by Ed Boland
What made the end of the year even more disheartening was that the next fall I was expected to continue with these same kids. World History was a two-year course, and Mei thought “looping,” or staying with the same kids for a second year, was better pedagogically. Monica was already sharing lesson plans with me for September, and Gretchen kept talking about new protocols she was eager to try. All this talk of September made me nauseated.
The day was soon over and the kids shuffled out of the classroom with less energy than usual. The June heat had sapped them. I was beat, too, but I set to work reviving my Jeopardy! board for a final few days of review. I pulled the huge piece of foam board from my storage closet at the back of the room. My interactions with Chivonne and Angela had already put me in a funk, but seeing that board brought me even lower.
In February, not long after dismissal one day, I had gathered a small group of my advisees in my classroom to help me write a new round of questions for the game. Jeopardy! had been a big hit that day and got everyone’s competitive juices flowing. Without warning, there was a loud bellowing sound from the hallway. I thought I had heard every kind of noise a teenager could make at that point, but I was wrong. This was a visceral, soul-crushing kind of pain. And then, CRASH! as Cesar, a badass sophomore, pounded his fist through the window of my classroom door. The metal meshing embedded in the glass made his terrible wound even worse, opening an artery. Glass sprayed all over my boys and a streak of bright red blood slashed across the Jeopardy! board. Stunned, I went to the door and watched as Cesar struggled to pull his twitching limb out of the window. All the blood made me queasy, and I could hear my pulse pounding in my neck. Cesar walked down the hall slowly and in utter silence, his arm limp, slick, and dripping. I should have rushed out to help him. In truth, I was just too damn scared of him and the whole hideous situation. Hiding behind the duty of helping my own kids, I started pulling shards of bloody glass out of the hood of Lu Huang’s sweatshirt. Cesar’s adviser, Marquis, followed him and Mei ran after with the first-aid kit. I later learned the cause of the uproar: Cesar had been dumped minutes before by a sophomore girl.
Four months later, I looked at the board and could still see remnants of the now-brown blood. I knew what would cheer me up: a visit to my favorite Chinatown food cart to soothe myself with a dollar’s worth of greasy pork dumplings. I looked at the clock. If I didn’t leave that instant, I knew the cart would be gone and I would miss what was, sadly, the highlight of my day. Just as I was zipping my backpack closed, a surprise visitor sauntered into the room: Chantay. This kid rarely showed up for school lately; what was she doing here after school? My dumpling dream would have to be deferred.
She leaned her skinny frame against the bank of windows, cocked her head to the side, and pulled her fingers nervously through her curls. “I gotsta do better, mister. I’m tired of failing. I’m gonna be seventeen next year and still a freshman.” Her enormous brown eyes started to fill with tears. It was true: She had a class average of 45, had done almost nothing all term, and had treated me with alternating doses of indifference and disrespect. But I knew she had it rough at home; her plea seemed urgent and sincere. Despite our rocky year, I’d always liked her and admired her spunk. She got to me, and a last-week-of-school conversion was better than none. We sat down together and charted out the things she could do to eke by with a D. I would accept some late assignments during exam week, and she could retake the unit test on Africa. She nodded obediently.
The next day, she showed up for class, where I greeted her like an eager suitor, standing over her with a folder of makeup assignments. But only eighteen hours later, she had other priorities. Rumor had it that she and Jesús were on the rocks. Chantay was flirting up a storm with Javier, another seventeen-year-old freshman. Well-built, handsome, and golden-tongued, he was wearing a red T-shirt that read “The Man, The Myth,” and, with a large arrow pointing down to his crotch, “The Legend.” There may have been some truth to the claim. Rumor had it that he’d been tossed out of his previous school just a month before, not simply because two girls performed oral sex on him in an empty classroom, but because he had a friend film it on his phone and shared the scene with the world.
I huddled next to Chantay with a folder of earlier assignments and started to review our plan that just might make her a sophomore by age eighteen. In the process, I inadvertently blew her tough-girl cover and let it be known to her peers, including Javier, that she wanted to do some work and pass.
