I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High

by Tony Danza

  “Does anyone else think it’s weird,” he asks the others, then me, “that you’re teaching English?”

  Busted! I take this for what it is—a good, stiff biff in the nose. “The irony has not escaped me.” I’m striving for humor, but Matt’s question has opened the floodgates. Hands spring up, and all at once the kids start pummeling me with questions: Who are you? Is this a stunt? Why Northeast?

  I try to answer honestly that even though there’s a TV crew in the back of the room shooting a reality show about what it takes to teach in a big inner-city high school, I really have trained and I really do intend to give them the education they deserve. My protests are drowned out until a beefy kid named Howard shouts, “Are you a millionaire?” Suddenly, everybody listens.

  I’m old-fashioned about my finances is what I am, from a time when it was nobody else’s business. But I’m so desperate to be honest with the kids that I admit, “Yes, I am a millionaire.” Then I add, “But remember, a million isn’t what it used to be,” only afterward realizing this isn’t something that inner-city kids are likely to find particularly enlightening.

  So maybe I deserve it when a girl in the back pipes up. “Are you nervous?”

  I breathe a sigh of relief and admit: “I’m terrified!”

  Then comes her punch line: “Because your shirt is totally soaked.”

  I look down and realize I’ve sweated through the front, back, and both sides of my pressed light blue dress shirt. And we’re not even fifteen minutes into the period.

  “Maybe you should think about wearing another undershirt,” the girl, whose name card reads CHARMAINE, adds for good measure. The class cracks up.

  What am I supposed to do? I lift my arms and gaze at my stained armpits and shrug in surrender. Can it get any worse? Probably. Despite the rolling cameras, despite my lack of experience, I really am determined to give these kids the care they deserve. But by now I’ve forgotten every single thing I’d planned for today.

  In my nervousness, I default to monologue. “You know, I’m really just like you. I come from a neighborhood just like this. My schooling began in a Catholic school in Brooklyn. Blessed Sacrament—a very strict school where the nuns and priests disciplined us physically. Every classroom had a walk-in closet. If you broke a rule, a nun would take you into the closet and hit you. Usually a good slap, or two or three. Once, in the closet with one notorious nun, I received a double ear cuff. I still remember it.”

  The kids give me just enough of a laugh to keep me going. “My parents never went to college. I’m not sure if they even finished high school. My father was a sanitation man, a garbageman for the city, and my mother a bookkeeper. So I’ve been very fortunate in my life and career, but I know what it feels like to be full of doubt about your purpose in life. You are what you do, and if you do nothing, you can feel like nothing.”

  I try to make eye contact, make them feel that I mean it. Some of the kids are glaring at me, some squirming, some still tittering about the nun in the closet.

  “I was small for my age,” I plunge on. “Four foot eleven in the tenth grade, and that added to my misery and insecurity. To be accepted and not get beat up, I tried to be funny. As for schoolwork, I know I didn’t do my best.”

  I stop walking back and forth and implore them, “Do your best! That’s all I try to do now, in everything I attempt. Why didn’t I then? Why did I think doing just enough to get by was enough? You know, you can have it both ways if you try—have fun and do well in school.”

  They look at me like I’ve lost my mind. They’re not getting it, and I so want them to get this, if nothing else. “I wish I’d been more interested in my studies. Why didn’t I get As? I received my degree, but just barely, and now I so regret that I didn’t take full advantage of my school years.”

  They’re texting, yawning, staring at my shirt, which must be dripping on the floor by now. I switch back to why I’m here. “I planned to teach, but when I finished school, I thought I was too young and—at least I was honest with myself—too foolish to teach anyone anything. So my goal of being a teacher was put aside as I searched for what else to do with my life. This could have ended badly, as I was not really prepared for life after college. How do you earn a living with a degree in history if you’re not going to teach? Well, I got lucky. I took a succession of odd jobs—in the kitchen for a caterer, at a moving company. I was a good bartender. That’s where I got to work on my people skills. Then I became a professional boxer and was discovered, as they say, in the original Gleason’s Gym in Manhattan. Went on to do the TV shows Taxi and Who’s the Boss?” I’m tempted to ask if any of them have seen those shows but don’t.

