by Dan Brown
My parents drove up from Cherry Hill to bring a boatload of supplies, including a blue stuffed dinosaur, Mr. Lizard, to encourage class spirit, and their old rocking chair, now rechristened as my Reading Chair. They also delivered boxes of magic markers, chalk, and construction paper, compliments of my roommate Greg's art teacher mom. As an extra touch, my mom brought several rolls of vibrantly colored, school-subject-themed border to enliven my bulletin board edges. The science border, speckled with microscopes and dino skeletons, was a particularly nice touch.
The following day, Ms. Guiterrez visited me. “Mr. Brown. That border is company made,” she declared.
I nodded in cautious concurrence.
“It's distracting. Take it all down or turn it over. We're not a company. We're a school.” And she stomped off. Guiterrez was technically the second- and third-grade interim assistant principal, but she took on supervisory responsibilities for fourth grade because Mr. Randazzo was often busy “crunching numbers.”
I understood the push to avoid mass-produced inspirational posters in the classroom, although for whatever reason I still remember my fifth-grade teacher's Yoda poster: “The Force is with you when you READ.” It never corrupted me as far as I could tell. Down the hall, Marc Simmons and Jeanne Solloway had all kinds of store-bought stuff on their walls. (Simmons had especially splurged on an American flag motif.)
This was a colorful border, displayed at the edges of the bulletin boards, not some prominently showcased company ad. I staple-removed my mom's border, flipped it over, and stapled it back with the blank, gray side facing out. It was the first time I was angry.
Who would be my kids? Everyone else had a set of blue index cards with evaluative paragraphs from the students’ previous teachers.
On Tuesday, September 2, Mr. Randazzo told me that Adele Hafner had them and she would give the cards to me. Adele was a middle-aged enrichment teacher with a weathered face and grave demeanor. When I asked her if she had the guidance cards, she snapped in her authoritative Minnesotan twang, “Yeah. You'll get them.”
I didn't. The next day, I passed Adele several times in the hall and she made no mention of the cards. I felt awkward about bringing it up since our brief discussion yesterday had been quite clear. When Adele still did not deliver them the day after, I sought her out again. I walked into a classroom where she was unpacking boxes. “Excuse me, Adele,” I said tentatively, to no acknowledgment. “About the blue cards…”
“Mr. Brown, you don't know me well enough to call me a liar. I told you you'd get your blue cards and you'll get them. End of darn story!”
“Whoa, I didn't mean to sound like I was calling you a liar…”
“Except you did. I gave you my word you'd get them and that's that. Sound fair?”
“Okay, but I think there's been a miscommunication. I didn't intend for you—”
“No miscommunication. Alrighty? Good-bye.”
Adele and I were supposed to be collaborators. She was scheduled to prep 4-217 (teach a fifty-minute science lesson during my out-of-class work period) every Thursday morning. Recalling Randazzo's speech about “taking care of our own,” I went to his office.
Mr. R. nodded vigorously as I explained my conflict. “No problem, no problem. There are other issues there. I'll take care of it. Don't worry.”
An hour later, the rubber-banded cards appeared in my mailbox.
I later learned that 4-217 had been Mrs. Hafner's room the previous year, and it was not her idea to relinquish it to a fresh-faced college boy while getting switched to a science cluster position in mid-August. Adele Hafner hated my guts for stealing her class. At least I got the cards. They read:
Lakiya Ray: Very, very slow.Very disrespectful to classmates and adults. Mother makes excuses for her behavior. She does not complete assignments. She gets an attitude 95% of the day. Very difficult child. She cannot get along with any of her classmates.
Fausto Mason: Fausto has deeply embedded good traits that have a hard time emerging. He is compulsive, impulsive, insultive [sic], and challenges authority at every turn. Although he is bright, he has a total lack of control that impedes his maturation (academically and socially). He is a real challenge! Good luck!
Eric Ruiz: Eric has made minimal improvement this year. He has difficulty focusing, needs help with organization skills. Referred with support of mother; referral went nowhere. Should be referred again. Eric is immature; he needs a great deal of direction.