“Chantay, you gettin’ your shit together on the down low?” he asked.
“Nah,” she purred back at him.
My throat tightened. I was done being played. “So you aren’t interested in any of the makeup work we talked about?” I asked.
“What you talkin’ about, mister?” she asked, batting her lashes and playing dumb.
I rushed to her desk and snatched the folder back. She turned to Javier and said, “Mister had better get outta my face, or else he gonna get stabbed in his neck.” Everybody laughed on cue.
A flare of rage shot through me, which was nothing new, but this time my filter was in the “off” position. I’d be damned if I was going to write up another incident report about her threat. We were on day 175 of a 180-day journey, and I was spent.
“Would anybody guess that Chantay was in here yesterday after school bawling her eyes out, saying that she wanted to pass this class and finally be a sophomore? I guess it was all an act.” Now I was the one who got the laugh. My adrenaline was flowing as usual in these tense exchanges, but now it was laced with fight, not flight. With the rabble in my corner for once, I went for more. I stuck my face toward hers, drew my lips together snidely, and said in a fake baby voice, “Boo hoo.” The kids howled with laughter.
In a flash, Chantay’s face instantly went from cocky to pissed-off pouty. “You…you…can’t say that. You’re a teacher.”
“Well, it looks like I just did, don’t it?” I said, borrowing the line Kameron had used on me in front of everyone on the first day.
Her tears returned, this time in anger, and she ran out of the classroom. I’ll teach you, you little bitch. My vengeance felt glorious. But a minute later, my sobering, inconvenient conscience returned. Rage and sarcasm weren’t the answer either. Not even the worst teachers I’d observed, not even Mr. Cooper at Eugene Debs, would have said what I said to her. And I thought I couldn’t regress any further.
In the midst of her dramatic exit, I felt my phone vibrating. Who wants what from me now? I thought. After the kids filed out of the room, I dialed in to voice mail to hear a message from Helen, my former boss at Project Advance.
“Hi, Ed. I hope all is well with you. I’d love to get together and catch up sometime soon. I have an idea I want to bounce off you.” She sounded so cheerful and professional, it was gross.
I had a day off before the start of exams, so I arranged to meet her for breakfast at Cafe Luxembourg, a bistro on the West Side. I approached the table, where the legendarily industrious Helen looked up from a huge pile of paperwork with a wide smile.
In the old days, she and I would often meet with our big donors here. I bounced down onto the leather banquette and felt a familiar ease as I brushed my elbows across the starched linen tablecloth. The waiter brought a basket of buttery French baked goods, which I promptly tore into.
“So, how’s it going?” she asked with apparent innocence, though I suspected she had been tipped off to the unfolding disaster by my former coworkers, with whom I’d shared a few of my “worst of” stories over rounds of margaritas. I quickly recapped some of them for her.
Her eyes grew wide and her brow furrowed. “That bad, eh?”
“Yeah, that bad. I just wish I could get to teach. I’ve got to get a lot meaner. They should require a graduate education course in ‘mean.’”
“Are you sure you have a lot of mean in you?”
I thought of my recent diatribe against Chantay. “I’m getting there.”
There was a long
pause.
“So here’s some big news: Louise is leaving us this summer and moving to Boston to get married.”
Helen and I had handpicked Louise to be my successor. She was a star who had been on the Project Advance staff when I first arrived and we had wooed her back to take my job.
“Wow, really? How great for her,” I said as I cut up a plateful of Salmon Benedict.
“Look”—she stared straight at me—“there’s no use in beating around the bush. I invited you here because I want you to come back to your old job.”
I hadn’t seen this coming. “Really?”
In every shopworn action movie, there is the improbable scene where the protagonist inadvertently uncovers a means of escape just as the zombies are looming, the aliens are invading, or the Nazis are at the door. As Helen made her case for my return, I imagined myself on a sinking ship with waves crashing over the bow. I’m the only one with a life jacket, and I am about to jump off the ship into the last remaining spot in the lifeboat.
