The Great Expectations School

by Dan Brown

  “Do you have any idea what you are doing to me? Just shut your mouths!”

  “It wasn't me—”

  “SHUT IT, CWASEY! I don't care. I don't care!” I was kickball red. “Do you know that all I want to do is teach you? That's all I want to do. I don't have any other job. This is it. And you make me yell and scream all day! Do you know how sick that makes me? Do you know how sick I feel right now?”

  With the last phrase, I snapped my body hard to the right, punching the blackboard with my closed left fist. The chalkdusty surface splintered and gave, and I saw my hand in a six-inch cranny between the board and the cement wall. Lakiya Ray's face froze in a crazed openmouthed grin, but the rest of the kids looked appropriately petrified. My eyes bulged, and I brushed sweat from my temple.

  “Mr. Brown, you wiped a little blood on your face.”

  “Thank you, Destiny.” I dabbed at the red wisps on my forehead and glared at the back wall's “Iroquois Longhouses” bulletin board, safeguarding my eyes from meeting those of any terrified children. Especially Sonandia.

  “I'm thinking about not being your teacher anymore,” I said gravely. Several stunned gasps escaped from the mute gallery. I righted Tayshaun's slammed desk and sat on it, feeling weary and spent. “None of you deserve to experience fourth grade like this.” A long silence passed. The quiet made it feel like a different room, and even though I had unforgivably just lost all composure in front of ten-year-olds, I briefly relished holding the uncontested floor of 4-217. If only everything could be different.

  “Class is dismissed. Groups one, two, and six, get your coats.”

  They lined up solemnly, and we marched into the hall. As we passed Mr. Tejera's room, site of the infamous face-grabbing, Wilson stuck his head out of the door. “Brown! What are you doing, man?”

  “Dismissing.”

  “It's only twenty to. We've got eighteen, twenty minutes till dismissal.”

  “I'm doing it now.”

  “Don't do it. Seriously. They'll call you on the carpet for that. It's a big mistake, man.” Mr. Tejera turned back to his own class. The halted line looked to me for direction.

  “About-face, 4-217. We're going back.”

  Everyone milled around for fifteen funereal minutes. I collected Bernard from Mr. Randazzo's office. Destiny handed me an illustrated card that read:

  Dear Mr. Brown,

  We dont mean to make you yell like that we are sorry we dont mean to. We are sorry. Love, Destiny and Tiffany

  Daniel gave me a paper that said:

  Mr Brown I no how you feel Dot feel sad I feel sad tow Bot otdr techrs have towo com. wen I see you I feal like god Bless me The and.

  “Thank you for these nice letters,” I deadpanned.

  “You're welcome,” the three writers said in unison.

  “Everybody get in line.”

  I finally sent them scattering on 187th Street and stomped back upstairs to assess the damage. The good news was that the blackboard was broken away and gone only in the top left corner of the center segment of the three conjoined boards. The empty area was offcenter enough that I could move my “Mr. Brown's Words and Phrases” poster over it, obscuring the mess completely, save for a few skinny spider-cracks, and still have my main board space free.

  I sat down in the Teacher Center and breathed for a few minutes, holding a brown paper towel to my cut knuckles, remembering our perfect score at morning lineup. I confessed everything to coach Marge Foley, who nodded in sympathy through the whole account.

  “Do you know Mr. Rose?” she asked.

  “Mr. Rose and I go way back. Summer school.”

  “He has a brother who used to teach here, one of the lower grades. He was a wonderful man, a really good teacher. But his class had some monsters that drove him crazy. One day he punched the glass window in the door and cut himself really badly. It was terrible. He doesn't teach anymore, but everyone remembers that.”

  Thursday meant Mercy College night class. This day refused to end. All eleven new Fellows at P.S. 85 were assigned to the same course section, which served to create a group therapy vent session, despite our facilitator and administrative trainee Charles's fierce intentness on limiting discussion to the course packet readings.

