Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: [00:00:00] Learning a language is like wearing a mantle, a coat. So whenever you’re wearing a coat, you’re wearing that. You’re speaking a language, you’re wearing that coat, and that coat is the culture of that language. And when you learn a language, it goes hand in hand with the culture, and I’m a living proof of that.

Mandi Morris: Welcome to the ML Chat podcast. I’m Annie Morris, your host. I have really been looking forward to this conversation with Tida Kijera. Tida, we met at a conference recently. We were in the same session, and during the session you started talking in response to a question I think the presenter had posed, and I was just listening to you and I thought, “Man, I wanna get to know this woman more and hear more about her story.”

So I came to the back of the room afterwards, we talked for a little while, and you so graciously agreed to come onto our podcast and to tell us more about you and your journey and just this really incredible, vibrant language [00:01:00] journey that you’ve been on in your life. You speak so many languages, and that’s just what this conversation is about.

We- you are an ML educator, so we’ll talk some about education as well. But this is just an opportunity just to share this awesome journey that you’ve had as a language learner yourself. Tida, welcome to the conversation today, and like I said, I’ve just been really looking forward to it. 

Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Morris.

And so great to see you again. 

Mandi Morris: Tida, when we were talking after the conference, you started telling me about where you grew up and the languages that you spoke growing up. It was just so interesting. I grew up here in the US, and depending on where you grew up in the US, but where I grew up, it’s a very monolingual space, right?

In our systems, in our public school systems, kids don’t do a second language K through 12. They take a couple courses of an additional language in high school. Our systems really aren’t built historically for bi- and [00:02:00] multilingualism. Tell us some about your experience with languages and what was your environment like growing up with languages?

Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: Yes. I grew up in a community where it’s multilingual. Many tribes. Senegal and Gambia, we have at least 12 local national languages that we speak. And growing up, I grew up… I am, my tribe is a Mandinka. I grew up speaking Wolof As a first language and Mandinka, those we use simultaneous. Actually, we spoke more Wolof in our house growing up than even Mandinka.

But my grandmother, who only spoke Mandinka, would talk to us in Mandinka, and we would respond in Mandinka. But everybody else, we spoke, uh, Wolof. So it was something very natural for me where multilingual is the norm, and there’s nobody you will meet in Senegal and Gambia who only speak one language. It is almost impossible.

I can say 99.9% of the time. [00:03:00] I would even say the entire Africa. It is how our communities are set up. There is a saying, it takes a village to bring up a child. That’s how I grew up. Any adult in that community was a parent to you. You cannot even call them by Miss or Mrs. We don’t have that in our culture.

We say Mother, you add- Like I would say, my children will call you Mother Mandy, and then you’re automatically a mother. And then, or they say Aunt Mandy, whichever they call you, and that’s how it went. One of those, and then fathers, the uncles are either uncle or father. And so it took an entire village to bring us up.

And the languages we spoke, it depends on the tribe. And in my case, I have two best friends, childhood best friends. They’re two different tribes. One is a Fula, what we call in French, in Senegal, in Wolof, Pul or Fula in English, and one, she’s a Coniagie. And she, her house was opposite my house, the one who’s Coniagie, and the Fula, we shared a fence.

And these are my two [00:04:00] best friends. We played every day. We were inseparable. My Coniagie friend is Catholic, so- I went to church with her. Whenever I felt like going to church, I went to church with her, and it wasn’t a problem with my family or her family. I remember the first day we went to church together, the priest saw me, the priest knows me because he comes to the house, and we bothered him so much.

We would be acting, playing. He was an amazing person, and when he saw me and he looked at me and looked at my best friend’s family, mom and dad, and her siblings, he didn’t say anything. And he’s, “Ndaye is here with you guys today.” They called me in my neighborhood Ndaye, at school Tida, and some people call me Ndaye Tida.

“Ndaye Cisse is with you today.” He was a little worried, and Papa Pierre, my friend’s father, may his soul rest in perfect peace, said, “Oh, Ndaye will be coming whenever she feels like it. You know she’s inseparable with Angelique,” my childhood best friend, “so it’s okay.” That’s how I did, and I even did catechism with [00:05:00] her.

I grew up doing catechism with her. Whenever she went for catechism Bible studies, I went with her. Whenever I had chance to go, we went together. We were inseparable. When it’s Muslim holidays, she will dress up. So when she has her Easter clothes and Christmas dresses, she saves them for our Muslim holidays.

When I have my Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha clothes, I save them for Easter and Christmas because we both go to each other’s family during our holidays, our celebrations. It was just amazing growing up in a neighborhood where everybody, we were like family. It was a huge family, and so the languages are just natural that I was able to learn.

I remember Konyagi though, I learned it out of curiosity and to pay back to Angelique’s nephew. We had a nephew, Alphonse, who was very jealous of us because Angelique and I, we were very spoiled. In my house, I was very spoiled by my grandmother and my father. She was spoiled by her dad too, and our moms had their eyes on [00:06:00] us.

We were quite mischievous so they made sure they had their eyes on us. And Alphonse was a great one. He, Angelique’s niece, the, her sister’s son, but in our culture we say your child. If it’s the children of the same gender, they’re your children. If it’s the children of the opposite gender, then they are your nephews and nieces.

