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

by Tony Danza

  I watch in disbelief as the sound techs duct-tape the same hand microphone we just used for the speeches to one end of a pool cue. Then a young production assistant holds the cue stick up to the speaker on the TV and the sound plays through the bowling alley’s public address system. All this jerry-rigging strikes me as another perfect metaphor for the production. And all the anger and frustration that’s been building up over the last months gets to me.

  I walk over to the network executive standing at the top of the stairs, the same man who just showered us with saccharine. My voice sounds weirdly calm as I tell him, “This is no way to show something you’re proud of.”

  Clueless, he tries to placate me. “It’s not so bad, Tony. Look, they like it.” He gestures with his arm at the kids, their parents and teachers, Ms. DeNaples, and David Cohn, who all are straining to follow the footage on the overhead monitors.

  The executive’s patronizing gesture and tone push me into a state of rage. Goodbye, maturity; hello, something more primal. It’s as if all the violence I’ve restrained myself from unleashing at school comes charging through me now. I get in this suit’s face and ask how proud he’d be to watch himself in a bowling alley with lousy sound. Then, for emphasis, I nose-butt him. It’s not a hard hit, but it catches him by surprise. A little trick from my street-fighting days: nobody’s ever prepared for you to use your face as a weapon. It scares people.

  The executive reels a little and takes off down the stairs without another word. Probably for the best. Everyone else is so absorbed in the show that this particular episode is just between us.

  I return to the main event not proud of myself, exactly, but not sorry, either. And somehow, the screening is well received despite the awful conditions. When it’s over I detect a fair amount of relief along with enthusiasm. No one seems to realize that the coming attractions for future shows cover only the first semester. As far as the students, teachers, and administration are concerned, this is just the beginning. And it is, though not the beginning they’re expecting.

  Later, when I get back to my apartment, I stand for a long time staring out the magic window. The night is clear and cold, and the city lights gradually flicker out until just the streetlights are left. If only they could light my way forward. I think about losing my temper again. What would my daughter Emily say? I think of my home in L.A., the life I’ve left to come here. For a second I waver. It’s never too late to throw in the towel. Sorry, class, the experiment with your school year didn’t work, so I’m outta here.

  I wince. No way. Goodbye is not an option. For better or worse, I’m here for the duration. I really am a teacher now.

  Eight

  Poetic Justice

  SO HERE WE ARE. “It’s just you and me, kids,” I tell my class. “We’ve got five months until the end of school. Let’s make the most of it.”

  Katerina and Chloe smile, and Nakiya gives me a thumbs-up, but Monte and Al G shift in their seats, looking even more suspicious today than they did in September. I can practically hear them thinking, Why’s he still here? And I can’t blame them.

  Without the distraction of the production, I notice something enormous that I’ve missed until now: second semester is different. In some ways it’s better than first semester because everyone is more comfortable—the ninth graders more at home, seniors more in control, and most of the teachers in their groove—but that comfort comes with a definite downside. Familiarity breeds contempt, and contempt breeds something else. The kids are louder, the horseplay rougher. Fights break out between both boys and girls. It’s ever more difficult to enforce the cell phone and uniform policies. And the kids now feel freer not only to joke around with me but also to confront me. The irony is that second semester would make for a livelier TV show. Now, just when I have no use for drama, it comes at me in waves. Call it poetic justice.

  FROM THE START, Paige has been an enigma to me. She can do the work but chooses not to, and I cannot figure out why. A junior beauty contest winner, she gets more than her fair share of attention from the boys, but she’s moody and volatile, one minute sweet and engaged, and the next tough and ready to scream and fight. When she speaks, she fires out a rapid combination of slang and bad grammar that’s impossible to comprehend. I often have to stop her and ask her to speak like she wants me to understand. But there also seems to be some affluence in her family. Like many of the students, Paige has a single mom, yet over Christmas her family went to Paris. Not many kids in our school go to Paris. Paige brought me back an Eiffel Tower key chain that I treasure. Suffice it to say, I’m completely befuddled by this kid and how to get to her—until midway through our poetry unit.

