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

by Tony Danza

  “The things you remember, Mr. Danza,” Nakiya says, tuning up her dazzling grin. I couldn’t agree more.

  The Folger Shakespeare Library turns out to be close to the Capitol, which makes it seem as if every inch of D.C. has historical significance. I’m pleased that the kids get this and that they’re uncharacteristically polite to the curator who greets us and escorts us into the library’s Great Hall, where vintage texts and illustrations of Shakespearean works are displayed.

  “Look, Mr. Danza,” Katerina calls out. “Julius Caesar is dying!” The other kids crowd around the exhibit, showing the kind of enthusiasm they normally reserve for a new Jay-Z single.

  “I wonder why they wore bedsheets in Rome.”

  “They called ‘togas,’ schmo.”

  “Isn’t Rome in Italy?” Nakiya’s voice climbs over the others. “Mr. Danza, why didn’t Shakespeare write Julius Caesar in Latin? I’d rather read Julius Caesar in Mr. Smith’s class than those stupid grammar lessons.”

  Many of the kids, including Nakiya, have a running battle with their Latin teacher, but I’m not going there. “Okay, gang,” I call, trying to subdue my surprise and ecstasy at their engagement. “It’s showtime!”

  We file into the Elizabethan replica theater, where an acting troupe called Bill’s Buddies begin to act out scenes from several of Shakespeare’s plays and then invite the kids up onstage to become part of the performance. Nakiya, Chloe, and Eric Lopez are all natural hams, but even Monte and Eric Choi get into the act. Onstage and not afraid to make fools of themselves, they’re laughing so hard I’m not sure they realize they’re learning. The kids’ knowledge of Julius Caesar when quizzed by the acting troupe gives me a whole new sense of my students’ involvement. The educators at the Folger who put together this program are no slouches, and even by their standards, the kids know the play. My students make me look good.

  After the Folger Library we move on to the National Archives for more interactive exercises, this time focusing on the Constitution. The students take on the role of archivists, selecting and analyzing primary sources—ordinary diaries, letters, and memoirs—for historic examples of constitutional issues, such as separation of church and state, and checks and balances. Then they find where in the Constitution these concepts are supported. The idea is to demonstrate what the Constitution means in people’s real, everyday lives. Even my most unmotivated students are working, which illustrates how, when learning is fun and collaborative, kids do respond.

  As they divide into teams, each researching a different set of records, the kids look so good in their uniforms, like authentic archivists pulling documents and poring over them. White Nick and Ben-Kyle take charge of making a video of the class at work, with Nakiya narrating. This is recorded on a DVD for us to take back to school with us.

  By the time we get to the Lincoln Memorial, everybody’s so steeped in the aura of history that the kids act downright reverent as they gaze up at the huge stone likeness of Abraham Lincoln. We take some group pictures with the Washington Monument in the background, which I will copy and frame for each kid, and they let off a little steam chasing geese around the Reflecting Pool. All in all, it seems to me, this day is as good as they come—a day I hope these kids will remember the way I remember my day here as a young Boy Scout.

  On the way home, Russian Playboy cements his image as the class ladies’ man. In the back of the bus, I catch him making out with his girlfriend, so I move him. By the time we reach Philly, he’s kissing the girl next to him in his new seat. This Russian boy just can’t keep his hands off American girls, but I don’t dare laugh. To the kids it’s a big scandal. Teen breakup in the making. “You wanted drama,” I tell our director.

  But as far as he’s concerned, it’s all just too normal—no use to the show. He pulls his cap down over his eyes and pretends I don’t exist. Sometimes that’s his way of dealing with me.

  The next day my production partner Leslie Grief calls to tell me we have a boring show. “You got nothing yesterday,” he complains.

  “What, nothing?” I can’t believe him. “Washington was beautiful. The kids were beautiful. They were learning, engaged. They loved it! I loved it.”

  “Tony.” Les sounds like he’s reasoning with a two-year-old. “Nothing happened. There’s no drama. We’re going to have to start setting things up if you expect to have a show that people will watch.”

