Another Reason My Mom Rules

My mom teaches remedial reading to elementary school kids. By and large, most of her students aren't actually behind in reading, they just don't speak--and therefore don't read--English. Last year, she had help. Her school had an ESL teacher who worked with the kids who were learning English and my mom stuck to the kids who really had reading difficulties. This year, though, the school decided they didn't need an ESL teacher. So, my mom has both groups of kids all to herself again. She is implementing a plan, which she just called to tell me about. She's taking the second and third graders who benefited from the hard work of the ESL teacher and know a great deal of English, and sticking them with the kids who only know Spanish, and letting the bilingual kids help the Spanish-speaking kids learn English. "We're not allowed to speak to them in Spanish," she said. "It's the immersion stuff they have us doing which just doesn't work. But I won't be speaking Spanish to them." "You're a genius, Ma." "Don't tell anyone, but I'm learning Spanish, anyway. What if there's a fire?* Someone has to be able to tell them. I don't care what the rules are." "And a rebel, I see." *See, Professor, I come by my worries about hypothetical events honestly.