  My bright method to engage the students in poetry is to throw a contest patterned after American Idol. To prepare, each student has to select and memorize a poem by a notable poet and create a poster that includes the historical context of the work, a biography of the poet, and anything else that might elucidate the poem. Figurative language, mood, structure, imagery, the works. On the day of the contest, students will present one at a time, introducing themselves and the poems they are reciting, in front of the class and a panel of teacher judges. Each poem must be at least ten lines long, and the judges must be able to verify its publication and author. Basically we have to be able to Google it.

  “And to get those competitive juices flowing,” I tell them, “I’ve made a little investment in your success. The first-place winner will receive a flip cam”—a small digital video camera that everybody in the class is hot to get—“and ten dollars. Second prize is eight dollars.”

  For the prizes, the kids go crazy. For the prospect of memorizing poetry, not so much.

  To prove that they can do it, I promise to learn a poem myself in one night. We go online, Google “famous poetry,” and up comes Rudyard Kipling’s “If.”

  Go for it, Mr. D.!

  So I do. It’s thirty-two lines of pure inspiration and takes me all night to learn, but I opened my big mouth, so there’s no going back.

  The next morning, I prove the point. “If” belongs to me now.

  “Learning a poem is a great way to get in touch with your emotions,” I tell the kids. “I mean, reading a poem is wonderful, but when you learn it by heart you experience it. It’s the difference between a pianist playing while reading the sheet music and a pianist playing a piece he has memorized. If you know it, you feel it in your body as if it’s part of you. What’s more, you already get this. The rap music you all listen to is a kind of poetry. And I know some of you can recite rap. Come on, now. Anybody?”

  Al G pipes up with “Gangsta’s Paradise,” by Coolio. Figures. I make him stand, backpack and all, and raise his voice above his usual mutter.

  As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

  I take a look at myself and realize that there’s nothing left.

  Cause I been blastin’ and laughin’ so long

  that even my momma thinks my mind is gone.

  But I ain’t never crossed a man who didn’t deserve it,

  me be treated like a punk you know that’s unheard of.

  You better watch how you talkin’ or where you walkin’,

  or you and your homies might be lined in chalk.

  I really hate to trip but I gotta loc,

  as it clears I see myself in the pistol smoke,

  I’m the kinda G all the little homies want to be like,

  on my knees in the night saying prayers in the street light.

  I wonder what effect this kind of music will have on these kids as they grow older. My generation grew up on love songs, only love songs, and look how we turned out. It worries me to think what rap is teaching today’s children—certainly not melody! Unfortunately, my students do identify with these lyrics, and this song makes my point about poetry being all around them. Even Matt and Howard get it.

  Coolio also gives me an opportunity to tie our study of poetry to their lives and to the theme of social justice that has
threaded through our whole year’s curriculum. Starting with Of Mice and Men, we’ve returned over and over to the issue of equal opportunity and how people react when they’re not given a fair chance to succeed. This theme resonates with my students because the culture makes sure they know they’re disadvantaged. It resonates with me because I know that if I hadn’t gotten very, very lucky, I wouldn’t have had a shot, either.

  “Why do you think this gangsta feels as if anybody who disrespects him deserves to die?” I ask.

  He’s gotta defend his honor. Cause they’ll get him if he lets them.

  “Do you think this gangsta feels good about himself? You think he feels better for all this gangbanging than he would, say, if he owned his own company or designed those Nike shoes you like so much?” I point to Al G’s big feet, propped up as usual on the chair in front of him. More shrugs.

  Then Monte answers, “If he had his own company, people would have to respect him to keep their jobs. If he felt disrespected, he could fire them instead of killing them.”

  I nod. “So you think maybe there are other ways to defend your self-respect? Maybe even, if you earn your way up to a good job and do something in society that earns respect, then you don’t feel like you need to pull the trigger whenever somebody looks at you the wrong way?”