So A- Alphonse was very jealous of me coming to the house, being part of the house. So whenever he saw me coming, he would say, “Ahonai chikichu,” means here comes- The Mandinka woman, the Mandinka girl, here she comes again, And I wondered why, and whenever she- he sees me, that’s the first sentence I hear Alphonse say.

Then out of curiosity, I asked my friend Angeli, “Angeli, Alphonse, he’s jealous of us. Don’t mind him.” So I started learning Konyagi, and then I was very fluent in Konyagi, to Alphonse ex- surprise. Whenever I come, he says, “Ahola chikicha.” I says, “Alphonse?” I say, “Alphonse?” He would be like, “What?” And he looks, [00:07:00] he looked at me.

I say, “Kifo. Kifo.” And then I would greet myself, answer myself, and I pass him, and then we made fun of him. We were horrible with him because we knew he didn’t want to see us in the house. He’s the grandchild. He should have been more spoiled than we were. But that was my first encounter with Konyagi.

Konyagi was one of the fourth language I spoke, ’cause I grew up speaking Mandinka and Wolof, Fula from my other friend, Lauratu, who passed away when I was very young. We were young, she passed away, and I still have her in my heart. And I remember because of her, I learned Fula, ’cause her grandparents would only speak Fula to her.

So when I’m in the house, I would just spoke Fula with them. That’s how I learned Fula. And so Fula was the third, Konyagi was the fourth, and French was my fifth language. 

Mandi Morris: You have a curious mind. Just in this, a small amount of this conversation, I can hear from you, you’re drawn to languages. It’s part of your life, right?

You’re just surrounded by languages, surrounded [00:08:00] by different religions and different pieces of culture that are just almost part of the fabric of the community that you grew up in, and you have such a curious mind. You’re learning another language just to make fun of your best friend’s relative. And now tell us about French.

How and at what age did you learn French? 

Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: Yes, I learned French at age seven. In those days, there was no such thing as pre-K or kindergarten, because I went to school in the ’70s. We start first grade at age seven, and I remember my first day in school because we were colonized by France, so they made sure in those, in the ’70s, ’60s, up to the ’80s, there was a big campaign to make sure we had birth certificates at the right time, and also that we are registered to go to school, because not everybody wanted their children to go to school.

And so to encourage that, if you work for the government, they make sure, because we, our parents receive a pension that [00:09:00] you get, your mom gets until you’re two years old, and after two years old, the money goes to your dad. But you have to have a birth certificate, and it has to be the correct birth date and all that.

So my father registered me- At the school as Tida. I never knew my name was Tida, so the first day of school I went there with my aunt, my father’s sister, who didn’t go to school either, didn’t know how to read or write. My parents didn’t go to school. So this is how they took attendance the first day. You all line up at the door, at the classroom.

We had two first grades, and then you stand there and then they call the names. When they call the name, and you, if they call your name, then you enter. Nobody called the name. I didn’t know my name was Tida. My aunt was standing there waiting for Ndéyé Cissé. My aunt was not happy. When all the kids went to the class, I was the only one l- we were wa- we were standing there in the cour de l’école, that means the schoolyard.

And then my aunt went to the principal, Monsieur Lao, and said, “I am so [00:10:00] upset with you. You happen to be my brother’s friend. How come you did not call my daugh- my niece, Tida, Ndéyé Cissé, right here? My niece is crying. She d- doesn’t have a spot, and my brother, I know how punctual he is, I’m sure he recorded her early.

So what’s the problem?” He said, “Let me look. We only have one student who’s absent today. We called her name everywhere, but she’s not here.” And then he, she said… And then he said, “That student is Tida Cissé.” And then my aunt held her head And said, “Oh, that’s her.” We named her after our aunt, because my mother’s sister brought up my father.

She didn’t have a child in those days. We, they still do it in Africa, when you don’t have a child, you have a family member who has a child, that’s automatic adoption. They give you the child at birth or two years old, and my father was given to my grandmother’s sister when my father was two years old.

That’s where my name Ney comes from. Whenever you see Ney, sometime they add an E [00:11:00] to it, that’s more French. And then when you see Ney, it means mother. Because when we name our, in our culture, when you name your child after your parents, you don’t say the first name. You have to add something to it to show respect.

So that was my first day in French class at age seven, and then she, he took me to my class, and then that’s how I knew my name was Tida. So in school I’m called Tida. In the neighborhood I’m called Ney Cisse. In the family I’m called Ney Cisse. And that’s how I learned French as a first language, and it was really amazing.

But I always had pain on my way going to school seeing other girls not having the chance to go to school like I did. And they were in the neighborhood and I would play with them after school. That always bothered me, and I remember I said that one time to my granddaughter, Baby Tida, she’s Tida Mariama, she’s named after me and her other grandmother.

We ca- nickname her Baby Tida, and I told her how sad I was, and she challenged [00:12:00] me, something I never thought of. It just shows you how learning never end. I told her, because she asked about my education and how was life like when I was young, and I told her, “I was sad about the fact that I was able to go to school and the other girls couldn’t go to school.