Bernard McCants: Extremely temperamental child; has a tendency to be disrespectful to teachers; reading skills are good, but writing skills are poor. Math skills are also poor. Bernard has a knack for creative writing (poetry) and should be encouraged in this area.
Deloris Barlow: Deloris has potential to be an academically successful student. However, her propensity for using “inventive thinking” to explain her lack of classwork instead of applying herself is a major stumbling block. She is the embodiment of conflict as she challenges authority figures, as well as antagonizes & alienates her peers.
Asante Bell: Asante has great difficulty staying focused. Her interactions with classmates can be violent at times. She does not respect the property of others, including classroom materials. Writing skills are very weak. DO NOT place with Virginia Tyne.
Maimouna Lugaru: Maimouna is generally well-behaved, but is a follower. She finds a special friend and will go with the friend's every move. She loves to write, but gets lost by writing pages and pages. She needs responsibility to feel important in class.
Athena Page: Athena has excellent work habits and does quality work. At times she has shown a lack of self-control and has made careless and needless mistakes involving classmates. However on the whole, Athena is very sweet and studious.
Hamisi Umar: Hamisi is a hard worker; his behavior is generally ok. He tries to get away with fooling around, but he will respond to praise. Give him jobs/tutoring others and he is happy. Needs to develop writing skills. Loves to read, enjoys math.
Manolo “Lito” Ruiz: Has no grasp of basic mechanics despite numerous interventions. Can be a nice boy, but is extremely susceptible to negative influences in his environment. MANY problems at home.
Destiny Rivera: Destiny is a very quiet and sensitive student. Can be very emotional at times. Destiny needs to use the elevator. She is constantly misplacing work, becomes very distracted at times. Destiny would benefit from additional help in math.
Sonandia Azcona: Sonandia is an excellent student in both behavior and skill/ability. She is very courteous and participates regularly. Sonandia loves to write and has great creativity. Very beneficial to a student in need.
Julissa Marrero: Julissa is talkative and can be spiteful when provoked. She needs conflict resolution skills. She can be sullen when redirected. Her mother seems to be supportive and needs a Spanish speaking translator for communication.
Cwasey Bartrum: Cwasey often gets terrible headaches. Cwasey does all of his homework. Can be very disrespectful to teachers and classmates. Mother is supportive but her interventions seem to roll off his back. Needs help with writing mechanics.
Tayshaun Jackson: Highly talkative and demands constant attention. Can be combative with teachers. Tayshaun loves math and enjoys demonstrating this at the front of the class. Seems to have above average artistic potential.
Verdad Navarez: Verdad loves math—needs to improve writing/reading skills. Verdad is generally well-behaved, but can be stubborn. Verdad rarely volunteers to speak in class, he is sometimes lazy and needs to be pushed.
Tiffany Sanchez: Tiffany is a very promising student but lacks work ethics. She is very sloppy in her work and always has an excuse for missing homework. When reprimanded she becomes non-responsive. Tiffany also fidgets with anything within reach.
Edgar Rollins: Eddie is a very respectful child. Very shy. He needs help with math and science. No support from home. He does not like to be yelled at. He has been held back 3 times in the third grade. If he is absent for more t
han 3 days please follow up on him.
My roster listed twenty-five children, so seven kids’ cards were missing, giving them a truly blank slate. I showed my class list to several flabbergasted P.S. 85 veterans.
“I have no idea why they always do that to first-year teachers.”
“I can't believe they put Lakiya and Deloris together.”
“Fausto alone will ruin your year. No one can control him.”
“I'm so sorry.”
On September 5, the final day of preparation before the first day of school, I paid the price for my cosmic collision with Adele Hafner. Mr. Len Daly visited my room. Daly was Bob Randazzo's best friend and henchman, a thirty-year teaching veteran who no longer taught classes but retained an administrative position with unclear responsibilities.
“You did the right thing talking to Bob about that situation you had,” he said. “We're here if you need us. That's what it's all about. Don't hesitate to ask for help.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it. I will.”