“I want you to oversee two other departments as well. I can offer you more money, a better title, and an assistant.” Happiness turned to euphoria.
I was just about to say “Yes!” and “When can I start?” when my mind returned to my daydream. Just as I was about to leap off into the lifeboat, I turned to see the panicked faces of my students as the waves crashed around them. They were mouthing words I couldn’t understand at first, but they then became clear: “weak,” “greedy,” “soft.” My father, my sisters, my coworkers were on a higher deck with their arms folded, shaking their heads in disapproval. My mother was pointing to the lifeboat, nodding, and smiling from ear to ear.
My yes turned to no in an instant. I pushed my back up against the banquette.
“Helen, that sounds great and I’m flattered, but I can’t quit just because it’s hard and I’m struggling. I have invested so much in this change, in this decision. I haven’t given it enough time. Besides, the principal keeps telling me how much easier the second year is. And she’s counting on me to be the grade leader.”
“I understand all that. But if you come back, you’ll still be helping kids—kids whose talents can make a huge difference.”
“I want to help the kids who need it most.” My voice became pinched. I wasn’t used to emoting in front of Helen.
“If you think you’re really helping them, then you should stay and teach,” she said. But am I really helping anyone? I wondered. Not this year probably, but maybe I could grow into it. Monica and Lindsay had managed to make it work.
“Some days it feels like I’m trying to rescue someone drowning who is pulling me down with them,” I told her.
“Well, that sounds pretty awful.” She made the sign for the check. “Please think seriously about this. It would be great to have you back. We need you. Good luck with the rest of the year.” She gathered up her papers, gave me a peck on the cheek, and walked out of the restaurant.
I pulled on my backpack and walked into a bright June morning feeling full, flattered, and utterly confused.
At long, long last, teaching was over and it was time for State Exam Week. I saw Mei in the teachers’ room posting the proctoring schedule on the bulletin board, and found that I’d been assigned to assist Monica with administering and correcting the tenth-grade state history exams that were required by the Board of Regents for graduation. Her students were responsible for two years’ worth of material from the World History course—“from Plato to NATO.” Monica had taught them history during both ninth and tenth grades in preparation for the big test.
Mei stood over the computer keyboard I was tapping away at. “It will be really helpful for you to proctor and correct these exams, because next year you will have to take your kids through the same gauntlet. It’s a really tough test for them. So pay close attention.” She had no idea I was thinking of leaving. In the last few weeks, she’d kept promising me how much easier the next year would be.
As I entered the room to monitor the second half of the exam, I recognized a few of Monica’s students. I paced up and down the aisles, clacking my shoes against the scuffed linoleum squares. Some kids were scribbling away diligently; others stared blankly at the blackboard. Most looked scared and exhausted as they exited the room as soon as the minimum required time had passed. Only Norris was left. He peered up at me and smiled.
Everyone knew Norris. He was disabled in ways I didn’t understand. His head was oddly shaped, and he had a speech impediment and a slight limp. He was also unfailingly kind to everyone. He greeted every teacher every day, even if he wasn’t their student. Because he was a Special Ed student, he had unlimited time to complete the exam and stayed more than an hour after the official end time. He handed the exam to me and smiled. I tried not to wince as I scanned his essay, which contained exactly one sentence: “Hitler was a bad man and hurt the good men in Englan n USA.” I returned his smile and wished him good luck.
As Norris walked away, I thought about how many of my friends—educated, white, raised in relative privilege—struggled to survive in the city. They had middle-class families and connected friends, and still they struggled to eke out an existence. They couldn’t even afford crappy health insurance or to pay their pretty modest student loans. They were hard-pressed to pay rent in Queens, even with five other roommates. If they had trouble making it, what were Norris’s chances? Who would hire him? House him? Who had Norris’s back?
The next day, Monica, Marquis, and I sat in a sweltering classroom correcting the tests. The bulletin boards were now stripped clean and the textbooks had been boxed up. The sounds of liberated kids gleefully roaming the neighborhood below drifted up to our windows. Kid by kid, hour after hour, we pored over the tall stack of exams. We strenuously debated each essay, straining to find every blessed point we could and still preserve our professional integrity.
