by Tony Danza
Or maybe earth brown
on days when the sun gives her enough power so she can breathe again.
Beauty has always been one garbage can short of perfection,
On most days my peers pay no attention to mother nature.
Throw away beauty with no thought.
I can only ask the people to treat the earth like their dreams.
See what beauty really is and create a rainbow.
Recycle the things that don’t matter and finally make a difference.”
A cheer erupts in the office after Alex signs off. Teachers congratulate and praise him. They ask to make copies of the poem so they can read it to their classes. Best of all for Alex, as we leave the office a girl he likes walks up and gives him a hug. “Alex, that was great!” she says, turning her big brown brights on him. The moment is sweet.
From then on Alex is effectively the poet laureate of Northeast. He goes on to compete in the Philly Youth Poetry contest and earns a trip with the team to Los Angeles to compete against street poets from all around the country. He writes poetry to encourage Philadelphians to clean up their city as part of UnLitter Us, a local public service campaign against litter. Alex’s poetry lifts him like a life preserver.
Whenever I hear politicians try to justify cutting the arts in public education, I think of this extraordinary boy. Although he can do a backflip off the stage to the auditorium floor, he’s not a jock, or a math or science whiz, nor is he a candidate for class president or yearbook editor. But with his poetry, he’s a rock star. It’s what gets him to—and through—school.
ALAS, THE POETRY contest has no such rosy afterglow for my other students. As the weather starts to warm up and the pace of testing quickens, they grumble and wiggle and snicker and yawn more than ever. I’m excited about Ms. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. I’ve reread it and loved it and can’t wait to turn the kids on to it. Funny, the kids don’t quite see it that way. After we’ve been working our way through the book for a week, David Cohn not so gently reminds me that I’m supposed to engage the students.
All right. It’s time for the big guns, technology-wise. I decide to hook the projector up to my computer and plug in my SlingPlayer. That way I can screen for my students anything I can watch on TV. But what’s the best media material to enhance To Kill a Mockingbird? I’m coming up short until about two in the morning, when I give up trying to sleep and turn the TV on to a rerun of the movie Mean Girls, which I later find out was inspired by Rosalind Wiseman’s bestseller Queen Bees and the Wannabes, about adolescent girls. In one scene, the mean girls are introducing the new girl to the different cliques in the school cafeteria. Preppy blonds sit at one table, smart Asians at another. The jocks have their section, the nerds are there, the arty kids in the corner—just like every school cafeteria. Just like Northeast.
Suddenly Mean Girls suggests a lesson on the class structure of our school—which my students can compare to the structure of Maycomb, Alabama, in Mockingbird. I download the movie on iTunes and the next morning in class we screen the cafeteria scene. Then I break the students into groups to work out the parallels between characters and groups in the book, the movie, and the school. They make diagrams and illustrations, and finally present their findings to the class. There’s some disagreement about who belongs to which clique in the stories and in life, but the lesson works because it connects to their own lives. And it’s fun.
Games, I remind myself, are another great way to engage the students. We’ve already done versions of bingo, a.k.a. Danzo; Jeopardy! and Pictionary in this class. Now I find a YouTube video of myself appearing in a 1985 episode of Hollywood Squares. My students, who have never heard of the game show, will watch the video to see how it’s played. Then, before our next class, I’ll set up two rows of chairs at the front of the room to face the class. Three kids equipped with homemade paper X and O signs will sit in the first row of chairs, three more will stand behind them, and another three will stand on the back row of chairs. These nine positions are the squares, and the kids who occupy them will have to answer game questions that come from To Kill a Mockingbird.
When my students see the video, they make predictably embarrassing comments. Look how young you are, Mr. Danza! Hey, you look like that guy from Jersey Shore. I stick it out just long enough for them to get the game. “Now it’s your turn,” I warn them. “First nine volunteers get to be in the squares. I’ll ask the questions, and the rest of you break into two teams to decide whether the person in the square is giving you a true or false answer. It works like Tic-Tac-Toe. First team to win a whole row of squares wins the round.”
