I don’t really remember how I first learned to read and write. I do, but it was very different from many other places around the world. I remember a lot of my teachers being mean mostly because it was their job. They were a lot like my father. My father is the oldest of his siblings, and if anyone knows how it works in Africa, the most popular form of teaching discipline to a kid is through beating them. Actually, not beating your child is heavily frowned upon. Anyone that is considered your elder, that can be your neighbor, a friend that is even a second older than you, has the permission to do with you as they please when it comes to discipline. Now, my father was a firm believer in this method. He was hard on me and my brothers because he was very passionate about us and our future, so looking back now, I can understand why the passion turned to rage. Now, depending on how angry he was, you were really in for it. When he used to help us with our homework and we would get an answer wrong, or behave in a manner he didn’t like, he would deal with us “accordingly”. This is really where a lot of my discipline comes from when it comes to classroom behavior, my behavior around the elderly, and how school became an important part of my life and where a lot of my ethics come from. Due to this, my father is respected everywhere he goes, because he never holds back from saying anything, which is where his reputation comes from.
I remember we were given these tiny boards in school. They had a grid outline and were pretty much these mini blackboards in your hand. We would have a piece of chalk, and we’d write a letter and repeat it over and over until everyone got it right. I remember we wrote in script, or what looked like script, anyway. I imagine the fundamentals were like a child learning to read and write in the United States. We had notebooks and school books, but the mini blackboards were a must have for everyone. They were used for just about anything. It was used for classwork, as a scrapbook, scrap paper, anything you could think of. They were the standard for a classroom. As I progressed through school, from kindergarten the 1st grade, the mini blackboards progressively became less and less necessary. They were missed, though.
One thing I really appreciate about education back in Guinea, at least from hind sight, was that whenever we were taught a lesson in class, part of our homework was to go over all the notes we were given in class and memorize them work for word, because the next day we would stand in front of the whole class and recite them. If we had gotten them wrong, there was only one thing waiting for us from the teacher. My parents were very serious about school, so they had hired a well-respected teacher from the neighborhood to come and tutor us every day after school. His name was Mr. Barry. I don’t think I ever got his first name, but he was regardless like a real family member, and not because that’s how it is in Guinea either. I only remember him raising his hand against us once and that was against my brother. Mr. Barry helped us with our homework and he also helped us revise our notes for the next day. First, we would go over them and we’d give him our notebooks and recite the notes. We would do that over and over until we got it right. Somehow, he always managed to make it a fun experience, and that’s why everyone adored him in the neighborhood, mainly the kids because he wouldn’t hit us. I remember I would wake up early in the morning and go over my notes again and revise them. My mother used to tell that it was good to do that in the morning because it would help me to remember the notes later when I was reciting them in front of the class.
After graduating from the 4th grade in 2008, I came here my mother and my eldest brother. My other brother was already here for two years. Everything became so different. On my first day of school, everyone thought I was Haitian because I told my teacher, Ms. Foley, that I spoke French. She even paired me up with a Haitian girl so that she could translate everything to me. What sucked about that was although French and Haitian Creole sound similar, they are very different. For one, the words are spelled and pronounced differently, and the accent makes it worse for me to understand. So rather than having to deal with one language barrier, the one that was supposed to facilitate it had a worse time trying to communicate with me. I actually think I understood the teacher more than the student at that point. I remember one of the first things I picked up on when I started was the writing in print rather than my “script”. That was because I always thought it looked nice when I would read something on a computer or type something, so I figured I’d try it out. There went my script.
I remember whenever I brought homework to my brother for help he would just use Google Translate because we were both having the same trouble trying to learn English. The reason he had it easier than I did was because he took some English back in Guinea the year before we came. English was part of the curriculum there, but you had to be in high school. Speaking of which, the school system worked differently in grades. Back in my day, instead of pre-k and kindergarten, we had nursery school. It had three sections: the small section, middle section, and big section. Each section took a year to complete. Elementary school went from the 1st grade to the 6th grade. Middle school, which is called college, went from the 7th grade to the 9th grade. High school then went from the 10th grade to the 12th grade. Afterwards, a test was taken the following year, almost like being in the 13th grade, called the “unique bac” to get into university. Today, however, middle school now goes from the 7th grade to the 10th grade where you take an exam to get into high school, which now only went from the 11th to the 12th grade, where you’d take exams the following year in the “13th grade”. Another name for that year was simply called the “terminal”. I guess that’s because it was your last year before going to university, if you were to pass the bac. Although none of my two older brothers took the bac, my elder brother was in the 8th grade the year before we came. Around the time that it was time for him to take the exam to get into high school, I remember everything just being super-serious for him because the test would be hard and no one wanted to get left back, because it would be two years of the same stress. My other brother came here the year before he would go to the 6th grade, so he wasn’t there for the exams.
I remember the summer before I would officially start school I was trying to learn as much English as I could. I was lucky in the sense that I was still young and had the reach the year where I’d be more aware of everything. My brain was really absorbing things at the time so it easier for me to catch on to things. I was watching cartoons every morning with my brother that had been here two years prior to my coming. He was in summer school that summer so that morning was all the time we had until the evening when I would come back with my mom and aunt from their job. I used to watch cartoons like Super Why!, Spongebob, Phineas and Ferb, and tv shows like Zack and Cody. Whenever I wanted to know what a word meant, he would translate it and give me examples, anything to help me understand faster. The language barrier wasn’t too much of an issue either because many words in French and English sound alike. For example, the word “utilize”, to many may sound a bit sophisticated or may be a “big word”, but that’s how you say “use” in French, so it wouldn’t sound as advanced to me. Words like that helped me grasp the language faster and with the help of friends at school, and family members, I didn’t have too much trouble. Especially with google translate, and me just being young and observant at the time, it all worked out a little easier. I also took ESL where most of my classmates there were Haitian, so I had to make it clear early on that I was from Guinea because the “you’re Haitian?” line got old and irritating fast. Even at hospitals or other institutes I would get the same question whenever my mom asked for a translator or mentioned that we spoke French.
Judging from my circumstances, I don’t think learning English was too much trouble for me. When I went to the 6th grade the following year, a lot of people were telling me that I learned English fast or simply didn’t believe that I wasn’t from the country. Although there were still a lot of words I didn’t know yet, I knew more than enough English to communicate with schoolmates and school staff alike. A lot of my teachers were impressed with the fact that I did exceptionally well in classes due to language barrier. School had always been important in my family, so I had to do my best no matter the circumstances. Unlike here, students were ranked in classes from 1st place to last, not just given letter or number grades and have them rounded up in an average. Coming 1st place was almost natural to me, but there were times where I would be 2nd or 3rd. Although it wasn’t often, those were some disappointing times. Perhaps that’s where my competitive-like personality came from.
In 7th grade, I was practically fluent in English and it almost became my second language. It was that same year that I took my first Spanish class. That also came to me a lot easier than others because I was bilingual. At least that’s what I thought until I found out both of my brothers were bad at Spanish. Though, Spanish in middle school wasn’t all that serious. It was just there. When I got to school, I started taking Spanish from my sophomore year all the way through to my senior year, when I was invited to the gateway program, which is another word for honors class. The Spanish came easy to me, but I’m not fluent in it like French and English. Though, I can have an idea of what is going on in a regular Spanish conversation, and my reading, even though I have to brush up, is also quite good. So I guess you can say that I learned to read and write… again… and again.