They, the parents didn’t want them to, and they were just bringing them up. That was the norm.” She said, “Grandma, why didn’t you teach them everything you learned from the classroom? You should have gone there and taught them if it made you so sad.” And I said, “You know what? Learning never ends. I never thought of it that way.”

I said, “Now that I know, next time I’ll do it that way.” It was really touching that she saw it at that angle. It just shows you no matter how old you are, learning never ends and it never stops, and we all have different perceptions. I loved it when she said it that way. 

Mandi Morris: That’s really, that’s a beautiful perspective.

And it’s also so lovely to hear you had that empathy in your heart and that awareness in your heart [00:13:00] even as a child. And then of course you wouldn’t have known at seven, eight, nine years old that you would have committed your adult life to educating others, but it was in your heart already when you were such a young age.

So you go to schools in French. You have an opportunity that others around you don’t all equally have access to, but your parents support your education. They want you to be in school. There’s, I’m sure, a lot of life that happened between that and coming to the United States. And becoming a teacher here in the United States.

So what was that journey like? W- how did you end up making your journey out of Senegal, and why? 

Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: Yes, I got married. My marriage was arranged by my grandmother to my husband and my husband’s mother. My grandmother always wished I married my husband. He’s family. He’s my father’s third cousin, and I had a very special relationship with my grandmother.

She spoiled me, and I [00:14:00] was her carbon copy. I looked like her and everything. And I agreed to the marriage, and I had one condition. My husband came to visit. He came from the US from his studies. He came to visit when his mother said, “Go see your cousin, child, and marry her. She’s a well brought up person, and she’s beautiful.

Go see. We sure you will marry her. We don’t want you to marry outside. You’ve been traveling too long. Go see if you like her, and if she agrees, then you get married.” So he came, and he asked me. I saw him the first day, and then he asked me, and I was puzzled. But I have always been an outspoken person, and I always have my conditions ready.

I have principles that I abide by. I said, “If my parents agree, yes, I’ll marry you in one condition. I have to continue my education.” And he said, “Sure.” He said, “Definitely.” And then I remember when I was doing my bachelor’s degree, I was tired. I said, “I’m giving up. I can’t do this. I’m tired.” He said, “Oh, no, that was the [00:15:00] deal.

You continue with the education.” And when I was doing my master’s, I’m like, “No, I’m tired, too. Bye-bye.” He’s, “Oh, no, that’s the deal.” So yes, and from there we got married, and I joined him to the United States quite young. And I learned English as a second language at Albert Einstein Adult Education. On Saturdays, I would go from 8:00 to 12:00, and it was free.

And I remember when I went, he took me there to register, and they said, “Second language.” I told them, “No, English is not my second language,” because at the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “You’re talking to somebody here who speaks five languages. Can’t make English a second language to me.” But they didn’t understand.

Yes, I started at a beginner level, and then later on in life, I understood that to them I was learning English as a second language. And 

Mandi Morris: how old were you when you learned English? What time was this? 

Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: I was [00:16:00] in my late teens because I got married very young. I got married, my students want to add up which year I was married because they’re like, “Madam Kjera, how come you’ve been married for 41 years?

How old were you when you got married?” I said, “I am not telling you.” 

Mandi Morris: So you’re very young, and you’re in the United States, and you’re newly married. You’ve left your family. You’ve left your friends. You’ve left your community, your language. You’re learning English on Saturdays. Just pausing for a moment to recognize what depth of change that is for a young person.

And how do you remember feeling? Can you remember back, what did it feel like? Did you feel excitement, or was it just overwhelm at the amount of things that had changed around you? What was that experience like to relocate? 

Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: It was quite an amazing experience. First, I’ve never been in a plane, so in that plane when my husband’s best friend, Mamadu Njie, he accompanied me all the [00:17:00] way to the plane.

He was worried. First, he was shocked. This was January 25th. I used Pan Am airplane to go to New York, and I dressed up in my beautiful dress, all white, and it’s a brodé. It’s really for summer. And my grandparents gave me our traditional big wraparound, covered my head, everything. So I got, I used it as a shawl.

He saw me at the … He came to the house to pick me up to take me to the airport. He was shocked. He said, “Do you know how many degrees it is right now in the US? It is snowing. It’s freezing.” And learning French as a person, we read all the books of Victor Hugo, Molière, you name it. It, they describe snow to us.

I always, I was always wondering what is snow like ’cause I’ve never seen it. And then people who have been there will tell you it’s ice, and I’m like, wow, big ice cubes. To me, it was like ice cubes falling from the sky. I couldn’t imagine. So when [00:18:00] he was shocked, trying to tell me, “You’re not properly dressed.

You need to wear heavy pants, and have to have many layers and a coat.” But he called my husband. He said, “Be ready. Kjera is coming there in a bridal dress. Please make sure you have a coat and boots ready.” My husband went and got a coat and boots, and from a good friend of his, Amie Sillah, who is a Gambian, and Sohna Sall.

