I work in the Writing Center at my university; every week, I sit behind a computer as students drop by to receive help on a paper. They have questions about grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. But only one has come in and talked about being uncomfortable in his classroom.
It was 8:00pm when Abdul came into the Writing Center. He asked if I had time to help him, and we began working on MLA citations and a works cited list. We finished relatively quickly; his paper was well written: an analysis of Kung Fu Panda 3 and the way its characters represent cultures.
He took notes on our discussion in Arabic, and received a phone call from his wife and started speaking a different language. He stopped mid-sentence with his wife and turned to me and said in English, "Don't worry. I'm saying you are very nice."
I smiled, but felt sad inside. He felt the need to explain his conversation with his wife to me, a conversation that I didn't need to know because its contents was not my business. He felt that he needed to make me feel comfortable; I harbored my own disappointment in myself for not being able to make him feel like gestures like that were unnecessary.
He got off the phone and told me that his wife recognized my voice; I had worked with her in the Writing Center the past, and she told him that I was very nice. She also felt the need to let him know that he should be comfortable working with me.
We started talking and began to confide in me about his English professor. He told me that the theme of the course was "sheep/sheep dog/wolf," a theme in which the students would analyze characters within texts and identify whether they believed the character fit the persona of the aforementioned animals. But he told me he had a strange feeling within class; he felt a little uncomfortable.
The professor had chosen texts that centered entirely on American military endeavors, specifically that of the text American Sniper. He reassured me that as I was American and the class was taught by an American and the students in the course were predominantly American, he understood the choice. He told me it was okay that we Americans saw Chris Kyle as an American hero because to us he was; he protected our country and sacrificed his life to keep America safe.
But when the professor showed a scene from the film American Sniper, Abdul was nervous. It was the scene in which Chris Kyle must decide whether or not to kill a Muslim woman and her child.
Abdul told me he was not from the Iraq, but he was from the Middle East, and seeing such violent to a class that included other Middle Eastern students seemed inappropriate. He also spoke of some fellow classmates who had fought in Iraq; he told me that they told him they didn't want to watch or read about war -- they had experienced enough of that already.
Our conversation diverged into a discussion about other places he had lived and studied; he told me that Kansas had a wonderful basketball team.
When he left, the sadness lingered. I didn't know what to say; I didn't know how to help; I didn't know enough about his country and culture and religion to encourage him. Though I empathized with him and agreed that the professor was not considered the demographic of his class, I was helpless.
I probably will never see Abdul again; I begin student teaching full-time in January and can no longer work in the Writing Center. But this conversation with Abdul was more educational than reading any online article or listening to any one-sided news report.
And as winter break approaches, I think of Abdul. Perhaps if his professor and I put our fears aside and sat down and listened to what he and others of his culture truly feel about their experiences, Abdul wouldn't have to reassure me of his foreign words and I would be able to make him feel like he belongs...because he does.