  We were in haggard form. Everyone had a kid whose every move seemed to spell disruption and destruction. Trisha Pierson talked about Theo, my pronoun buddy from Mr. Rose's class in June, who was in his second year in first grade. Theo's eyes often rolled back in his head and he violently lashed out without warning. (In March, Theo was moved to special ed.) Corinne Abernathy had a second-grade boy named Devon who swatted at butterflies that were not there, and threw hysterical fits when he had to sit in his seat for extended amounts of time. (Devon was transferred to special ed in May and given a full-time personal paraprofessional.) Elizabeth Camaraza talked about Raymond Prince, who kicked a girl in the mouth as hard as he could. Tough Marnie Beck was already in special ed, so she had some really good ones. There was Michael, who had a penchant for slipping past “security” and out of school during prep periods to wander the streets. She also had Tenasia, who had burned her family's apartment to cinders last year and occasionally brought matches and lighters to school. And finally there was Lorenzo, who couldn't read and hated everyone, especially teachers and girls.

  I kept mostly quiet. It was a grim night.

  The next day I woke up on autopilot, brushed my teeth, and guzzled my new over-the-counter cocktail of two Sudafeds to battle a constant cold, a multivitamin horse pill, extra-strength Tylenol, my newly acquired hair-loss med, and three echinaceas, washing them down with Dayquil. I walked to the bodega, picked up a butter roll, an orange Vitamin Water, a New York Times, and boarded the train.

  The day passed in blurry streaks. Our morning do-now was “Why Today Is Going to Be Better Than Yesterday.” I gave free reading time for a very long block.

  Barbara Chatton, my assigned mentor, visited me at lunch. “You don't look well,” she said. I shook my head slowly. “Do you want to talk?” I thought about it for a long pause.

  “They're taking Sonandia out,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “I've heard some rumors, and I hope you can clarify them.”

  “Okay?” Barbara asked with pained eyes.

  “Is it true that Casey Hibbard and at least one other cluster teacher saw my roster in August and refused to prep my class?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is my class a dumping ground for the kids that no one else wanted?”

  Barbara paused. “ Yes—” She broke off, as if she had only said the first word of a longer thought.

  “But what?”

  “But it wasn't meant for you. It was for Adele Hafner. The Queen doesn't like her. But you asked for it.” My blood went cold. “Without knowing you were asking for it, of course.” Barbara softened. “It's unfortunate all around.”

  So this was not a black eye. It was a terminal internal hemorrhage.

  This wasn't an unfortunate situation. It was an abusive relationship.

  The worst class in the worst school in the worst neighborhood.

  “You have what it takes to be a really good teacher. It's very rough that there are all these circumstances to contend with,” she said, touching my shoulder.

  I nodded in a daze, aware that my last two months had just been aptly summarized in two sentences. Then as a coda, she added, “It's never as good as you think it is, and it's never as bad as you think it is.”

  Besides sighing, there are few ways to respond to that elastic maxim. I imagined that carrying on without Sonandia there to learn would be like trying to play a violin with your strings ripped out and replaced by rubber bands.

  I watched ESPN in sweatpants all weekend, eating little except cereal. A friend, who knew a thing or two about the condition, said, “You're depressed.” Greg told me I looked demented.

  I wanted to get undepressed, but how? My class was a rotten hand dealt from a stacked
deck. I had come at them with everything I could think of: praise, bribes, withholding rewards, elaborate systems, common sense. Four-two-seventeen was a mess. It wasn't even safe. Mr. Brown was going down. I called in sick on Monday, my fourth absence, now over the one-per-month allotment.

  I sat alone in my cold apartment and felt my frustration sublimate into molten fury. How dare they hang me, or Adele Hafner, out to dry? I'm a young teacher, not the sacrificial lamb of Public School 85! I began to type with rage.

  Dear Mrs. Boyd,

  Teaching is hard. The fact that P.S. 85 is labeled an “extended hours” school feels like an ironic understatement. Since the first moment I began filling out my NYC Teaching Fellows application in February as a senior at NYU Film, I resolved to dedicate myself fully to this challenging and rewarding profession. However, I am writing you this letter because I feel that certain formidable obstacles are preventing me from adequately doing my job. Fortunately, I do believe the obstacles are surmountable with some assistance.

