by Tony Danza
I’ve sweated over my speech as if it were the State of the Union address. When I read it to my teacher friend Bobby G., he thought I was worrying so much about it because I wanted to say something that the students would always remember. I bought that for a minute, but then realized this past year has made me enough of a realist to know that always remember is way too high a bar. I told Bobby, “What I want is just for them to listen and not let the words go in one ear and out the other.” Just hear it for one day, I think now, because that’s how we learn: one day at a time.
“Pomp and Circumstance” begins to play over the loudspeakers. It takes more than an hour for Mr. Flaherty to announce each and every name of the nearly seven hundred graduates as they take their seats in the sun. The young women are gowned in Viking red, the guys in classic black—with red ties. They are a diverse and beautiful bunch, and their beaming faces make a powerful sight.
Finally everyone’s settled and Ms. Carroll welcomes the graduates, family, and friends to the commencement of Northeast’s Class 169. She is followed by one of my unofficial advisory kids, Dion, who happens to also be president of the student body. In his speech Dion singles me out for “all the stories [I] so unreluctantly told” him. I shoot him a peace sign; he’s got my number, but he did pick up the ukulele from me.
Now it’s my turn. I gaze out over the throng, clear my throat, and take it from the top. “For those of you who don’t know, I am Tony Danza, a.k.a. Mr. Danza. Mr. Danza. Boy, do I like that.”
It’s a little tricky addressing this class, since I didn’t officially teach any of them, but I did get to know many of the seniors through the half-sandwich club, talent shows, dances, and my coaching duties. “My first week,” I tell them, “before you kids came to school, a couple of football-playing seniors helped me set up and decorate my room. They were so tall I didn’t need a ladder. They helped me put up my fadeless paper. Fadeless paper, that’s teacher talk. Like graphic organizer, model it, or collaborative learning. Watch out; don’t make me say Venn diagram.” At least the teachers chuckle at that.
I turn the talk to the graduates. “By finishing high school and getting your diploma, you have done something that nearly fifty percent of kids your age don’t do. That’s right, one out of two kids that start high school in America do not finish. So you beat the odds. You’ve set the table for a good life. Now, as you go forward, make sure you continue to put the work in to make yourself good at whatever you choose to do.
“You have the time and the opportunity to find your passion,” I assure the graduates, “but remember that time is finite. Don’t waste it. Remember that if the time you have now is well spent, your whole life will be enhanced. As Shakespeare says, ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.’ ”
I expect I’ve lost more than a few in the audience with that quote, but I figure I earned it. “And now for some general after high school tips.” They’d enjoy this next part more if I played it for laughs, but I can’t do that. I’ve seen too many Northeast kids—or their older brothers and sisters—crash and burn this year. So I tell them straight, “Take care of yourselves. That means, don’t abuse your bodies. And take your time with love. Don’t be in such a rush. Girls, know that the guys are up to no good. And, guys, be responsible. Understand that the choices you make are pivotal. One wrong move and your life is very different, so get your own lives in order before you have to think about taking care of someone else.”
I thank the parents and families, and I make a plea. “As a teacher, I appreciate parents who stress the importance of education, because the schools and teachers can’t do it alone. We need your support. We need a culture that celebrates education and holds it up high, where it belongs. You have stood by your children, and it has, so far, paid off, but we all know your work is not done. Please don’t stop having high expectations for your children.” That said, I know from experience that some of these parents are supportive to a fault, so I remind them that the kids are now officially not kids anymore. “Call on them to start being adults. Not all the way, but get them started. Sorry, graduates, it’s time.”
Finally, I have to acknowledge my colleagues. It’s a little presumptuous for Mr. Danza to speak for the students, but that’s the prerogative of the podium. “Thank you to the teachers who were there every day, the teachers who put up with your moods, told you to put away your phones or take out your earbuds. Thank you to the teachers who agonized over your grades and tried as hard as they could to give you what you will need as you continue on in life.”