They prepped him and said, “This is what she will need.” They gave him all that and say, “Meet her t- at the airport with this.” And I had heels, high heels on. Forget about boots. I had no idea what w- snow was. So when he accompanied me all the way inside the plane, ’cause he knew I’ve never taken a plane, he was worried.

But- I was not afraid, but I was wondering, what is my life going to be like? So as I sat in the plane, there was a Peace Corp who sat next to me, and he spoke Wolof perfectly well, and that [00:19:00] really eased all my wonders. And then he started singing bridal songs for me because my husband’s friend said, “This is a bride going to her husband in the US.

Can you help her? Because in New York she wouldn’t know-” What to do, where to go. Can you help her through immigration at New K- uh, New York? And then from there, her husband will be waiting for her and they’re, they’re going to Maryland. She’s, she should be going to Maryland.” Oh, he said, “Sure, she’s a bride?”

Amazing. He started singing all the bridal songs in Wolof, and this is a Caucasian American singing all these bridal songs for me. And then I, it, he made me really comfortable, and he tied my seatbelt. He show… E- even though they show you how to tie the seatbelt in the plane, it’s different. It’s easy if you have done it before.

If you sat in a car with a seatbelt, I’ve never sat in a car with a seatbelt. It wasn’t a problem in the past, in the ’80s. So he tied my seatbelt, he sat [00:20:00] next to me, and they served me the food, and he made sure I ate the right food and everything. He really made me so comfortable, and that made me really…

That’s the second thing that made me fall in love with all Peace Corps that I send a shout-out to. And they, I saw them also teach my mother-in-law how to make jam, and they helped us. They would go to the villages, help people cook with firewood, using less firewood in a stove, because I cooked w- I grew up cooking with firewood, and it wasn’t fun.

It wasn’t easy. I fetched water growing up. So when I left all that behind me, I came to the US. When I arrived, my husband met me, and he accompanied me until he saw my husband. There was no cell phone. My husband was at the arrival, and he walked with me all the way to the arri- at the arrival, and he handed me literally over to my husband.

And then my husband thanked him, and I joined my husband in another plane he took. There was little taxi [00:21:00] planes in New York to Maryland, and we got up, and we were in the car. But right there to walk to the taxi plane, he saw my heels. He gave me the boots. Guess what? Those boots were too small for me. My feet couldn’t fit.

So he held me so tight, and I was walking. And he said, “Don’t walk too fast.” And he told me, “This is…” And I saw the snow. No one told me this is snow because I saw everywhere was white, and it was snowing as well. We went to those commercial taxi planes, and then when we arrived in Maryland, we arrived at the house.

He rented a room in a house, and he lived with this landlord before when he was doing his associates. So now that he was doing his bachelor’s, the landlord welcomed me. He made a huge snowball, and he just threw it at me. That’s how he welcomed me. And my husband said- You need to do the same to him. Make a big snowball and throw it back at him.

And boy, I had fun. I made a big snowball and I threw it at him, and that was [00:22:00] me touching the snow and finally knowing what snow was all about, what it really was like. So he- that was amazing, and I was amazed. I was like very amazed. It was great to see the dishwasher, the microwave, but up to today, I never pass a washing machine and not stop by and just look at it Because all the laundry I did in my life, I fetched water.

I had to go to the well to fetch water until we had a tap. We didn’t have a tap water in our house. Nobody had it in those days. You had to go to the well and fetch water. We didn’t have even tap water as I was growing up, and I would do it half a mile 10 times a day, and then do the laundry, do the dishes, carry my siblings, my younger brothers, on my back with all those chores, m- sweep, you name it, cook.

I started to cook at age six when my baby sister threw her Cerelac, what we call Cerelac, a porridge for her that I used to make and put it in the biberon, [00:23:00] in her feeding bottle. So that was my job, and in those days, the feeding bottles were glass. You break it, you get in trouble. You had to be super careful.

So all of a sudden, I saw myself in a house with a microwave, a vacuum cleaner, a dishwasher, and my favorite, of course, the washing machine. And when I turned the washing machine on, the landlord had to remind me all the time. He would come and say, “Hey, Tida, you don’t have to stay here to still do the work.

You can go and do something else.” I said, “No, Bob, I enjoy watching this.” He said, “Okay.” But he read a lot about Africa, the culture, every African country he knew, and he was quite acquainted with Africa and African culture. And, and he was just amazing. And then I remember in my school, they would tell me when I learned English as a second language, they asked, they were teaching us the word hobby, they said, “What’s your hobby?”

And I said, “My hobby is cleaning.” Everybody thought I was crazy, and why would cleaning be your hobby? And I said, “America, [00:24:00] beautiful. Everything press button.” Because everything I did to clean, all I had to do, any chores I did, was to press the button. And because I didn’t speak English, I would said, “America, beautiful.

Everything press button.” And, and they were like, “What do you mean everything press button?” And I said, “Vacuum, press button, microwave, press button, dishwasher, press button, washing machine, press button, everything press button.” And then it was funny for them. That was quite something. 

Mandi Morris: All of this life experience that you’re having really at still a pretty young age, it makes me think about how you can connect and relate with your students, and how your own life journey made you passionate about serving English learners in the United States.

