”Friends Without Words”

New York Times: "Friends Without Words"

This article is not about race or education per se - it's about Jaime Herrera, who is a janitor at the main branch of the New York Public Library.  What caught my eye was that Mr. Herrera has been has deaf since he was a child, but as a 14-year old veteran, he's often assigned to train and help the new hires.

At first, this seems odd to them, since Mr. Herrera, 56, is deaf and does not speak.

“When they put me with him, to train, I was like, ‘How am I going to learn from a deaf guy?’ ” recalled Mr. Herrera’s current cleaning partner, Emrah Bektesevic, 22. “But after about 10 minutes, I could totally understand what he meant. He was a great teacher.”