  “Setting things up” is code for rigging the show, manipulating the story line—and the kids. “Over my dead body,” I tell him.

  “Then maybe we should pull the plug right now. Not one second of the trip to Washington is usable. There’s nothing to watch.” He sounds defeated.

  I try to pump him up. “Les, this is exactly the show we wanted to make. It’s the reality of education today. And I think there was plenty to watch on the trip.”

  “We have a commitment to film until the end of the semester,” he says. “Let’s try to get something we can use, all right?”

  I pull the phone away from my ear, almost but not quite hanging up on my partner. He’s a man who knows what it takes to make a successful TV show, a man I like and respect and whose opinion I simply can’t accept.

  No sooner have I hung up than I’m called down to the office by my buddy Ms. DeNaples. “Mr. Danza, did you notify your students’ other teachers that they would be missing class yesterday for your little field trip?”

  “I—I thought the kids would tell them.”

  “Mr. Danza, what you think and what they do are two entirely different issues. Notifying the other faculty was your responsibility. Many of the teachers had no idea why your students were absent. As you know, momentum in the classroom is important, and when a student misses a day, the teacher can lose that momentum. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Danza?”

  “I do, Ms. DeNaples. I absolutely do, and I’m very sorry.”

  “You need to apologize personally to those teachers, and you need to make sure this never happens again.”

  “You have my word, Ms. DeNaples.”

  I don’t even look at our cameraman as we leave the office. That dress down is all on tape, but not even my being worked over by the likes of Ms. D. will give Leslie the drama he’s looking for.

  AS PREDICTED, I spend almost all Thanksgiving Day on the football field, and I’m not really sorry, since we win big against our number one rival, Central. I spend most of the weekend on the bus with Nakiya and the marching band riding to and from their state competition, where they’re pretty ecstatic to place third. And I have to admit I’m glad not to be fighting jet lag as I sign in on Monday. I even think it’s a compliment when Assistant Principal Byron Ryan strides over and informs me, “Ms. DeNaples suggested you as a chaperone for the Winter Formal.”

  I look up, having heard only the words Winter Formal, which immediately trigger memories of my own school prom in 1967. We held it in a gym decorated with silver snowflakes, and “Good Lovin’ ” by the Young Rascals was the hit of the evening. I remember everybody doing the Monkey and the Jerk. I took a girl named Darlene but really wanted to be with her friend Gina, who was with my friend Mike. “Sure,” I tell Mr. Ryan. “Sounds like fun.”

  He gives me a lopsided smile, and I wonder what’s up, but he’s taking a phone call before I can ask. By lunch, word’s gotten around, and I’m seeing that same lopsided smile on a lot of faculty faces. “What exactly happens at this dance?” I ask.

  “Oh, it’s not that bad.”

  “They’re just kids.”

  What is this? West Side Story? What goes on? What? Finally I decide to go to the source and ask one of the seniors on the football team. He says, “It’s chill.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  He looks at the ceiling as if it’s the Sistine Chapel. “It’s the dancing.”

  “What do you mean, it’s the dancing?”

  Shrug. “You’ll see.”

  All right. If my pal Ms. DeNaples can put me up to thi
s, she can tell me what “this” is.

  Good ol’ Ms. D. “They dirty-dance.”

  I liked that movie! “You mean, like Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey?”

  “If that means the girls bend over and back up against the boys and grind in a sexually explicit manner, then yes.”

  “Oh.” I don’t quite remember the movie that way. But I’m beginning to get the picture.

  “It’s not allowed, but that doesn’t stop them. So it will be your job to keep an eye on all the action everywhere in the gym. And stop it when you see it.”

  “How?”

  She tips her head and gives me her own special smirk. “Oh, Mr. Danza. I’m sure you have your ways.”