By this time I can feel Ms. Carroll behind me calling for the hook, but I have to get in my own thanks. “This has been the greatest year of my life. I learned more and worked harder than I ever have. I met people I will always look up to and students I will never forget. I am a different and better person because of all of you, and I thank you for that.”
I finish, once more in English teacher mode, with the Kipling poem “If,” which might as well have been written for commencement addresses. It concludes:
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
“Make your lives count!” I urge the Class of 2010, and then, “One last thing.” I raise my hand up like a visor and peer back and forth across the stadium. “Any Vikings in the house?”
The place fills with a roar that I sense is fueled half by delight and half by relief that I’ve finally stopped talking. Even I have to admit that poem was pushing my luck. But the others on the dais are polite, and afterward a few of the teachers compliment me for putting poetry into my commencement speech.
AFTER ALL THE PICTURES are taken and hugs shared all around, I head up to my classroom, where the last of my die-hard students are waiting. The camera crew tags along for a final wrap-up. The kids have filled an album with photographs and notes commemorating our year together, and now they’ll present the album to me on-camera.
Fortunately, these are my kids, and there’s nothing reverent about their album entries. “Danza’s Top Ten Dumb, Annoying Habits,” for example, cites my inability to say the word idea without it sounding like idear; my drenching sweat; my overuse of the word schmo; and my constant refrain, “You can do it, you can do it.” Maybe I come off looking like a schmo, but they’ve put so much heart, cheek, and effort into this book that I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry, so I do a little of both.
There is one particular page that I really can’t get over and definitely can’t live up to. It’s a full-page picture of me at a football game wearing a Northeast High School sweatshirt. Underneath, my class has written, “Our Atticus.”
I cry again for good measure. And that’s before we say goodbye for real.
First, everyone pitches in to help me strip the room of their work, which they’ll take home. Then one by one they all leave, except for Daniel and Alex, who’s been hovering around my room all day. Alex’s home life has recently spiraled downhill. A couple of weeks ago he was moved to yet another foster home, separated from his sister. I began reaching out to everyone I could think of who might be able to help, and my assistant Kelly Gould, the angel on our crew who saved Courtney from failing physics earlier in the year, stepped to the rescue again. Kelly is a native of Philadelphia, and her family owns and operates a summer camp in the Poconos. She’s gotten them to offer Alex a free stay at the camp. Now, after much effort, all the paperwork is in and he’s looking at four weeks in the mountains, a world away from foster care. This boy is one of those kids who’s more at home at schoo
l than he is at the place that others call his home, and now, thanks to Kelly, he’ll have another school away from home for the summer. Except that it will be a whole lot more fun than school. I tell him to make sure he sends me a poem from the Poconos.
Daniel proudly holds his portraits of Shakespeare and of the old man from his poetry contest recital. “You know, Daniel,” I say, “I really did mean it all the times this year I told you that you’re talented. Seriously talented.”
Instead of acknowledging what I’ve just said, Daniel gazes at the walls. “The room looks different, Mr. D.,” he says.
Alex agrees. “There sure was a lot of stuff on these walls.” He whistles for emphasis.
I can’t resist one more parting shot. “Daniel,” I say, “I expect you to keep up the kind of work you did this year. You make your mom proud.”
“I have no choice,” he answers. “She’s bigger than me.”
Alex laughs, but I jump on him. “Hey you, don’t laugh. You made a deal with me, too, and I will be checking.”
“I can see you in L.A. right?” he asks.
I nod. “That’s our deal, but you have to do well for your own sake, not just for this or any trip.” I’m starting to hate the sound of my voice.
The guys walk me outside and help me load my rental car. We fist-bump. We bear-hug. I get in the car. Suddenly, they’re gone.
I feel about as alone as I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m still on a high from the thrill of the day, but I’m also bereft. It’s gotten late, and the sky’s clouded over. A work crew has already taken in half the chairs from the commencement ceremony. The school has that vacant, blank-windowed look that schools always get during summers, when their sole purpose for being—the students—is gone. And what exactly is my purpose now?
