Friday Photo: What’s in a Name?
2012 Elementary school trip, Crayola Factory, Easton, PA
I have been Miss Grove for three years now — well, officially. I suppose I have technically been Miss Grove since the date of my birth, but the first time a student entered my classroom in 2009 and said, “Good morning, Miss Grove. My name’s Amber; I’m a junior. It’s nice to meet you,” I found it so charming that I emailed my mom. (“A student called me MISS. GROVE. Isn’t that cute?”)
I have been many names in my life, each with a different flavor. Sylly G was my name in middle school, coined by my friend Marie when I was trying to have some kind of an attitude. Seel-via, silk-laden and elegant, was my host mom’s pronunciation of my name in 2005 when I spent a semester in Avignon, France. My students in Talange, France, in 2007 called me Madame (or l’américaine” because they could never remember my first name) which made me sound snobby, or so I thought, but it was also a distinct gesture of respect. So Miss Grove has been.
A name can be a reason for camaraderie, and a title can be a mark of distinction, but I also noticed that a name can also make or break intimacy. During my first years of teaching, I used to hesitate to call myself by my first name whenever I was telling a story because saying “Sylvia” out loud in a room of people who call me “Miss Grove” required the merging of my worlds, my perceptions of myself. Sylvia does cartwheels while jogging by the Susquehanna River, but Miss Grove, in high heels and a serious skirt, would not.
However, it seems that the first step to being a good teacher is showing your humanity, your normalness. One difficulty with being a teacher was realizing that there is a distinct line between the students’ perceptions of my life and theirs, and I wanted to show them that the difference was very small. (I too know what Rock Band is, have favorite rides at Hersheypark, have opinions on pizza toppings, and have read The Hunger Games.) The best advice I ever received about teaching was that it is a reciprocal experience — I learn from the students as much as they learn from me — and that education never ends. Therefore, I became Sylvia in the classroom whenever I was telling a story about my first interviews for The Patriot-News or when explaining my musical background; I was Sylvia as I talked about tutoring at the Central PA Literacy Council or learning to talk to the homeless woman named Denise at my laundromat on Calder Street. I am Sylvia because I want to prove that education is not just isolated to Miss Grove and the classroom.
Today, I announced that I am resigning from high school teaching to pursue higher education in the fall, and I realized that Miss Grove, as I know her, will be gone. But what I learned from her during these three years of sharing her existence—how to expose myself to students, to laugh, to be vulnerable, to think creativity, to be challenged even by those younger than me, and to listen—shall carry me through for the rest of my life.
After I stepped down from the lunchroom stage at the high school, clutching a Kleenex and trying to tell the students they had made a difference in my life, a junior named Derrick approached me and said, “Thanks for the stories.” What I hope he meant was, “Thank you for being Sylvia.”
Friday Photo: Midstate hot dogs recall Chilean street food
Santiago, Chile, 2011
An April 18 article in The Patriot-News profiled the mid-state’s zany hot dogs, just in time for warmer weather. Referencing local hot dog varieties such as the gyro dog from DK Dogs, Harrisburg, with tzatziki sauce, feta cheese, tomatoes, and onions ($3.75); or the chihuahua dog from Dewz Dogz, Wormleysburg, with cheese, house chili, guacamole, salsa, and sour cream ($3.99), author Julia Hatmaker writes, “It’s what’s on [hot dogs] that counts. While one can’t go wrong with the usual mustard and relish toppings, sometimes you want something a little extraordinary.”
Chileans couldn’t agree more. The photo above, taken in the capital city of Santiago, is of a stand featuring nothing but hot dogs. Oh-so-naive, I had assumed that hot dogs only came two ways, 1) with a trio of mustard, ketchup, and relish, or 2) burnt.
Chile set me straight. Hot dogs with avocado and mayonnaise (completos)? No problem! Hot dogs with sauerkraut? Why not? An italiano, with tomato, mayonnaise, and avocado? Why would you even ask? And if the hot dogs at the stand in this photo didn’t suit you, you could visit the stand next door, or the seemingly-identical twenty other stands that lined this pedestrian street next to the Plaza de Armas, Santiago’s main square. (Variety is the spice of life.)
What is remarkable about hot dogs is that they are portable as well as versatile. Even when hot dogs are eaten over a paper plate at a picnic, they spend more time in your hands than out of them. For Chileans, hot dogs are meal food, snack food, and night clubbing food. I saw students eating them on street corners, parents feeding them to their children, grandparents buying one and an empanada to split. In Chile, at least according to the article “A history of the completo,” hot dogs aren’t necessarily a cop-out meal — they are a labor of love.
I often don’t take hot dogs seriously, but after returning to America, the country did inspire me to do my first central PA hot dog review, profiling the deep-fried hot dogs from Arooga’s Grille House and Sports Bar.
Chile’s hot dogs taught me the validity of traditions — especially of those that I do not understand.
Chilean youth eating hot dogs, 2011