  One girl raises her hand. Thank you, Chloe! Another pretty smiler, she chirps, “I’m into eighties retro stuff, so I’ve seen some of your reruns.”

  Eighties retro stuff. Ouch. “Well, so, you all weren’t born yet when my shows were on. But the point is, all this time I’ve been thinking about teaching, and as I’ve gotten older I’ve been consumed with questions about my wasted youth. I used to do this joke where someone would ask me, ‘Were you a hoodlum as a kid?’ and I’d answer, ‘No, I just didn’t have time for team sports.’ I can’t believe I thought that was funny. How stupid and unaware.”

  I’m still losing them. I’m losing them. Nothing is worse for an actor, much less for an actor turned teacher. But I get it. Like a drowning man, I plead, “Okay, enough about me. Let’s hear about you. I’d like you each to come up here and introduce yourself, tell us a little something about you.” They look at me like I have two heads. “Nicky,” I say. First in, first up. Also she’s the only one who doesn’t seem to want to vaporize me. That makes her my go-to girl.

  Nakiya bounces to the front of the room. “I’m Nakiya. I play basketball, lacrosse, and drums in the school band and for my church. I like to smile.” She turns on the brights, and my heart melts. This is some kid.

  “Thank you, Nakiya,” I say, making a real effort to get her name right. “Who’s next?”

  A tall, slim, handsome boy comes forward and tells us he arrived from Russia six years ago. “You can call me Russian Playboy because I love American girls!” he says and pretends to toss flowers to the ladies in the front row, who all turn shades of red. Russian Playboy takes a bow. “I’ve got to still work on my English.”

  “Me, too,” I assure him as the girls compose themselves, and our Russian Playboy strolls back to his seat.

  A skinny boy with braces and a black bowl cut comes up next. “I’m Eric Choi, and I’m kinda boring.” He shuffles his feet. “My parents expect so much, and they nag me a lot.”

  I nod. I get that. “Mine did, too.”

  Chloe, the eighties fan with large chocolate eyes, tells us, “I love to shop. I love fashion, love to smile.” She giggles. “Can’t stop.”

  A kid wearing a black Korn T-shirt, his long brown hair draped over his eyes, tells us, “I’m Ben, but people call me Kyle. It’s a long story.” Before I can ask for the story, he tells us the obvious, “I’m a complete metal head.”

  Then Ben-Kyle’s opposite stands up. Monte reminds me of a serious Steve Urkel, the geeky kid on Family Matters. Monte’s short with big dark eyes, his striped polo shirt buttoned all the way up. His voice is so monotone, it sounds robotic. “I only care about two things. My family and …” I’m not sure what I expect, but I’m completely flummoxed when he says “tennis.”

  The next girl up, however, bounds to the front like a natural athlete. She has long, straight sandy hair and pretty brown eyes. “I’m Tammy Lea. I play field hockey, and I can’t wait to get my braces off.” She smiles wide for effect. “And I love to sing and dance.”

  The class’s three football players introduce themselves as Howard, Matt, and Daniel, then Eric Lopez informs us that he’s been “breaking for about half a year,” and with that, he drops to his back, spins, and flips back up to his feet like Gumby. The class goes wild.

  There are twenty-six of th
em, and every one is a character. But there’s one whose expression spells trouble from the git-go. He’s a tall, lanky, good-looking kid with cornrows and an expression of supreme skepticism. When I motion him up front, he moves like he’s got years to get there. “I’m Al G,” he says. “I like to joke around. I get on people’s nerves. I can be pretty annoying after a while.”