After the nine squares are filled, I divide the remaining students into two teams of eight—the Xs and the Os. The teams immediately start razzing each other, and the kids in the squares get into the act as well. The required preparation time is putting me at a disadvantage, so to get them started I hand the players in the squares the bluff answers I’ve written for the first round. When answering a question, the square players can either bluff or answer the question for real, if they know the answer. Their goal is to try to fool the teams.
We begin with team X, which chooses Nakiya in a middle square to answer the question “In what time and place is the novel set?” Nicky doesn’t even take a breath before stating categorically, “The novel is set in the west during the Depression.” A few team members blurt out “True,” but then Gwen objects. “It’s the south, not the west. False!”
Nakiya smiles and puts on her paper sign, which hangs like a bib, giving the team their X. The team goes wild, and she eggs them on by clapping. I shush them, and the Os pick Monte. Perfect, I think. Monte’s poker face and deadpan delivery will give nothing away.
“On what writer did Harper Lee base the character of Dill?”
Monte pauses, motionless, and when he answers, he doesn’t speak so much as he articulates: “Ernest Hemingway.” The Os buy it because Monte is never wrong.
The correct answer is Truman Capote. So the Os lose Monte’s square to the Xs, and Monte almost actually smiles. The review is working, although I didn’t realize when I planned this that I’d feel a stab of failure over every question they miss. I mean, really—Ernest Hemingway? Schmos.
We’re in the final round when, out of the corner of my eye, I notice David Cohn leave the room. A good sign. He must think it’s going pretty well. Then, out of the corner of my other eye, I notice Matt skirting the room in Paige’s direction. Nothing new there. Matt’s antsy as usual. As long as he doesn’t disrupt the class, I let him be. But this time his mouth is also moving, and Paige objects. “Why don’t you go back to your seat and shut up,” she says to him.
On a good day there’s no love lost between these two, except that I suspect there may, in fact, be some attraction, which only intensifies the friction, since he is white and she is black, and Matt hasn’t been the same since those boys jumped him early in the year. Now he’s seething. “You ain’t the teacher.” Matt closes in on Paige, jutting his chin.
“Oh yeah?” Paige’s voice rises. “I’ll teach you something.” Next thing I know she’s out of her seat and both their fists are clenched. I vault to the back of the room to get between them. Paige is screaming at the top of her lungs, “You ain’t so tough, and I’m not one of your little ass-kissing girls.”
I try to separate them and quiet the situation, but the trash talk continues from both as I propel Matt back to his seat. “I didn’t do nothing, she’s a crazy bitch,” he says.
“Easy with the language.” Anybody can see I’m grasping for straws.
Then Ileana gets involved. “Why don’t you grow up,” she calls back to Paige, “and stop acting like a fool.” These two also have a running feud, so the effect is explosive.
Paige jettisons herself to the front of the room and gets in Ileana’s face. “I’ll show you who’s a fool!”
I leave Matt and try to pull the girls apart, but as soon as I do, he races around from the
other side and gets back into the fray, which of course makes things worse. Meanwhile, the rest of the kids are watching, waiting to see what if anything I’m going to do to get this mess under control. This is pathetic. I know that’s what they’re thinking. And they’re right.
“Paige, I want you to leave. Get out, and don’t come back.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve hit a trip wire that’s way out of bounds. I want to reel them back in, but the damage is done. Paige’s look cuts me to the core, and Matt and Ileana are practically high-fiving each other. I stand there, frozen, as the bell rings and everyone makes for the hall. Then I snap back. I shout over the passing noise for the three malefactors to stay put. But Paige is already gone.
“See, it’s her,” Matt says, and Ileana agrees.
I settle myself on the corner of my desk and am trying to debrief them calmly, find out what was really going on, when Katerina and Chloe burst in. “Al G’s been arrested in the cafeteria!”
I’m mystified. Wasn’t Al here just a minute ago? I release Ileana and Matt with a plea to find a more constructive way to work out their differences, and head for the basement. Al G is in handcuffs in the holding cell.
