Marcy Speaks!

Marcy speaks!

Eh, sort of.

Well … not really. But, hey, I heard words come out of her mouth, I promise you.

As explained on the Selective Mutism Association (SMA) website, selective mutism “is an anxiety disorder characterized by a person’s inability to speak in certain social settings such as at school, work, or in the community.”

I can recall teaching two students with selective mutism, one a couple of years ago who has graduated to high school and now Marcy, an eighth-grader I’ve taught since she was in sixth. Marcy has had a couple of classmate friends over the years, and they’ve told me she talks to them during lunch and recess. In the classroom, she’s had little to say.

When I call on her to read aloud, she will (though not very loudly). However, she won’t verbally answer questions and she will not engage in conversation, at least not with adults.

Marcy is maybe the best reader and writer in her class. She’s well above average. This makes sense upon reading research on selective mutism (SM). According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, SM cannot be attributed to “a lack of knowledge of, or comfort with, the spoken language required in the social situation.”

It’s a shame Marcy has SM. She would add so much to our classroom discussions. Which brings me to the second day of class last Tuesday. We held a peace circle in her class, and the question was whether the students enjoyed their summer break. I use a racquetball as the talking piece, and the person sitting next to Marcy handed it to her. I plumb forgot that Marcy doesn’t talk. Not wanting to cause her any anxiety, I started to tell her she could pass without speaking when this happened:

“I liked my summer break. I went and saw the Spider-Man movie and it was good.”

I was stunned. I instructed the class to give Marcy a round of applause as she passed the racquetball. I thought it was a breakthrough. So much so that I thought I’d ask her a couple of questions about her disorder later and use it in this blog.

The next day, I pulled her aside in the hallway and asked her why she decided she’d speak this year.

Making no eye contact with me, she looked curiously around the hallway, saying nothing.

After a few seconds, I asked her how challenging it was not to speak in class the past couple of years.

Making no eye contact, she looked curiously around the hallway, saying nothing.

Interview over. The Meddling Meandering Maestro apologized and sheepishly returned to his classroom for his prep period.

“People with SM,” reads the SMA website, “are typically able to speak comfortably and communicate well in other settings, such as at home with family.”

This, I can verify. Marcy’s brother, who I taught in eighth grade in 2024-25, said his sister speaks freely at the house. My other student with selective mutism was also that way. I found that out when I called her home for whatever reason. I needed to talk to the mother, who only spoke Spanish, and the student needed to translate for both of us. It was the most I’ve ever heard her talk. (It’s worth noting here that the SMA reports that being bilingual may increase a person’s chance of developing SM.)

Marcy is not the only student in her class who I can’t have a verbal conversation with. Chicago is a sanctuary city, and this has made teaching more challenging. The wave of immigrants in my South Side community started roughly two years ago. My school, when I first got here in 2021, was more than 90% African American. We had a few Mexican Americans. The school is now populated with immigrants from Colombia and Venezuela and English Language Learners (ELL) make up more than 30% of our student body. In my eighth-grade class alone, eight of the 22 students are ELLs after adding two more the first week of school.

When we first started accepting these students, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) had no plan, so teachers were left to figure out how to teach them. How could you teach them? In middle school. With them having absolutely no background in English. This is like trying to teach a child algebra when he hasn’t learned to add and subtract yet. I teach a Shakespeare play every year to eighth grade. My kids who are from here struggle mightily with his prose. Hell, adults struggle with the Bard. How on earth would the ELLs grasp it?

Initially, I tried doing all the things I was taught in the Peace Corps, including total physical response, acting out whatever it was I was teaching. But it was hopeless. It was different teaching overseas. Everyone was at the same level – none of them spoke English. But here, I had the rest of the class to think about. When you teach in CPS, you know a thing or two about differentiating lessons in your classroom. You have some students who are well above grade level, some grade level, some well below. But this was ridiculous, hopeless and terribly frustrating It’s impossible to differentiate for students who don’t understand what you’re saying.

Making matters worse, some of our ELLs come from parts of the world where education isn’t taken seriously. Some of them couldn’t even read or write Spanish, their native language! What’s a teacher to do?

When we first started taking in immigrants, it was all about Duolingo, the free, online learning platform that helps people learn a new language through games. While the rest of the class was reading a book, short story or informational text in English, my ELLs were … playing games. With each passing day, we teachers eventually figured out how to teach these kids. There’s Google Translate, which translates what you’re saying or teaching into your student’s language in real time. The kids have figured out how to use their computers for live camera translation, holding up to the screen whatever text or text-based questions we’re working on and the words get translated to their language.

So the ELLs are learning in my class. Just not English. Which defeats the purpose of my class. You know what’s funny? My sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade ELLs took the Star360, a state standardized test, in English and Spanish at the beginning of the year, in the middle and at the end. They showed tremendous growth in Spanish. So, they’re getting better at Spanish in an English class, even though their teacher doesn’t speak a lick of their language. Situational irony at its best.

As a Peace Corps volunteer, I taught English as a Second Language in Madagascar from 2007-09 and the Philippines (2014-16). The Peace Corps gets it right in how they teach volunteers a new language. Before heading to your village to work, you get three months of training with fellow volunteers. From Monday to Friday, we spent at least three hours a day in class learning the language from native speakers. Volunteers stay with host families those three months, and they are instructed to speak their language when talking to them.

Total immersion. That’s not what’s going on here. The ELLs at my school largely sit together during class and lunch. The little amount of English they learn at school isn’t being reinforced later in the day, as no one in their homes speak English. 

But we’re all in a better place now. I have bilingual students in each of my classes and they are always generous in helping the ELLs understand what we’re doing in class. Plus, I have a bilingual Special Education Classroom Assistant in eighth grade, and we have a bilingual teacher assistant who floats around to various teachers’ classes, including mine.

Things are looking up. But for how long? The Chicago Board of Education passed a $10 billion budget last month. The plan depends on $150 million in unconfirmed state funding. CPS warns of midyear cuts if the money doesn’t materialize. Great. We might lose staff before the year is out.

What if I lose my bilingual help, who make my job so much easier and have already had a real impact on the ELLs?

The thought alone is enough to make me a selective mute. I don’t want to talk about it.