You had shared with me before that your husband was quite fortunate that he had an opportunity to do studies internationally, and that he was selected, and that [00:25:00] propelled you and your husband on a life journey that brought you all over the world. When did you decide that you wanted to be an educator?

Was it in the States? After you learned English? Was it when you were already overseas with your husband? Like, when did that light bulb go off for you that like, “Hey, I’m a good fit for this. I know the journey that these students are on. I wanna be in that space with them as an adult”? 

Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: Yes. Due to the fact that we traveled a lot after I finished learning English as a second language, I did bilingual secretary and I did introduction to computer, and that was in 1985 and 1986.

And then he worked for United Nations, it’s called SILS and Centre Agréé MAT. When we went to Niger, we lived there for two years. I didn’t work. I had my first son, baby Tida’s dad. And I always like to work. I don’t want to stay at home. And then I didn’t work and we went back. We moved to Ivory Coast, Abidjan, and [00:26:00] he was taking care of American Embassy computers at Wang, and he would travel a lot to the sub region to take care of American Me- Embassy computers.

And then from there, still I didn’t work. And when we went back to The Gambia, we had our own family business and I was the manager of the family business. And I started my bachelor’s degree there and didn’t work for anybody but for ourselves, for the family business. Then we moved to Saudi Arabia. When we moved to Saudi Arabia, we lived there.

He worked in Saudi Aramco. So when we lived there, wanted to work and it was hard for me to find a job. I can’t open my own company there. I’m not a citizen. And There was no such thing as remote working in those days. This was in 2000. And I saw an ad when we went to a supermarket, they were looking for an ESL teacher.

But at that time, I didn’t teach before. I never taught formally educator, so I started teaching, [00:27:00] and they were so amazed with me. It was so natural. They were like, “You sure you never taught before?” I said, “Apart from my children that I teach how to read and write, and the people I brought up,” I said, “No, I am not a qualified teacher.”

They said, “No way.” I said, “Yes, I am not. I don’t have any certification.” They hired me, and I taught English as a second language. It’s so natural because I’ve been through that path. I learned English as a second language. I learned French as a first language, where I had no help. My brother was just three years older than me.

He couldn’t help me, so we had to be engaged in class, focus in class, and learn. And it helped me because when you’re in other people’s shoe, you really know what it’s like ’cause you’ve been there, you’ve gone through it. And up to today, that’s how I see my students. I, and I, when I tell them I learned English as a second language, and I tell them yes, and I tell them long, long time ago, “Your parents were not even born,” [00:28:00] and they smile and giggle.

And I tell them, “Oh, yes, I learned English as a second language,” they’re amazed. And I tell them it is possible. And I have a teaching strategy. I focus on the cognates. Already anybody who wants to learn a language, you already have a language. Even when you are monolingual, you have a language. That language has a connection with the other languages because we are social beings, and we can connect from what you know to what you don’t know.

When you connect them together, you have a sentence you can make, and that’s how I learned all these other languages. I learned Hausa. I lost Konyagi and Hausa, so now I only speak eight, and I used to speak 10. I lost those two, but they are in my gallery somewhere. When I hear a language, I know what it is.

I can still greet a little bit, but not fluent. As I used to be. So when you learn a language, you just connect it with the one- the experience you know. So my students who [00:29:00] are bilinguals learning English as a second language, I ask them, like when we read a passage, a text, the best way for me to s- when I scaffold, the best thing I do first is circle all the cognates.

Any cognates they come across, they circle them. And I say, “Based on these cognates, what is your understanding of this text? Tell me your understanding of this paragraph.” And then they look at me. 90% of the time they’ll get it right, 90% of the time, just if you base everything on the cognate. And if it throws you off, it’s because there was a false cognate and you thought that’s what it means.

But if it’s really not a false cognate, but just a cognate, you’ll be fine. And this is anybody who wants to learn a language, that’s my suggestion to them. Because you already know something, that’s the foundation. Now, to add on to it, just explore what you know, have it in hand, go back to it as your reservoir, and then take as much as you can to communicate.

And my students, [00:30:00] we… I use Be GLAD also strategies. I’m a huge fan of Be GLAD strategies because you use the TP- TPR, Total Physical Response. You use sketches, you use visuals, and they help. It helps a lot in learning. And our students don’t go through the hardship we went through. Like in those days, a lot of these strategies were there, but not as easily accessed as in the past.

‘Cause when I went to school, I didn’t even grow up with a TV in our house. We just had a radio, and you listen to the radio and… But you have your parents, your grandparents who also taught you. I learned a lot through our folktales. I wrote four to five folktales that were told to me By my grandparents and my parents.

And that’s also learning because it tells you a plot, it tells you a setting, it tells you the character, and it tells you everything. That’s also learning. That’s also learning. [00:31:00] Yes, maybe not formal if some people perceive it that way, but I’ve learned through all that, and I apply every experience I have in my learning journey.

I apply it, I ex- I put it on the table for my students to also explore, and they- we learn. Like I’s always said, learning, when you’re a teacher, you learn more than you teach ’cause you learn from every single student, and they learn from each other, and they learn from you as well. And teaching and learning, they go hand in hand, just language and culture, they go hand in hand.