One of the policemen tells me, “I asked the young man to put away his phone, and he ignored me. I touched his arm, and we got into a wrestling match.”
Al G hears this and yells, “You grabbed me, and you not allowed to touch me.”
I remember the expression on this boy’s face, the fury of his body language when I touched his arm in New York City. “Al, please,” I say under my breath as I approach his cell. “The cop doesn’t want to make this a big thing. But if you want him to press charges, I’m sure he’ll oblige.”
I turn back to the policeman. “Is there any way we could take off the cuffs and talk this out?”
“I’ll do it if he apologizes.”
That sounds like a long shot, but I give it my best. Losing the handcuffs helps. Al’s anything but sorry for his actions, and he’s not remotely interested in pretending that he is, but he admits that he’s not exactly enjoying himself in lockup. We negotiate an apology that passes muster: “I’m sorry I lost my cool.”
That gets us out of the cell, but I can’t take him with me. He still has to be written up, and his apology doesn’t spare him from suspension. At least there’s no assault charge, and before I go, Al promises me he’ll be cool. His expression, a cross between sneer and tears, tells me he means it—at least for right now. He doesn’t have to say thanks.
I’m pretty well wrecked as I step into the corridor, but not as wrecked as Matt, who’s hunched over in a corner, just out of sight of the hundreds of kids in the cafeteria. The blustery young man I left upstairs is now trembling with pent-up emotion.
“You okay?” I ask. Wrong. His face turns tomato red and tears flood down his cheeks. “What is it?”
This big, tough football player stammers through his sobs, “I’m-m-m so angry and I don’t know-w-w why.”
I hand Matt a tissue and put an arm around his shoulders. We take a back route up to my room, and I shut the door. I use every tool in my kit to get him to talk, but I’d be out of my league even if I weren’t exhausted. Since neither our boxing sessions nor school counseling has done the trick for Matt, it’s time to kick it up another notch. I promise to talk with his parents about getting him to a professional therapist. Matt not only accepts the suggestion but actually seems grateful for it.
After he leaves, I can’t move. I sit staring at the dust, thick as sand, pouring through the afternoon light. I imagine them burying me alive. I’ve been teaching for eight months, and right now, I feel more incompetent than I did the day I started. How does anyone survive this job, let alone succeed in it?
“Mr. Danza?” Nakiya and Tammy peek in the door. “We’re here to help you.”
I give them a feeble look. “You are?”
“Yes.” Tammy flashes her braces at me. “You have to grow some balls, Mr. Danza.”
I wince. They’re laughing, but they’re not kidding. Nicky says, “It’s not just for the bad kids. The good kids need to see you’re tough, too.”
I know they’re right. I let them talk. I even listen. You don’t always have to be so nice. You can be friends with kids and still stand up to them. There’s no law against sending the bad kids down to the office. The girls’ pep talk sounds suspiciously like other pep talks I’ve received from David Cohn.
“Well, thanks for caring,” I say at last. “I think.”
The girls give me fist bumps on their way out the door. They’re just kids. They’re all just kids. So why is this job still so hard?
ONE REASON it’s hard for both teachers and students is that there’s so little parental backup. Which is not to say that the parents are always missing in action. Sometimes they’re present to a fault.
Whenever I got in trouble as a kid, my parents always supported the teacher. That’s not what happens at Northeast in general, and it’s not what happens a few days later when Daniel, of all kids, gets in trouble.
The whole incident strikes me as bizarre. It starts with a party, of all things. The half-sandwich crew and a few other teachers and I are having pizza and drinks in the first-floor conference room when the Latin teacher Mr. Smith happens to walk past. Naturally, I invite him in. Smith, as the kids call him, is a good teacher and he cares, though as an old-school educator he has a hard time accepting the behavior of today’s American kids. “Where I come from,” he told me at the start of school, “students stand and greet the teacher when he enters. ‘Good morning, Sir.’ ” He can be tough on the kids and has high expectations, which doesn’t sit well with a lot of them, including my student Daniel, who’s standing by the conference table reaching for a slice of pepperoni when Smith comes in. The Latin teacher takes one look at Daniel, and both of them instantly forget about the pizza. It seems that not only is Daniel in danger of flunking Latin but also he cut Smith’s class this morning. Smith wheels on the boy and orders him to the principal’s office. Daniel puffs up his chest and refuses to move. He also mouths off with a level of disrespect and meanness that’s totally unlike the Daniel I know. What is going on?
