Many Musings of Aarushi

So, I woke up this morning to the sound of my mother bitching into the phone at the ESL lady at Jefferson Middle School. And you know, my mom, soft spoken as she is, can really kick ass if provoked.

Recently, my mother went to go register Chet for his new middle school and she was finished with the registration part and was inquiring as to what else she should/was supposed to do. And so this random lady walks up to her and goes, "Oh You're Chaitannya's Mom! I've been meaning to call you about testing Chet for ESL."

Not being familiar with what ESL is, my mother responded enthusiastically, thinking that ESL was some kind of gifted English class for amazing kids like Chet. Upon realizing that ESL is, in fact, an English as A Second Language class, she tried to get him out of taking the test. And the lady asks, "But doesn't Chet have a different name?"

And my mom says, yeah, his name's Chaitannya, and we make everyone call him Chet because no one can pronounce his name. But that hardly means he can't speak English. And of course, annoying ESL lady was like, "No, it's required that children in homes that speak languages other than English and have funny names [people who are not white]have their skills tested." (They know that because my mother filled out a survey back in like, June, that said we spoke both languages at home, probably to make us look good.)

So of course my mother protested some more, and the lady pulled out some wacky state law, which I'm sure doesn't exist, or at least, doesn't apply to us, because we live in Verona. So she signs Chet up to take this stupid ESL test that's designed to make it look like people of other cultures are completely incompetent, when in fact, the kids of this culture have a hard enough time understanding English, without teachers ditching them to pay attention to the so-called challenged kids who obviously can't have a grasp on two languages at once.

And Chet can't even UNDERSTAND Hindi. Chet, being the most articulate 10 year old going into 6th grade in the entire world (this kid Google him, if you doubt the claim.), receives ridiculous praise from all people who know him about his amazing language skills. His essays get read to the class. My mother is in love with his handwriting. The people at College for Kids want to have his kids.And,just because we're not white, doesn't mean we can't speak English.

My parents speak English all the time. They're better at it than most senators, because they've been learning it since they were born as well. They know Oxford words. I won the spelling bee at my middle school. I got my 5th grade essays published in the school chronicles and published my own magazine in 5th grade. We're not stupid people. Not to mention that we're all amazingly gifted musically and academically. We can speak in multiple accents/dialects. We have good grammar. And just because we're educated, and know more languages than some people, we should have our abilities questioned? Just because Chet's name is simplified for folks who can't be bothered to pronounce his real name correctly? If we think that Chet can't speak English, then we'll put him in ESL ourselves. We're not going out of our way on a weekday, just to have my little brother objectified by a test that will eventually tell us what we already know. That Chet is the most amazingly talented English-speaking, American-born, Indian, 10-year-old sixth grader ever.

And my mom told them just that.
And the ESL lady didn't dare tell her otherwise.