“Seriously, we're down the hall. We're all nearby if you need us.”
“Thank you.”
Daly lowered his tone. “Don't need us too much. Especially in the beginning. Prove you can handle yourself.” Now his hand gripped my shoulder with discomfiting firmness. “It's better for everyone.”
September
The Disharmony
ON SEPTEMBER 8, I woke up at 5:05, methodically showered and dressed, purchased a bagel at the corner bodega, and boarded the F train. I strode through the Great Expectations School entrance with a quickened step, distributing good mornings to everyone I saw.
I had already prepared my chalkboard the previous Friday with the heading:
September 8, 2003
Mr. Brown
4-217
TEAM
I knew that establishing the “team” classroom culture had to happen right off the bat. I needed to be firmest when I was the least experienced, the paradoxical curse of new teachers. I hoped my “make our own class rules” activity was the right kind of opener.
At 7:58, I descended the stairs to the basement level where the students waited in the cafeteria. Each step down brought me closer to the nether din of high-pitched children sounds. I cracked an excited smile, stunned that my weeks of training and years of youthful experience had steered me to this unequivocally grown-up post. For twenty-two years I had been on one path and twenty-five Bronx children had been on another. Now we would meet. I needed no more convoluted symbols like the blackout to interpret. The real moment was upon me.
“Don't smile!” Ms. Slocumb, a second-year Fellow, whispered forcefully. “Seriously, no smiling!”
Holding a pen and clipboard purely as props, I entered the lunchroom to meet the students. I took in the Spongebob Squarepants bookbags, the girls’ elaborate hair settings, jeans with winding embroidered flowers by the cuff, and the boys’ Allen Iverson jerseys. Kids. They looked adorable, eager-eyed for the uncertainty-fueled first day of school. I circled the table, shaking each child's hand and introducing myself.
For the first of 183 times, we performed the morning lineup ritual: Mr. Randazzo raised his arm, the signal for silence. All responded by raising their arms in acknowledgment. Randazzo gave a perfunctory welcome speech, and the kids fell swiftly into two lines, separated by gender and ordered by height. He came around to give each class a rubric score of one to four depending on the degree of silence and neatness of the line. I marveled at the grand organization.
Line leaders Hamisi and Sonandia (two with encouraging blue cards), led the crew, halting every two doors in the corridor and every landing on the stairwell to look for the “go ahead” or “wait up” hand signal from me at the back. Meanwhile, I cased my problem-reputation kids. Imposing Lakiya Ray was the tallest in the class, a sour, tough-faced girl with tight braids. Eric Ruiz, whose previous teacher told me he was a “weird kid,” was unreadable at first. Deloris Barlow, a skinny, pigtailed girl, was laughing a lot at the table before lineup but calmed down appropriately. Fausto Mason immediately tipped me off for trouble. Short and puffy-cheeked, he grinned and swaggered with a loose strut.
During summer training, I studied cases that made a convincing argument that students’ achievement levels vary directly with their teacher's expectations of them, regardless of neighborhood or family background. I was determined from the first day to maintain high expectations for all my students, according everybody the blank slate I felt we all needed, even infamous Fausto Mason. After all, he had never had a male teacher and he had never had me.
I assigned the students to desks according to my carefully devised seating chart. Guided by the blue cards, I tried to arrange only one or two loose cannons per group. (City policy mandated that students sit in groups.) My class roster was also evenly divided between boys and girls and African Americans and Latin Americans, so I went for heterogeneous clusters.
After deflecting questions about my age, family size, and marital status, I launched into an even-tempered sermon about how 4-217 would succeed or fail as a group. “On the Yankees, either everyone wins or no one wins. If Derek Jeter has a great hitting game but doesn't back up his pitcher at shortstop, the team suffers. The Yankees are a strong team because they back each other up. They win because they work together. We need to help each other out for us all to do well. All I want to do is help you get smarter and have fun while it's happening. I'm very interested in trips, rewards, and games, but only if we work together. Does this sound fair?”