  Katerina says, “I think Coolio means that killing does no good, like when he says this guy looks at himself and realizes there is nothing left.”

  The others jump on that point, arguing loudly for and against. It’s a solid conversation that motivates me to look at other raps for inspiration. I hit pay dirt with a YouTube video by the group Figureheads that touches on Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The lyrics deliver a call to action aimed squarely at my students:

  Whatcha know about social justice

  The ones who fought the ones who suffered

  For basic rights like suffrage

  But knowin about it ain’t enough kid

  It’s time for you to rise up

  It’s time for you to lead us

  I use this song to teach the class that they have to make their own opportunity but also that we should all work toward a more just society. “What you know about social justice?” becomes another of Nakiya’s standard greetings to me, right up there with “Hey, you know Sal?”

  TWO DAYS BEFORE the contest, I give the class the last twenty minutes of the period to practice their poems, alone or with a partner. As they work, I stroll around the room sneaking looks to find out what poems they’ve chosen. I work my way down the first row and stop behind the girl in the last seat. Paige. She’s working solo. I peek over her shoulder. The poem is about a deadbeat dad. A missing father.

  Suddenly this girl’s moodiness starts to make sense. This insight by no means absolves her for her behavior and her lack of effort, but it does give me a clue to work with. Figuring out what’s going on in a kid’s life is at least half the battle for every teacher.

  I can’t help it. I’m crying. I try to cover and get to the front of the room, but Paige looks up. I hear her behind me. “You crying?”

  I stall, not turning around. “No.”

  “Yes, you are,” she says. Then Nakiya joins in. “You’re a crybaby, Mr. Danza!” And the whole class makes it a chorus. “You’re a crybaby, Mr. Danza.”

  Okaay. Teachable moment. I take a deep breath and spin around, wet cheeks and all. “So what if I am?” I lift my arms, full wingspan. See? No shame. “That’s what poetry does to us. That’s why we read poems, to get in touch with our feelings and emotions.” I give it a beat. “And to win the flip cam.”

  They laugh at me, but they also get back to work.

  Two days later, it’s showtime. To enhance the Idol effect, I set up a table in the back of the room and make signs with scores for the judges to hold up for each contestant. Our judges include David Cohn, Ms. Smotries, Mr. Kelly Barton, Ms. Green, and Mr. Gill, a dean of discipline who channels Simon Cowell. I’m nervous about the other teachers. They’re bound to judge me as well as the students, especially if this experiment goes wrong, but it makes the contest more legit to have them, and their presence raises the competitive bar; the kids like having other teachers see them perform.

  Before class, when I return to my room from my morning SLC meeting, I find that someone has scrawled across the blackboard WIN THE FLIP. I leave it as an incentive. Soon the judges arrive and the contestants file in, each picking a number from a jug to set the order of performance. We have twenty-six recitations to get through, and Al G is missing—late as usual. I’ve got a plan for him, though.

  First up, Matt recites Carl Sandburg’s “Among the Red Guns.” Why this poem? “I just liked it,” he says. “I think it means even if you die in war, your dreams still go on.” His answer reminds me that the kids fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are not much older than Matt. They were nine and ten when this war started and are now on the front lines. I ask if he’s thinking about joining the military, and he says, to my relief, “No, I want to play football.” He scores two eights and a seven, and we cut him some slack because it’s tough to go first, especially for Matt.

  Next up is Pepper. The kids clap encouragement, but he looks as if he’s struggling not to pull his hoodie down over his eyes and go to sleep. “We’ve got to understand every word,” I tell him. “Speak up and out.”

  As instructed, Pepper introduces himself. “My poem is ‘Hurrah for the South!’ a Civil War poem by G. W. Hopkins.” I swallow hard and exchange helpless glances with David Cohn. A white kid chooses to recite a pro-Confederacy poem in a majority nonwhite class in Philadelphia in 2010? David shuts his eyes and shakes his head: don’t ask.