I remember my professor when I was doing French linguistic at the university for my bachelor’s, and then she came and she said … She was amazed because she saw us speak different languages in the classroom. This is an e- it was a university extension, St. Mary’s University extension program in The Gambia, and he would s- she would see us speak French, Mandinka, Wolof, tease each other ’cause our tribes love to teach, [00:32:00] tease each other.

“Yeah, my tribe is better. My language.” Yeah, no, forget about it. She was learning and then she said, “Learning a language is like wearing a mantle, a coat.” So whenever you’re wearing a coat, you’re wearing that. You’re speaking a language, you’re wearing their coat, and that coat is the culture of that language.

And when you learn a language, it goes hand in hand with the culture, and I’m a living proof of that. When I learned Hausa, when I lived in Niger in Hausa, there is a way they greet each other, just like how we greet in Mandinka and Wolof. We just don’t greet, say hi. Like in the US, I remember the word hi the first time.

I love to stand by the door just to watch people pass by and- They, they either smile or say hi. And I didn’t know English at that time. Then I told my husband, “It’s very weird. Whenever they pass by the store, they say hi.” And in French, hi, when you’re hurt, you say hi. So I’m like, “Why? They’re not hurt. I didn’t see them trip or something.

Why do they say hi all the time?” And my [00:33:00] husband said, “It’s a way of saying hello. When you hear hi, it’s hello, bonjour.” I said, “Ah.” And then I was worried about again, why do Americans just grab each other to greet? They just grab you like this and hold you. Why? It was so weird for me. And this is early young age Tida learning English, being in the United States, and now today I’m the biggest hugger.

I’m sure you remember I hugged you too, ’cause I love hugging people whether I know them or not. If they’re comfortable, I hug them. ‘Cause in the French culture, we give kisses. We give kisses on the cheeks, and it depends on where. Mostly West Africa French-speaking countries, we do two, but you always start from the right and left.

So I learned that. And in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia, and in the Gulf, everywhere, they do one, two, and if you haven’t seen each other for a long time in Saudi, you can do many, five times on the last cheek. And I learned [00:34:00] that. And then back home, as a young person, you greet your elders kneeling down a little bit.

You have to lower yourself when you greet your elders. And I grew up not looking at people in the eyes. That’s all my culture. I remember one St. Patrick’s Day, my teacher assistant who worked with me at ACST, and the kids came and said, “You are not wearing green.” She said, “You kidding me? My eyes are green.”

That’s the day I knew her eyes were green, after I worked with her for at least two years, when she said it. It just tell, told me, Tida, you still don’t look at people in the eye directly. I didn’t know the color of her eye. And these are all culture, but it goes hand-in-hand with the language. That’s right.

To learn a language, you learn with the culture as well. 

Mandi Morris: I met you, I felt so, just even with the five-minute conversation we had, I felt so inspired. You talked when we met in person about how connected we all are, and it’s something really beautiful about your life journey is you’ve traveled [00:35:00] so much, and you, through learning all of these languages, you have learned so much about different culture and different ways of interacting and greeting and that it all looks and feels different depending on where you are in the world, the language that you’re surrounded by.

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast about Artemis, the rocket that went off yesterday, and in the podcast they were talking about it’s this moment in humanity for us to feel connected across the whole world, that humans can accomplish something so grand, right? To be able to- send four people off to the moon.

And I was listening and thinking, yeah, it is really miraculous, but I was thinking about our conversation that we were going to have today. And for me, I thought, I feel that same thing having this conversation with you. So yeah, it’s amazing we’re sending people to the moon. I think it’s amazing this journey that you’ve been on.

I think that it’s amazing when people come to the United States and [00:36:00] they have an opportunity to learn a new language, to study, to find jobs, to improve their lives. You’ve had the opportunity to go and live, after coming to the States, to go to the Middle East and back to Africa, back here. I think that is what’s so beautiful about humanity.

It’s inspiring to me. There’s so much that we can learn about one another when we open ourselves up to another language, another culture. And how wonderful that you’ve been able to offer all of that life experience to your students and to be able to connect with them. I’d love to hear a little bit about, as a mother, what was it like growing…

I’m sorry, what was it like raising your children? I’m guessing raising them with more than one language. How did you decide what language are we speaking in our home? What language do they learn at school? How did you make those decisions as a parent? 

Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: So language, we spoke Mandinka, Wolof. My husband and I and the [00:37:00] boys, we would speak French, those who could speak French.

It was my husband and the children because of our travel. And Mandinka, Wolof, French, English, those are the four languages that happen simultaneously depending on who you’re talking to. And when we brought up a young person who’s a Fula, so we would speak Fula to him, but he understood Mandinka too. So if he talked to us in Fula, we answer him in Fula.

If he talked to us in Mandinka, we answer him in Mandinka as well. And choosing the language, I remember one day one ESL teacher was saying that they need to stop in a school, and she was saying, “No, they shouldn’t be speaking any other language so that they can master English.” And then I didn’t say anything to her because she was talking to a parent.