  The 4-217 class roster is an intimidating document. This list contains well-documented chronic discipline problem children Lakiya Ray, Deloris Barlow, Eric Ruiz, Asante Bell, and Tayshaun Jackson, as well as violence-prone Marvin Winslow, Bernard McCants, Hamisi Umar, Cwasey Bartrum, Manolo Ruiz, and transient nonreader Daniel Vasquez. Additionally, impulse-control-free Fausto Mason was in my class for the first four days of school. In 4-217, the task of teaching is put aside 90% of the time in the interest of Classroom Management.

  Since September 8, I have been studying, implementing, and reinventing my classroom management systems. As a new teacher, I know it is common to struggle with classroom management the first year. I have received support and ideas from numerous colleagues, particularly Ms. Chatton, who helped arrange a day-long visit to Ms. Claxton's third-grade class. However, 4-217 is still in poor shape. We are the last class out of the cafeteria at the end of lunch period and a perpetual embarrassment while seen walking in the halls.

  I have taken what I feel are drastic steps to curb students’ acting out, but have discovered that their deep-seated disrespect and hostility are not directed so much at me but upon each other. This group is a violent mix day in and day out.

  On Thursday November 6, I learned that Sonandia Azcona, my highest ELA-scoring and most well-behaved student, is to be transferred out of 4-217, because the volume of misbehavior in the class has excessively debilitated the learning environment. This was disappointing, but understandable news when looking at it from Sonandia's mother's perspective. 4-217 is simply not a good place to learn.

  It has been my suspicion that as the sole rookie teacher in fourth-grade general education, I was inserted into a class overloaded with “difficult kids.” This idea has been encouraged by several colleagues. Though nothing was ever said to me, I heard about two enrichment teachers who approached the administration prior to September 8 with refusals to teach my class. During a November 7 meeting with a faculty member with reliable sources, it was corroborated to me that 4-217 is in fact a consciously designed “dumping ground.”

  I feel no shame in disclosing that trying to teach and manage this “dumping ground” has brought on an accelerated physical, mental, and emotional deterioration in me. I've lost my appetite, developed insomnia, and have lost a personal relationship as a result of the job. Previously, I have tried to chalk most of this up to having signed on for a difficult profession. However, now that the administration has officially acknowledged that 4-217 is not a healthy learning environment (with the transferring of Sonandia), there must be some substantive help and change accompanying the move. Here are my ideas.

  1. Give 4-217 a second teacher that I can collaborate well with, as Ms. Chatton and I have discussed. This will help immeasurably with management and planning, both of which are overwhelming me. Twenty-six of them are too many for just me.

  2. Take Deloris Barlow, Lakiya Ray, and Eric Ruiz out of my class. The rest of the group is still very challenging without them, but those three in the same room are impossible for me to control simultaneously.

  3. Take me out of 4-217 and make me an enrichment teacher.

  My current despondence that has come with the news of the last week has impaired my ability to be the best teacher I can be. I believe this year can still be a positive educational experience for the students of 4-217. They deserve it. However, right now, I feel overwhelmed.

  More than anything, I want to teach children in P.S. 85. The “objective” part of my résumé reads, “Teach and model accountable character and citizenship while maintaining high expectations for helping students to become stronger problem solvers and self-motivated learners.” I still believe in and attempt to live by these words every day. However, I feel tightly handcuffed by my current situation.

  Though I may be a new and young player in a longstanding educational establishment, the Great Expectations School, I think it would be unfortunate for a young, dedicated, energetic yet inexperienced teacher to be left to twist in the wind. I can't twist that much longer.

  Sincerely,

  Dan Brown

  4-217

  cc: Mr. Randazzo

  Ms. Guiterrez

  Mrs. Chatton

  I e-mailed a condensed version to Barbara to give her the heads-up that I would be coming in blazing.

  Before lineup Tuesday morning, I stood in the office holding the signed letters and staring at the narrow mail cubbies. One, two, three, four. I methodically slid the papers into the boxes, oddly aware that while this paper could spell the end of my brief teaching career, my head was clear and my pulse was normal.