“Yes, Mr. Brown,” the choral response resounded. The speech felt firm, and the kids sat silently with their eyes on me for every word.
“Excellent! Since we're a team, I thought it would be fair if we all made our class rules together. Who has an idea for a good rule for our team?”
Myriad hands shot up. I called on Cwasey, a shrimpy, bespectacled black boy with squinty eyes and a freshly shaved head.
“You should respect everyone. Like teachers and students and the principal.”
“Outstanding, Cwasey! Brilliant! Respect for teachers and students and the principal. An outstanding first rule.” I jotted it on the board. “What exactly is ‘respect,’ Cwasey?”
“Respect means you should treat everybody good, like you want to be treated.”
I had a star. Cwasey Bartrum!
I called next on Sonandia, my line leader. “You should do all your work the best you can all the time.”
Deloris said, “Nobody should steal nobody's stuff and treat everything like it's important.”
Bernard piped up. “You should not fight in school cause there's better ways to…like… solve your problems.”
“You should respect everyone,” Dennis reiterated.
Lakiya prompted several giggles when she shouted in her bassy tone, “Do your homework!”
I ignored the chuckles because she had hit one of the key points. This wasn't going to be so lawless after all. These children were moral authorities! I consolidated their input into two broad rules regarding respect, effort, and honesty (rules I had of course planned from the beginning) and moved them to the “reading rug,” a giant panther design I had bought on the Grand Concourse.
For the two weeks before the Success for All schedule began (when students would change rooms for their skill-level groups), teachers followed an introductory curriculum called Getting Along Together. For the first lesson, I had to read Crow Boy, an Eastern fairy tale about an outcast child who finds self-reliance. Introducing the story, I wrote the word “unique” on my chart paper, which Sonandia, my wordsmith, defined as “one of a kind.” I told them we all have secret talents that we ourselves might not even know about yet. “Some of you on the carpet right now might be brilliant comic strip artists, creative writers, question-askers, room-organizers, or things we haven't even thought of. This year we will work together to discover those hidden gifts.”
Two pages into my Crow Boy read-aloud, Fausto stood up and ambled leisurely towar
d the door, drawing the attention of the whole class. “Fausto. Fausto. Fausto!” I shouted. Fausto turned back toward the class.
“THAT STORY'S WACK, YO!”
I kept a straight face, but a majority of the class erupted in crazed laughter at Fausto's apparently genius comedic line. Fausto beamed while fifteen kids cracked up, Lakiya the loudest of all. She bellowed a forced, open-mouthed cackle, swaying violently in her seated position, knocking into classmates.
Ten seconds ago, we were all on the same page. Now it looked like a different class.
As the overwrought giggles receded, Fausto, now a superstar, still had not returned to his seat. I had to take this kid down. In dead-pan, I said, “The story's not wack. Are you ready to stop acting like a kinder —”
“DAAAAAA! Mr. Brown talkin’ gangsta, yo!”
“Mr. Brown said ‘wack’!”
Destiny, Athena, Sonandia, and three others whose names I had not yet memorized sat patiently waiting for the story to continue. Everyone else was going bonkers.
“He say ‘the story not wack’!”
Beads of sweat formed all over me. I looked at the clock: 8:43. Three hours and forty-seven minutes until lunch.
“Silence. Silence. Fausto! Sit!” I yelled at him as I would a wayward mutt.
Deloris piped up with a grin, “Mr. Brown, you turning red.”
Bernard jumped in on my behalf. “Be quiet, yo! Let Mr. Brown read Crow Boy!”
Lakiya, still grinning, echoed Bernard's plea. “Shut up! Shut up y'all!” Suddenly, Fausto's face changed and he sat.
I had set myself against allowing “shut up” into the 4-217 vernacular, but my temperature was skyrocketing and at that moment I could handle the kids shutting each other up if it worked. And did Lakiya, a famous attitude-problem child, hold sway over other kids’ behavior?
I battled through reading and discussing Crow Boy, often stopping mid-page because of rude laughter. One time, Fausto slapped Destiny on the shoulder, a minuscule harbinger of the intergender aggression to come.