I left, waited until the parent left. I told her, “My dear, I do not agree with that idea.” I said, “When a person stops speaking a language, they lose the language.” ‘Cause I, at that time, I already lost two languages and I knew what it’s like. And she [00:38:00] didn’t comprehend my line of thought because sometimes the person might have the degree, the person might have the theoretical part of it, but if you do not have The experience, if it’s not, if you don’t live it, it’s hard to comprehend sometimes.

That is why it is always good to borrow other people’s lens to see through how they see the world. You do not have to be what they are. You do not have to behave the same way, but you need to respect other people’s perspective of the world and the lens and how we see it, especially if it’s somebody who has lived it and giving you that experience.

‘Cause you’re talking to somebody who speaks eight languages and lost two, who used to speak 10 and lost two. But sometimes people don’t understand it at that time, and I have learned through my journey that you let time take care of it. One day that person will come across and say, “Oh, this is what Tida was trying to tell me.”[00:39:00] 

It might have been late, but you still have learned, understood what I was trying to make as a point. So my children, one of them speaks five languages. The others, they speak three. They all can read Arabic. They learned it at a young age, the Quran and everything. One of them, the youngest one, he speaks two, French and English.

Mandinka he understands, but when he talks to my mother and father, my parents or my mother-in-law or other family members in Mandinka, he understands but he doesn’t speak. And I told him, “Use the words you know to have the communication going. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Say something so that they know you are there and you can hear them.”

He said, “Oh, that’s a great idea.” He lost that, the other languages because of our travel around the world and not being in The Gambia or Senegal and not being able to travel back to The Gambia and Senegal because we had a dictator in The Gambia and it wasn’t safe for my [00:40:00] husband to go back. In those days.

And it has cost us for our children to lose Mandinka and Wolof, but they do, but the youngest one, he lost those two ’cause when we left he was younger than the other, his other siblings. So we do not, it happens naturally. And up to now in our house here, it happens naturally. Baby Tita spoke four languages.

Right now she has four, but Mandinka and Wolof, they’re about, she is about losing them, so we watch some shows from Senegal and Gambia, music, and she- and, like, when I talk to my daughter-in-law, if I’m about to say something that I don’t want Baby Tita to hear, I made that mistake, I said it in Wolof. She’s, “Really, Grandma?”

I was terrified. And then another time I said it in Mandinka. She’s, “Really, Grandma?” So it just means she didn’t lose it. It’s there. So what is left, continue the practice of it. And that’s how languages are chosen in the [00:41:00] house. 

Mandi Morris: This has been such a lovely conversation, just really a reflection of how integrated language and culture are and how broad opening yourself up to new languages and new culture can be.

I wanna sit for a moment on that conversation you had with a colleague and how you approached that with so much grace and care. I think what can be- Hard sometimes in our field is hearing colleagues, whether an ESL teacher or content teacher, make statements that feel offensive to us because they don’t understand how, know a language is a line of communication to not only your family, but your culture, your food.

It’s integrated. It’s part of you. You can’t separate these things. You can’t put it away on a shelf and pick it up later. It’s in you. It’s part of you, and you know that firsthand because you grew up with your languages integrated and cultures integrated. For many teachers in the United States, [00:42:00] we grew up monocultural and monolingual, and we haven’t had that lived experience.

So I just think it’s so kind how you approached that with trying to share some awareness, but then also understanding that you can’t force it on people. P- you said let time take care of that because sometimes people just come to their understanding when they’re ready, when the timing is right. I wonder when you think about working in a system with a lot of teachers who are monolingual and/or monocultural, how has it felt to sometimes perhaps carry some of this extra knowledge and experience that people around you haven’t had?

Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: That former colleague was in my former school. In my school, present school, Elmwood School District 88, a big shout-out to our, to all my colleague, colleagues and to our superintendent, our board of director, and the former board president as well, and to all my amazing [00:43:00] colleagues. They have welcomed, because I taught in that school, this is my 10th year, and I taught French for eight years.

And the last two years I went back to ESL, and they really are quite welcoming and understanding. Our director of bilingual, I keep telling her I don’t want … My mind, it’s just like when they say I learned English as a second language, at the back of my mind, no. It’s like when I call her the bilingual director, at the back of my mind and in my heart it says no, because it’s, I would say, director of multilingual.

Even when we met at NABE, I wanted to challenge them when they said bilingual, because they said National Association of Bilingual Educators, right? But how many languages does NABE cover? It’s multilingual. Because there was an interview they did when they showed us at, on the screen, they were showing us things on the screen, and this person spoke French, and then they even said Wolof.

And then I made my son and his son grew [00:44:00] up speaking Wolof. I was so amazed. And in my school it is, so I call my director always, I tell her, “Really, I, Madam Oldendob, yes, bilingual, but I would say multilingual director,” because I speak already how many languages. And among us, even the staff, the students, and we have other languages in there.

Like, we have, in our school we have a Francophone, a French-speaking student, and we have Spanish-speaking students, and we have students who speak Arabic, and they speak English also, and Urdu. I had the chance to teach all those. It wouldn’t be bilingual anymore if we consider the other languages involved, but I understand the aspect of bilingualism.