Refusing to go there, I turn the ignition, shift into reverse, and head for the exit. As I reach the intersection, I spot Danny and Alex waiting to cross at the corner. I beep my horn and wave. They shoot me two radiant grins and both pretend to tap-dance.
TEACHERS’ LOUNGE
Saving Starfish
The final day of the school year for teachers is June 21. No kids, just teachers. The district wants every last second of those snow days credited back. The good news: only one day is left to make up after graduation. The bad news: it’s a Monday, which means that all the teachers have to adjust their summer plans to come in.
By this point, no one has any real work to do. I say goodbye to Ms. Carroll and to my fellow Son of Happiness, Joe, who promises to come out to L.A. one day and take in another fight with me. Both of these goodbyes are pretty tough, but I even get teary-eyed bidding farewell to Ms. DeNaples, who despite our rocky start has indeed wound up being one of my best friends in the school.
Then, coming out of the office, I bump into Chuck Carr, my old PSSA partner. I’ve heard the rumor that Mr. Carr has put in his papers to retire at the end of the year. I can’t help thinking what losing a teacher like this will do to the school. He’s one of so many of those great baby boomer educators who have given their lives to the cause of education and will be so hard to replace. He’s loaded down with books and doesn’t seem to want to talk, but I have to ask if it’s true that he’s throwing in the towel. “Changed my mind,” he says gruffly, not stopping.
I walk along with him. “What do you mean?”
“One more year.”
After a few more feet I ask, “How many years has it been?”
“Thirty-six.”
“And you’re not ready to be done?” Right now I find that impossible to imagine. “Why one more year?”
Mr. Carr looks down the length of the empty corridor. He sighs. “Maybe next year I’ll get it right.”
I shake his hand and let him go and feel a tidal wave of guilt that only multiplies when a few of the teachers in my SLC present me with a farewell video. They went around the school asking for goodbye sound bites, which they’ve edited together. The tribute is wonderful, but by this time I can’t take any more. I feel like a deserter. I don’t want to leave these people, and I especially don’t want another reminder that I’m not coming back to my kids in September.
I have a train to catch for New York City, and I badly need to be on my way, but just when I reach the front door, Lynn Dixon catches me. She has a present for me. Another piece of kitsch from Ms. Dixon, I think, and accept the plaque without even reading it. One last quick hug, and I stuff the gift into my tote bag. “I’m late,” I tell her. “I have to go. I’ll miss you.”
As the train pulls out of 30th Street Station, I think back over the strange turns this year has taken, and I wonder whether I’ve been successful in my mission—or even exactly what my mission was. Between the show and the class and my own uncertainty, I’m still not sure. Maybe because I had only the one class I became too attached. I inserted myself into my students’ lives, and now I’m gone. That seems wrong, and yet I remind myself that teachers and students have been coming and going from each other’s lives forever. It’s what students take with them and keep that matters. They’ll get along fine without me, I think. I’ll stay in touch with them. In emails I can still drive them crazy with advice and aphorisms.
As the train nears Trenton, I’m rummaging in my bag when I notice the box from Ms. Dixon. Figuring now it’s safe to open it, I find a polished wood rectangle embellished with a metal scroll. The inscription on the scroll tells the story of a huge storm that roils the sea and washes thousands of starfish up onto the beach. The clouds break, and the sun comes out and begins to bake the starfish. A man wanders by and sees the thousands of stranded stars. He doesn’t know what to do at first, but then he starts to throw them back in the water one by one. Another man comes by and says to him, “What are you doing? There are so many, you’re not making much of a difference.” The first man bends and picks up another starfish, throws it in the water, and says, “Made a difference to that one!”
I love Ms. Dixon for giving me this story. I did try to make a difference. Maybe I didn’t get them all in the water, but I think I got most of them closer to it. Maybe that’s all any teacher can do.