It strikes me that Smith’s out of line, since I’m technically the teacher in charge here, but Daniel’s behavior is even more unacceptable. I feel like I have to support the chain of command, so I tell Daniel to go with Mr. Smith. Still, I’m so shocked that my gentle student could act out like this, I can’t help tagging along.
Within minutes Daniel’s mother has been called. I know her fairly well because she works the concession stand at Northeast football games, and we’re on friendly terms, especially since I’ve told her that her son is one of the sweetest kids I know. Confident that I’ve got standing, I catch her before she goes into the principal’s office and try to explain what’s happened.
Immediately she cuts me off. Hands on hips, waving me away, she says, “Daniel has been complaining about this teacher from day one. I want him out of that class. This teacher should be punished.”
I’m dumbstruck. She’s so intent on protecting her son that she doesn’t even want to hear the facts, let alone ask questions. If Daniel says he’s in the right, that’s good enough for her. And since Daniel shows no remorse about his failing grade or the unexcused absence, as far as his mother is concerned, it’s the teacher’s fault. Does she really think she’s doing her child a favor? Unfortunately, I have neither the ready argument nor the authority to lecture Daniel’s mother. After she sails on into the principal’s office, all I can do is turn to Glen Dyson, the piano-playing math teacher from our talent show, who’s just been appointed a dean of students.
Glen lifts his hands and drops them. “Because of all this bad press about bad schools, parents come in predisposed to complain about the teacher.” That empowers the kids to act out whenever a teacher is strict, Glen explains. The kid gets in trouble, but the parents blame the teacher. The school’s forced to
reprimand teachers whose only crime may be high standards. “It’s an exhausting, destructive cycle.”
US AGAINST THEM, us against them. What’s wrong with this picture? If only we could all walk a mile in each other’s shoes. The next day, when I run into the buzz saw of Monte’s disapproval, I realize that, at least in the classroom, we can.
To Kill a Mockingbird, in Monte’s opinion, is too easy. The other students, of course, complain that it’s thirty-one chapters and way too thick. Monte also faults me for taking too long to get through the book and for constantly losing control of the class. Others say it’s not fair that they have to get their work in on time when some of their classmates don’t, and I agree, but if I come down hard on the problem kids, I’m afraid they’ll stop participating at all. That is my constant concern, since the last thing I want is for any of my kids to quit. But Monte’s grim expression reminds me that my focus on kids who can’t be bothered is compromising his scholarship to Princeton.
If I’d just put him in charge, Monte seems to think, he’d pull us all into line. So, remembering Crystal Green’s strategy with Al G, I grant Monte his wish. We call it our Student Teacher program. “One whole period will be yours,” I promise him. “You get to make up your own lesson plan, and the assignments and standards can be just as tough as you like.”
Monte’s not a kid who shows excitement, but I do believe that, if he were, he’d be rubbing his hands with glee. Certainly, when he moves to the head of the class a week later, he’s well prepared. For his do-now, Monte presents everyone with a legal-term work sheet from the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird. Then his main lesson focuses on the characters’ qualities and interactions during the trial.
Monte aims high, but he’s dealing with the same class I have to face every day, and they cut him no slack. Instead, they cut him off. And they cut up. Matt takes his usual stroll around the room, and when Monte tells him to sit down, Matt just laughs. Chloe and Katerina are talking about sandals for spring while Monte’s analyzing Atticus Finch and Heck Tate. Erik Choi is corkscrewed upside down in his seat, and Eric Lopez is lost in a love note he’s scribbling to his new flame, Ileana.