  THE NIGHT OF the formal I show up in a suit and tie, with no idea what to expect. The gym is decorated with stars and colored lights. Some of the boys are actually trussed up in tuxedos, and lots of the girls are wearing corsages, just like in the olden days. There’s nothing old about the music, though. The bass makes the floor bounce. I plug my ears with little wads of paper napkin. Whatever happened to melody?

  The usual teachers are here, by which I mean the ones who always seem to work the after-school activities. The young dean of students, Rob Caroselli, wears a Cheshire cat smile as the others welcome me. “If it’s simulated sex,” Coach Riley tells me, “that’s no good.”

  “And how am I supposed to break up simulated sex?”

  “You ask them if they’d like their mothers to see them do that.”

  “Oh, the old mother trick.” I wince.

  Coach Riley and Mr. Caroselli laugh and wish me luck as they walk away, but for the most part the kids seem happy to see me. Students generally love it when their teachers show up at their events, and some feel let down if you don’t show. That makes me feel as if I always have to be there, and when I’m not, I feel guilty. On the plus side, when you do come out for them, they usually work a little harder for you in the classroom. But it can make for very long days and weeks, including weekends.

  The kids congregate at the edges of the dance floor. Most of the football team hangs together—Howard and Matt inexplicably wearing their uniform jerseys. And many of the girls dance in small, loose clusters. Others merge into crowds so thick I can’t see who’s inside. Those clumps spell trouble. I have no choice but to wade in, however reluctantly. If the tall boys are all looking down, chances are they’re watching a bump and grind. Some girls back up against the boy and push and rub in an upright version of lap dancing. Other girls are sitting on guys’ laps in the bleachers.

  “Okay, okay!” In comes Cop Danza, trying to be cool and looking at everybody but the girl and guy in question. “Break it up, you guys. That’s enough! Would you want your mother to see you do that? Get a room!” I kid them. Then everybody laughs and dances away to find another dark corner. They act like it’s all fun. I’m not sure how I feel about it.

  “I hate being the party pooper,” I tell Katerina and Chloe, who sympathize with my embarrassment. They’ve come to the dance together, without dates, and both look and act like high-fashion models. I tell myself they would never dance dirty. I need to tell myself that, or else I’ll start thinking about my daughter at her winter formal, and no telling what I’ll do then.

  “No, you’re cool, Mr. Danza,” Chloe assures me. “We’re glad you’re here. Wanna dance?”

  I can feel myself blushing right down to my toes. I raise my hands. “Oh, I don’t think so.” But they’re talking about line dancing. Pretty soon we’ve got a conga line stretching across the gym. The football team and even some of the dirty dancers join in. It’s different, being a kid today, but still, they really are all just kids.

  TEACHERS’ LOUNGE

  Northeast’s Got Talent

  All teachers bring extracurricular skills and passions to the job. That’s why some volunteer to coach tennis or softball, others supervise the school paper or literary magazine, and still others organize field trips to botanical gardens or planetariums. I happen to have some skills and connections in the theatrical department, so arranging a school talent show seems a natural for me. At first I’m thinking a student show, but I ask around and learn that the students already have an annual talent show. The teachers, however, have never done anything like this. Making Viking history is right up my alley.

  Putting on a show together also seems like a good way for me to get to know and connect with teachers beyond my SLC. And it will be for a good cause: we’ll charge a buck a ticket and distribute the earnings among the band, the choir, and the school newspaper. Enough teachers like the idea to give me momentum. They’re not above a little fun and camaraderie, and since we’ll film the entire enterprise, they might just wind up on television. That said, I don’t pitch the talent show to the production company ahead of time. I want this to be real, and I want to organize it on my own terms.

  The catch is, it has to be a rush job. The school calendar doesn’t have a lot of breathing room before Christmas, and the auditorium is overbooked, especially right after school, when it’s easiest to get a good student audience. So when the date is set, I have just two weeks to pull it all together. No small feat.

