone was respectful and asked polite non-invasive questions. 

For more on to teach Milk: Harvey Milk Lesson Plan

Linda O.