  I feel like he’s putting me on notice. “Okay then,” I say as Al saunters back to his seat. “Well, I like a good joke. But one of the things I want to impress on you guys this year is to get smart early. Don’t wait, like I did, until you’re out of high school or even college to realize the importance of excelling at your studies. Learn from my—”

  The bell shrieks, and my brain snaps. My students are getting up to leave as if I don’t exist. I stop them. I really have trained for this. “The bell doesn’t dismiss you,” I call out. “I do.” I heard that at orientation, and as it comes out of my mouth it sounds dumb even to me.

  Suddenly I remember the homework assignment. “Think of a story to tell the class tomorrow. It can be a family story, or something that happened to you. Half a page, minimum.”

  Before I can breathe, they’re gone. And I feel like I’ve just lost a ten-round fight by unanimous decision.

  TEACHERS’ LOUNGE

  Lesson Plans

  After my first class has imploded and the last student gone, David Cohn comes forward and puts a consoling hand on my shoulder. He’s thin, cerebral, and young enough to be my son. He’s also my supervisor, and he’s been watching the whole debacle from the back of the room. I’m ready to cry.

  David is a concession we had to make before the Philadelphia school board would let me teach at Northeast. On the wall of the board’s meeting room in the district office building hangs a sign that reads: WHAT IS BEST FOR THE STUDENTS? When I saw that sign during our protracted negotiations over the show, I assured the board members, “I have a teenage daughter of my own. And I mean to give my students here the same quality of education that I want for her.” To guarantee that promise, our producers offered to pay for a veteran teacher to observe me and ensure that my students received an effective tenth-grade English course of study.

  At first this concession was grudging on my part. I wanted a real teaching experience, not one with training wheels. But during the orientation that followed, my subjects ranged from classroom management to what to do if a student spits in your face. What would I do if a kid spit in my face? Was this really a possibility? As tough as my childhood neighborhood in Brooklyn had been, no teacher in my day needed to worry about dodging loogies. Maybe having a coteacher wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  Now a kid’s spitting seems far less of a threat than my own performance does.

  “It’s not as bad as it feels,” David says. “Considering it’s your first attempt.”

  I want to ask why he didn’t step in and save me, but of course, that’s not his job. His job, as we agreed, is to observe, and then sit me down and review what just happened.

  David reminds me that teachers prepare lesson plans to help them stay on track. Which is why he had me slave for three solid days over my plan for today. As David has explained to me more than once, lesson plans have to encompass not just what I teach but also how I teach it and how I plan to assess my students’ retention of the material. Each lesson must have a goal and each class three parts: the “do-now” or warm-up exercise, the main activity, and the wrap-up.

  “Unfortunately,” he points out now, “lesson plans are useless unless you remember to use them.” The last time I even glanced at today’s lesson plan was approximately twelve minutes before Nakiya appeared in the doorway.

  “I cannot believe I forgot the do-now.” I check over my shoulder. Yep. “Right there on the blackboard!”

  “Don’t worry. It happens.”

  I don’t believe him. Time has spun me in circles, and the kids have done me in. I blew the entire class. At this rate, how am I ever going to teach all the material I have to cover in the semester?

  I take a deep, shaky breath. “I have to be better.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” David says. “Every first-year teacher goes through this.”

  He should know. David’s specialty is teaching teachers, and he advises all first-year teachers at Northeast. But I can’t help feeling that I’m a special—and not particularly promising—case.

  Two

  Ignorance Is No Excuse

  NEXT MORNING the alarm starts screaming at 4:20 A.M. It’s pitch dark, and I’ve been waking up in a panic every half hour all night long. Getting up is more relaxing than trying to sleep. At least if I do some push-ups, get the blood flowing, give myself time to review my lesson plan, maybe I’ll get through today without falling on my face.

  As the sun rises, I stand in front of the wall of glass that I call my magic window. It opens onto a small balcony facing east and is the best feature of the apartment I’ve rented for the duration of my time at Northeast. I’m in the Northern Liberties section of Philly, a neighborhood in the process of being gentrified. It’s full of art galleries, bars, and restaurants, reminiscent of New York. Every few minutes I can watch the elevated train run by, and I see a certain symmetry in that. In Brooklyn, where I was born, the el ran right down the middle of Pitkin Ave. As a child, I would sit by the window and wave to the people in the train as it went by, hoping that someone would wave back. I was once a kid no different from the ones I’m now supposed to be teaching. Time to get back to school.