“Here, where Sherronda writes ‘money,’ what I think she is really talking about is the free-market system. So, that’s five points, right?”
“Does that look like the word ‘Rome’ to you? I think it is. Partial credit, right?”
“‘Famine swept through Europe like a cavity search.’ Come on! We can’t give credit for that?”
“Here’s a memorable one: ‘In case you were wondering, this is socialism.’” (It had a cartoon below it with stick figure holding a sickle.)
In a fit of indignation, Monica read a passage from the exam that the students had to comment on.
“‘Not only are the peasants compelled to tend the lord’s fields, they must also gather manure and chop wood.’ How dare they use the word ‘manure’! That’s so biased against urban kids,” she shouted. “They’ve never even been to a farm.”
Try as we might, the kids were no match for the exam. Despite Monica’s tremendous efforts, they were lambs before slaughter.
Once the exams were all corrected, we gathered around her to hear the final tally. Silently, Monica tapped on a calculator for a long time and I could see her breaths growing shorter and shorter.
“So, the average score is a”—she squinted downward—“54.” Her tone was stoic, but the facade didn’t hold. Her shoulders started to shake gently, tears streaming down her face. Then she put her head down on the desk and openly sobbed.
All of us tried to comfort her. “Monica,” I pleaded, “I know how disappointed you must be. But come on, without you it would have been an average of 24, and you know it. We all know how far you moved these kids.” But she was inconsolable.
Inside, I was dumbstruck. What was I witnessing here? Monica defeated? Crying? Unsuccessful? Monica? All those hours, all those great lessons and creative projects. This is what she had to show for two years of work? A collective 54? (The summer before, a friend who teaches in one of the richest districts in Long Island told me about how disappointed they were if any kid got below 85 percent on this exam.)
More than I had realized until that moment, it was Monica who was keeping me in the game.
Over the months, I kept consoling myself with a version of this script: If I really dedicate myself over the next few years, start out really strict, craft great lessons, learn to teach kids to read, put in the hours, I might be half as good as Monica, and that would be plenty good enough. That story was unspooling in front of me.
In five years, I thought, will I be sobbing at that same desk? I admitted to myself what I had been secretly harboring for months: Maybe most of these kids are too far gone, too hobbled by their life circumstances, for us to help very much.
I didn’t need a roomful of little geniuses like Project Advance, but I needed to feel like some kind of academic progress was being made. Here was my idol, in despair, perched over a pile of yellow exam booklets, blowing her nose and wiping her eyes. It was more frightening than watching the most violent, ruthless behavior from the kids.
I said a few more kind words to Monica and went to the bathroom to try to steady myself. I stood in front of the mirror blotting my face and talking myself down loudly. I didn’t care who heard. “Make up your mind now, Eddie. Go where you’ll make the biggest difference and be happy. Enough with the goddamn martyr complex.” It all came down to that single minute.
I bounded down the stairs of the Union Street School three at a time and darted out into the June heat of the Lower East Side. I ran to a corner, starting to sweat through my shirt, and pulled out my phone. My head was swollen with sadness and regret, but there was also the aching anticipation of freedom, of release. I dialed my old boss quickly, fearing I would change my mind.
“Helen, it’s Ed. I’ve been thinking about that job. As long as you promise not to stab me in my neck, I’ll come back to work at Project Advance.”
I walked into the school the next morning. Without the kids there, it was so quiet I hardly recognized it as the same place. I found Mei and Gretchen in the main office and told them my decision. They were polite, even congratulatory about my new job, and probably not surprised. They both looked so spent at that point in the year it was hard to know what they really felt. Many other teachers, some of them very gifted educators, had announced their departures over the last few weeks. I went home and called Nora and told her my news sheepishly. She seemed relieved for me. When I called my mother she said, “Well, I’m glad you got that out of your system. That’s great about your new job.”