In my school, present school, we are all welcomed with open arms. It’s, our superintendent always says hashtag 188. This is the Ron Clark. I don’t know if you’re acquainted with Ron Clark. It’s a house system. I am in the House of River, and then- [00:45:00] The others are in the House of Isibindi, House of Courage.

Rever is the House of Dreamer. And then we have House of Amistad and we ha- which is the Friendship House. And then we have the House of Givers, Altruismo. And we have friendly competitions among us with our students who belongs in the houses. And when I’m teaching, I let the houses compete, right? The Cognates, the Amistad will write, compete with Isibindi or Altruismo or Rever.

Yes, it is difficult sometimes when a person does not give you the opportunity to know you and understand because a lot of confusion, frustration, miscommunication all happens for the lack of time given to each other, empathy, showing empathy towards each 

Mandi Morris: other, 

Ndey Tida Ceesay Kejera: understanding towards each other, love towards each other.

And when that happens, it is quite difficult. But again, you leave it in the hands of time, it takes care of everything. And but I’m really thankful with every person I work with, [00:46:00] everybody from the superintendent to my principal. My, the superintendent is Dr. Stockton, and Dr. Bowen’s my principal, my bilingual director, Madam Oldenduck, and everybody in Bellwood School District ADA.

They have welcomed me with open arms and I’ve worked there for 10 years and we did share experiences. We work together and we all have one goal, is to have a positive impact on our students And the students come back to visit us. “You’re my French teacher.” You go, you meet them somewhere, “You’re my French teacher.

Hey, Madame Kijera, how are you today? You remember?” I said, “Oh, yes I do. How are you?” That’s a feeling that no paycheck replaces. Knowing that teachers, we don’t make much, but that recognition, that positive impact, that legacy we’re working on to leave behind, there’s nothing more beautiful than that, and it’s just amazing.

And we just have to continue showing that positive [00:47:00] impact. The community I work in is family. I spend more than eight hours a day there. The kids spend more… Our students, our children, they spend more hours with us than with their families. We spend more hours with them and our colleagues than any other person during the academic year and Monday to Friday.

And when we have some celebrations that we do over the weekend, everything, you name it. So it’s a family, and within a family, it- nothing is perfect. You don’t have things your way every day. Even your own life, some days you’re not happy with yourself. You make a decision, you’re like, “Oh, no, I was supposed to do this first before that.”

That happens to you as a human being. It just shows us and reminds us that no human being is perfect. But when we are real, uh, ready and willing to show empathy, understanding, love, kindness, and just being there for each other, it makes a big difference. It makes a huge difference. And I’m really thankful everywhere I have worked, all the friends I’ve come across.

And a big shout-out to Dr. [00:48:00] Salha Jasin. She’s a very good friend of mine that we met in Saudi when I started teaching, and I was very nervous and she guided me ’cause she was a principal or a supervisor in a school, all-girls school. In Saudi, you don’t mix the genders in the school, so I taught in all-girls school, adult English as a second language, adult education.

My youngest student was 12 years old. She was the only youngest person I taught in those days for five years I taught in that school. So shout-out to all my friends in the Middle East that I worked with, my friends, all of them, and to my Bellwood School District ADA. And I have a little friend who grew up now, and she’s my colleague’s daughter.

She came and I was- we were setting up every year. Her husband and her kids would come and help her set up her room. So my little friend, she was in second grade, and she just walked into my room. She saw all the French-speaking countries, the flags, and the pictures of the culture, because I make sure they’re all dressed up in their traditional [00:49:00] clothes culture, showing the culture of the country.

Not just the flag, but I associate it with the culture, and these are all the French-speaking countries. And she would ask a question, “Why is this flag that way? Why is this?” “Ah, what country is this?” She was in second grade. And then she told me, “When I grow up, you will be my French teacher.” I said, “I’ll be honored to.”

And she just started a friendship with me. She was a second grader. She would send a note, a very kind note, to me through her mom. “Mom, can you give it to the French teacher? Tell her I love her.” All she would write there is, “I love you. How are you today? Are you having a great day? I’m having a fantastic day.”

Little notes here and there, all on a weekly basis. And every August, she’s looking forward to seeing me, and that’s how the friendship built. Until- And she has the same behavior and character as when I was a child. I told her mother , “Your daughter is just a carbon copy of me,” and she’s even nicknamed Mini Me.

Now, when she writes to me, she’ll say, [00:50:00] “Love, Mini Me.” And all that happened through my strict district at Bellwood School District, PA. And you, when you work with people, you build relationship, family. You name it. You become a family. We are so connected if only we give each other a chance to understand each other, be kind to each other, and to show empathy and love and kindness.

Because we are not islands, we’re human beings. We are social beings. We like to interact and connect, ’cause that’s the only time learning takes place, when you interact and you connect, and you give each other that opportunity. 

Mandi Morris: Thank you so much for this conversation and for just reminding us here today, and all of our listeners, that it’s really about relationships. That’s where the learning happens. That’s a wonderful place to wrap this conversation. It’s been so lovely, Tida. Thank you for sharing your journey with us here [00:51:00] today.