  As far as the show’s concerned, I don’t have to be on campus until my class begins at ten o’clock, but I can just imagine the other teachers’ reception if I moseyed in around nine-thirty when they’d been busting their butts since seven. No thanks. If teachers all over the country are dragging themselves out of bed before dawn in order to get the job done, then so will I. Besides, this second day is going to go better. I feel it.

  Just after seven, I pull into one of the teachers’ lots and park near the row of shrubs pruned to spell out NORTHEAST. Although the campus dates back to the 1840s, the school’s current brick building was erected in 1953 and looks a bit like a postwar factory, complete with a towering smokestack. The largest high school in Philadelphia, Northeast has three stories, trailers, multiple sports fields, its own football stadium, a huge cafeteria, and several cavernous gyms. We even have our own Philadelphia police station! Now there’s a comforting thought.

  It wasn’t easy to find a school that would have us. Our production team approached districts all over the country and formally petitioned school boards in New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., L.A., Pittsburgh, and Newark just to name a few. None was willing to let a “celebrity teacher” with cameras into its schools. I was almost ready to give up when the woman who heads up the film and television production office in Philadelphia phoned.

  Sharon Pinkenson is a dead ringer for Meg Ryan and an incredible booster for her city. She has a direct line to Mayor Michael Nutter, and the mayor always has time for the kids of his city. So when Ms. Pinkenson told the mayor that our television show, if done right, could help the schools of Philadelphia, he was interested. Leslie Grief and I flew in and made our presentation, and Mayor Nutter encouraged us, but we still had to win over District Superintendent Dr. Arlene Ackerman and her superiors on the School Reform Commission. This process took months, and inevitably the press latched on to us. None of the coverage was very good, and some was below low. One reporter actually wrote, “Tony Danza is pimping Philadelphia’s kids to kick-start his faded and stalled career.” Jeez, I thought, “faded and stalled”? And “pimping”?

  Somehow, the mayor continued to stand by us. Eventually, though not without vocal reservations, the School Reform Commission approved us. I was granted one double period a day to teach one class of tenth-grade English. My “load” of twenty-six fifteen-year-old boys and girls would be just one-fifth the load that regular teachers carry, so not exactly a tr
ue reflection of the job, but this was as much as the commission was willing to risk, and they made sure I understood I was lucky to have it.

  Now, as I approach the cameraman and sound engineer already waiting for me near the school entrance, lucky does not begin to describe how I feel. Lost is more like it.

  This is to be our routine. Every day when I arrive on campus, I’m miked and wired so that the devices are as invisible as possible before we go inside. Then we make our way past the multiple sets of guards and metal detectors that, sadly, have become as much of a fixture in urban high schools as they are in airports. This early, only a few students are around. As I watch one boy send his backpack through the screener, I ask him what he thinks of all this security. To my surprise he says, “It’s good.” Then he explains that he knows more than a few knuckleheads who might try to bring “something” into school. “Even though it takes some time when everyone is on line waiting, it makes the rest of us feel safe.”

  Forty years ago, when I went to public high school, I always felt safe. Except for keeping an eye out for some of the bigger kids who liked to exercise their fists on us small ones, I didn’t give security a second thought. I blurt this out to a young man who’s checking his box as I enter the mail room. He gives me a sympathetic nod and introduces himself as Joe Connelly, a first-year math teacher.

  Joe has an open, easygoing manner, and I like him right away. When I spot my mailbox, with my name on it, I do a little dance to show how thrilled I am to be a real teacher. Instead of making fun of me, Joe points to the name on his own box and gives his chest a thump. We’re both pretty impressed with ourselves for just being here. Soon I’m deep into the story of my convoluted journey to Northeast.

  “Hey, I hear you’re doing a ninety-minute class,” Joe says. “Good luck keeping their attention.”