  I reach out first to the choirmaster, Mr. Flaherty, for sound equipment, and I enlist Mr. Dyson, a math teacher who can play the piano, to accompany the acts. I recruit Nakiya and Katerina, both talented artists, to help me print up and distribute flyers inviting teachers to show off their hidden talents. We call the show Northeast’s Got Talent, after the TV show. The first- and second-place finishers will receive gift certificates, which helps attract contestants.

  About a week before the show, I hold auditions in my classroom. Mr. Dyson is on hand to play an electronic keyboard from the band room, and the turnout is good. One teacher wants to play the guitar and sing an original song he’s written for his wife, who’s due with their first child any minute now. We figure he’ll open the show; if his wife goes into labor that day, it will add a little suspense. Ms. Deltoro, who works in the counselor’s office, wants to sing a duet with Mr. Cooper of “If I Loved You,” from Carousel. Five other male teachers sign on with me to harmonize a medley of dance songs in the style of the Mills Brothers; we call ourselves Tuxedo Junction. (We practice in the stairwell, where the acoustics are fantastic.) Various other teachers will sing solos or recite poetry. Mr. Dyson will play the “Minute Waltz” on the piano, and we’ll close the show with Voltron, a lip-synching boy band made up of five first-year male teachers led by Joe Connelly, who reportedly can moonwalk.

  Nakiya is thrilled when I ask her to be the MC. I try to set it up as we would in Hollywood, scripting her introductions with jokes based on the acts, then writing out the script on cards that she can discard after each segment. Her job is to move the show along. During our lone rehearsal, we stand in the wings and work on being funny while listening to each act, coming up with asides that might get a laugh, help cover the transitions, and calm the teachers who seem anxious.

  I have my work cut out for me with Ms. Solomon, a social science teacher who has raging stage fright. She keeps warning me, “I’ve never done anything like this.”

  I tell her, “You can do it. I sing in public all the time now, but the first time you have to get up and sing like you do in the shower, it’s tough.” Then I tell her a story. “I used to go to the great songwriter Sammy Cahn’s home for parties. At these soirees would be all sorts of famous people, like Gregory Peck and Sean Connery, even Jackie Collins. Inevitably, everyone would gravitate to the piano. Sammy would play and make people sing. The first time he asked me to sing I was so nervous, especially given the audience, I could feel my heart pounding. I sat next to him on the piano bench, and he whispered, ‘You can do it, have some fun.’ I swallowed and I started rough, but once I got through it, I couldn’t wait until the next party.”

  Ms. Solomon chews her lip all the way through my story, and I can tell I’ve done little to reassure her. So I have a couple of students bring the choirmaster’
s keyboard up to my room and ask Mr. Dyson to work with her. Once she gets going, Ms. Solomon turns out to have a strong gospel voice. “You have to keep practicing,” I tell her, “but my money’s on you for the contest.”

  The morning of the performance Ms. DeNaples stops me as I’m signing in. “Mr. Danza,” she says in her inimitable way.

  “Yes, Ms. DeNaples.”

  “I assume you would like everyone in this school to know about the talent show this afternoon.”

  After nearly four months, I still cannot read this woman. We’ve hung posters all over the school to advertise the show, so she has to know the answer. “Yes, Ms. DeNaples.”

  “Would you like to make an announcement to that effect over the intercom?”

  “Now?” I just about leap over the counter. “You mean, this morning?” The intercom is Ms. D.’s private domain. She, and only she, makes all school announcements herself—ad nauseam. But now she steps aside and makes a grand sweep of her arm to indicate that I am to step to her microphone. It feels like the parting of the Red Sea.

  Making an announcement, however, is a nerve-racking experience. Everyone is watching me, no mistakes allowed. I flash back to high school and just know that if I mess up, I’ll hear about it all day, maybe all year. I get through, but afterward I cut Ms. DeNaples’s announcements some slack. Performing in Vegas is easier.

  As planned, our opening act on the day of the show is Mr. Cerelli, whose very pregnant wife is in the audience to hear him perform the song he’s written for her. He manages to finish his act, but they leave right afterward, and shortly thereafter head for the hospital. (It’s a boy!)