  I peeled out of the office toward 217 and ran into Barbara, who wore a doleful look. “Dan… how are you?”

  I shrugged.

  “I spoke to Kendra [Boyd],” Barbara said. “She wants to meet, the three of us, in her office during SFA. Did you give her the letter?”

  “I just put it in her box.”

  “Take it out. She's going to help you, but… you have to let her think it's all her idea.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled. “See you there.” I turned back to the office and yanked out my letters.

  Mrs. Boyd and Barbara sat at opposite ends of the meeting table. I was told to sit next to Mrs. Boyd. I held the folder containing my letter in my lap, noticing a ceramic bowl on the desk inscribed “Excuses.”

  “Mr. Brown, I am putting an official letter of warning in your permanent Department of Ed file. Do you know why I'm doing this?”

  My clueless expression indicated I did not.

  “You have taken four sick days.” She consulted the paper in front of her. “October 3 and October 20…November 3 and yesterday, November 10. This is a serious problem because all of those days are Mondays or Fridays, the two days of the week that teachers are not allowed to take off. Monday is our important Professional Development day, and we can't condone teachers skipping out on Fridays to make a weekend of it. Why have your actions demonstrated that you think it's okay to do that?”

  This was not the way I had hoped to start this help-me-or-I'mout ultimatum meeting.

  “Do you think it is okay to proceed as such?” she pressed.

  “I was too sick to come to school those days. I was not making a weekend of it.”

  “Can you produce documentation from a doctor?”

  “No. I didn't see a doctor.”

  Barbara winced. Mrs. Boyd leaned back in her chair triumphantly.

  “It's not easy being a teacher, Mr. Brown. Sometimes it takes a little toughness.”

  I ground my teeth in silence. You wouldn't last ten minutes in 4-217, I thought. You know it, and that's the reason you've never come to my classroom to meet my students. Then I checked myself; showing anger or offense would be a death sentence.

  “I know you're having problems. Why don't you tell me what's going on.”

  I swallowed. “The good news is that with practice, I am now feeling more confident in planning out my units and lessons. Also�
�”

  “Can I see your planbook?”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes. Let's be real here. Let's see what we're talking about. You say you're improving, but as we say, ‘Fail to plan, plan to fail.’”

  I excused myself and picked up the planbook from 217. When I returned, Mrs. Boyd and Barbara abruptly stopped their conversation.

  The principal leafed through the ragged spiral-bound box-planner. She made a face of tepid acceptance, as if she had just ordered some expensive platter that tasted lousy but had to be eaten because it was already paid for. “I see that there is some evidence of an attempt at planning,” she said. “Continue with what you were saying.”

  “My problems are rooted in classroom management. I've tried and adopted many different approaches, but all of them have yielded only the most ephemeral success.” I had learned in high school that using the word “ephemeral” can impress people and alter the conversation dynamic.

  “Ephemeral,” she said, taking the bait. “That's a good vocabulary word. I hired you personally because you're a smart young man. Because, as I've told you before, you have the teaching gene.” With a smile, she digressed into a tangent about her early years as a teacher, holding unofficial classes during a strike in the early seventies. When the story was over, it was time to cut to the chase.

  “Mrs. Boyd, I have a few specific kids that are severely weighing me down in my ability to work with the whole group. Deloris Barlow and Lakiya Ray alone can—”

  “When students misbehave, it is because we, as their adult guardians, have enabled them to misbehave. Do not blame the kids for your shortcomings, Mr. Brown. They are just children.”

  That was it, I thought. The end. Fin. I wanted to whip out the letter so at least I could read her the snappy ending. What a lousy way to bow out: ingested alive while getting berated by spectators.

  “I'm going to help you,” she said. “Ms. Chatton pleaded your case admirably and we've decided to give you one of the ATRs to support you with management. Ms….”

  “Richardson,” Barbara finished. I knew Ms. Richardson: the tall Nigerian lady who covered my class the Monday after Halloween!