Epilogue
ON OCTOBER 1, 2010, A&E finally premiered Teach. The show lasted six weeks, buried in a late Friday-night time slot, where we were virtually guaranteed to fail. Even so, I received many encouraging letters from a few of the stalwart teachers who were actually home and awake on a Friday night. One wrote that he identified with my struggles, having experienced similar moments in his teaching career. Unfortunately, he added that his wife, a psychiatrist by trade, thought I might be having a nervous breakdown in the first episode. That’s not how it seemed to me in the moment, but in hindsight the diagnosis could be a little close for comfort. Instead of taking it personally, I chose to view her observation as proof that this profession requires a highly specialized and valuable mix of personality, perspective, and skills for success, and that it’s emotionally grueling. If our viewers took one thing away from the show, I hope it was a profound appreciation for the challenge that teachers across this country face each and every day. If my meltdowns in class helped dramatize that challenge, then maybe we did some good after all. Still, after the show ended, I kept feeling as if a golden opportunity had been missed. The series was taken off the air so abruptly, our story seemed to have no conclusion. Those great shots of our group hug at the end of the year never even aired.
Some time after the show was officially canceled, I met with the head of the A&E network, Bob DeBitetto, and he told me, “You did a great job. I’m really proud of Teach. But, you know, when I first bought the show, I never thought people would watch it.”
“Really!” I was taken aback. “Why not?”
“I’ve been doing this for a while now,” he said. “I’m a pretty good judge of the market, and this is not the kind of stuff audiences want to watch.”
That seemed to beg the question “Well then, why did you buy it and put it on?”
He was matter-of-fac
t. “It was a good cause, topical, and you never know, with you, I might get lucky.”
A good cause, topical, and you never know, I might get lucky. I came away from that meeting thinking, Well, there you have it. That’s America’s attitude toward education in a nutshell. We all know that America’s children—and future—are a “good cause” and “topical,” but as a country we’d rather take a shot at “getting lucky” than invest the effort, money, time, and attention it takes to guarantee their success. Our show suddenly seemed like a metaphor for the overwhelming problem of education in America. And a big contributor to that problem is the attitude that Bob DiBitetto echoed. Learning, most of this country seems to think, is like medicine that we know we need but refuse to take unless somebody makes it so entertaining that we forget to think it tastes bad.
Whether or not our show could have changed attitudes about teaching, it never really had a chance. And whether or not the educators who are trying to raise up America’s students can actually set and meet higher academic standards, our cultural values make their job next to impossible. It’s so much easier for pundits and politicians to point fingers and blame the people who are in the trenches every day than it is to get in there with them, or even to find out what actually goes on in those trenches. It’s so much easier for parents to blame teachers when their kids get in trouble than to do the heavy lifting required at home to keep those kids on track. And it’s so much easier for us as a nation to cross our fingers and hope that we’ll “get lucky” with the innovative “solutions” being tested on America’s schools today than it is for us to roll up our sleeves and invest our own time, talent, and money in the schools that are even now—with or without us—shaping our nation’s future.
If I learned anything during my year at Northeast, it’s that the blame game serves no purpose in our educational system. Sure, there are some bad teachers, and some bad administrators, just as there are failing corporate CEOs and lousy actors, but the vast majority of educators I met at Northeast were not bad so much as they were discouraged and overwhelmed. The rising numbers of low-income and immigrant children, the underwhelming involvement of parents, and the impact of a culture that sneers at knowledge instead of treasuring it all make the classroom a very tough place to work. Beyond that, the sheer logistics of teaching, counseling, comforting, coaching, and inspiring 150 students each and every day are beyond the capability of most normal human beings. Yet public school teachers are expected to perform these tasks calmly and brilliantly while simultaneously documenting and evaluating every move they and their students make. Oh, and don’t forget staying up-to-the-minute and responsive to those constantly changing district mandates and national policy shifts. All for less money than the average plumber, real estate agent, or sales manager makes. Shouldn’t we value the job of expanding our children’s minds more than we value the job of Roto-Rooting our pipes? We say we do, but we never seem to put our money where our mouths are.