  The judges give Pepper two nines and an eight just as Al G slinks in the door. “Hey, just the man we’ve been waiting for,” I greet him. “Guess what. You’re up.”

  If I’ve won this one, Al’s not about to show it. He stands up front with his backpack on and gets through Langston Hughes’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” He hasn’t made the required poster, but he only stalls a couple of times, and with Al I’ll take any victories I can get. When I ask why he’s chosen Langston Hughes, he says, “Because he didn’t have a good relationship with his father, like me.”

  When Al sits down and Paige gets up, she doesn’t even look at him. She wears a big smile and moves with a glide in her step, and Emmanuel, whose seat is next to hers and who’s always happy to help her, joins her up front to hold her poster. Paige routinely torments Emmanuel, and her swagger seems to dwarf him. But her artwork is not so bold. The black poster board features a vintage photograph of a black man and two little girls.

  “All right, Paige!” The class buoys her. “Yeah, Paige!” I give her the go sign.

  “Hi, my name is Paige and the poem I’m doing is ‘Unwanted’ by Marvin Bell.”

  She begins to recite a poem about a missing father. Her body shifts from side to side. As she races through the next six or seven lines, her smile starts to look fixed. Her hands swing as if clutching batons. Then she hits a line about the father missing his daughter’s graduation.

  She stops so abruptly that I assume she’s lost her place. Her hand flies to her mouth. Her eyes fill with tears, and she flees to the hall.

  Emmanuel’s bewildered expression reflects back through the class. Nobody’s ever seen Paige cry. She’s the toughest girl in class. Isn’t she?

  When it dawns on me what’s going on, I follow her outside with a box of tissues. Teachers can never have enough tissues. Paige makes a stabbing motion at the tears, but they keep coming. “Paige,” I say, “this is great. Remember what I told you, this is why we read poetry, to get in touch with and express our feelings. Isn’t it wonderful that you found a poem that touches you so?”

  She makes a squeaking sound and nods. I give her another tissue. “You want to go back in and try again?”

  She takes a shaky breath. “Yes.” Then she squares her shoulders and talks to
herself. “I gotta get gangsta.” This seems to me a unique approach to reciting poetry, but then again, this is Philly.

  Back inside, Paige takes it from the top, and the rest of us hang on every word. She makes it to the word despair. Then, as the tears again gather and roll, Paige lifts her arms and begs the ceiling, “Why can’t I say this freakin’ poem?” And she runs out into the hall again!

  I go back out, and we do the whole scene over. More tissues.

  “Hey, Paige,” someone calls when we come back in, “just picture everybody naked.” That gets a laugh out of her and everyone else, and the third time’s a charm. She’s so keyed up now she practically spits out the end of the poem.

  The judges hold up a ten, nine, and eight, and the cheering shakes the windows as Paige pumps her fist and starts back to her seat. I stop her. “What do we know about this poet?”

  “His name is Marvin Bell,” Paige says. “He was in the army, but he’s known for his poetry. He had two daughters and he promised to be in their lives forever, like they were his princesses, and he had their pictures and names tattooed on each of his arms.”

  I glance back at David, whose left eyebrow has shot up into a question mark. Has she made this stuff up? Or is she confusing her own father with the poet? I thank Paige and let it go. She’s been through enough for the moment, and Monte has already taken the stage for his full, flawless six-minute rendition of Longfellow’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.”

  Only later, when I do a little Internet research, do I discover that the poet Marvin Bell has two sons, no daughters, and never wrote a poem called “Unwanted.” The poem Paige recited is online, but it was written by a blogger named Bel. I consider telling her she had this wrong but then decide against it. This was a cathartic experience, and I don’t want to undermine it. Seeing Paige so moved by a poem that she actually cried made the contest much more powerful for everyone. She faced an emotional challenge that turned into a personal victory. I couldn’t have set it up better if I had tried. There are times when teachers have to let some things go in the pursuit of a greater good.