Tall, thin and brown haired, Mr. Dearborn walks around the room leaning back with his head extending out like giraffe. Today he’s wearing huaraches with sweats and a nice jacket he got from the thrift store. He stands at the front of the classroom explaining the day’s lesson, clutching a cup of tea. He raises one eyebrow, confused over a question a student is asking.  He habitually pushes up his black glasses during our warm up activity. His classroom smells like  boiling tea. On the left there is a model of R2D2. The front wall has pictures of his kids and wife and a couple of pictures of basketball teams he’s coached. On the left of those pictures a large cardboard of the United States takes up a majority of the wall. Every city is accurately labeled. But if you look closer you will spot a picture of one person’s very serious face perfectly cut out and placed right on our tiny city Santa Maria. It is Mr. Dearborn’s face – Dearborn, the one person in charge of the class.

Mr. Dearborn walks up to Jenna, a girl who sits next to me who is always singing. He asks her, “Do you ever go a day without singing?”

She responds with a big, “NO.”

He asks if he could sing with her one of these days. Jenna smiles immediately and responds, “Of course! What song would we sing together?”

And then Mr. Dearborn roars. Like a panther.

That was him trying to say he would want to sing Katy Perry’s song “Roar.” I couldn’t help but giggle over the weak, cracking meowing sound Mr. Dearborn made.