Rainbow Class Part 1
By Jaime Luis S. Habitan
May 18th, 2001 was the day I sat foot on a public school, the day I sat foot to an American school, and the day that I spent being a fourth grader once more.
My parents brought my little brother, Jorge, and I to a FairfaxCountySchool office to have our documents finally approved and later had us enrolled to this called HaycockElementary School. Being a foreigner living in the Land of Milk and Honey, it’s a good thing that I’ll be able to meet up with a fellow Pinoy expat, Abe Guinigundo who is a grade higher than me (today he’s studying in Ateneo De Manila University but we still remained in contact with each other).
We arrived at the school right on time before classes could start. A lady from the faculty talked to my parents. She showed us some papers and told them we were already assigned to our classrooms. I still wondered why we were to repeat (at least for the rest of the school year there) since I already finished fourth grade and so does Jorge who finished 2nd grade. We went off first to Jorge’s classroom and we left him there (we later found out that he was on the wrong classroom so he was assigned to another one). Then the lady brought me to a classroom on the other side of the school. The classroom was empty because my soon-to-be classmates were on the other room studying for an upcoming Social Studies test. There was the class advisor and her name was Mrs. Shoemaker.
Yah, I know it’s a funny name but she’s really nice if you get to know her better. She showed around the classroom and I was really impressed on how their classroom looks like. The whole classroom is decorated to all kinds of art stuff. It made the classroom more colorful. By that time, my parents already left and my teacher gave me a short tour of the school.
Soon, the class came back inside the classroom and Mrs. Shoemaker formally introduced me to them. That time, I’m not really used on speaking English as much as I speak Tagalog. So when I began to introduce myself, my English was a bit whacked. I was very nervous but they accepted me anyway.
The first friend I had there was a guy named Will Evans. He’s really cool and smart. He has a twin brother named Andrew and whenever they’re together, you can’t tell which is which. They usually have color-coded sweaters to tell them apart, or wear distinct clothes so you can tell who’s the who. I also made friends with classmates April Purdy, Clementine Milton, and a whole lot more. I found out that there also foreigners who go here, like Clementine who is a South African, Amani Radzi who is a Malaysian, Jungmin Park who is a Korean, Marius Staschen who is a German and Artium Aravelli who is a Russian. It’s a classroom of students from different races and religions which makes this class very colorful much like a rainbow.
Many are very excited to talk to me. There were some shouting that there’s a new student, which is me. During lunch, they were asking me sorts of questions like “What’s your name (I’m James Habitan)”, “Where are you from? (I’m from the Philippines)”, and “What’s that place? (It’s country found in Asia)”. I tell you, the whole class is really into me.
After lunch was recess, Will and the other guys invited me to a game of soccer, a game I was to play only for the first time. I shortly backed out since the ball made a strike on my you-know-what!
There’s a lot of things that happened that day but I have to tell you in general what had been like during those two months as a fourth grader.
Since I’m a foreigner who is bilingual in Filipino and English, I was required to be in the E.S.L. program with Mr. Branscomb as my ESL. Other ESL students who are with me always are Amani, Marius and Artium. Whenever we have English class, I and other guys would always go to the ESL room to meet up with Mr. Branscomb (there was a time that while on the way I accidentally spoke to Amani in Filipino). There, he would correct us with our fluency, giving us the right way of saying this and that. Perhaps the most memorable one was when he thought me the right way to pronounce the “th”-words.
There was also this system I discovered on how students learn their subjects. In major academics like Math, Science and English, each class (and sometimes half of them) would move to the next class to study major topics of that particular subject. By that time too, I found out that there were no quarterly examinations held since it is not required by the American public school system. They only have this year-end test called the SOL or Standard of Learning test. It serves as a final exam to many that’s why we were given notes and reviewers to be well prepared.
Mingling with the other kids was really that easy, you just have to be nice to them. Here, there are no bullies (those caught bullying are sanctioned with penalties, much like in Saint James except that they enforce it well), no vulgar words to be heard, nor talks about “guns, goons, and gold”, if you know what I mean.
June 12 of that year, just a few days before the end of the school year, the teachers hold their annual volleyball showdown to see who the best of the best are. BY that time, I really had a great time here in Haycock. I never expected that there’s a lot more here than one would expect, especially for me.
To be continued…
