The Great Expectations School
Page 31
I want Sadie to be in the classroom with them.
Many people who choose inner-city teaching burn out and leave. Others burn out and stay. But some teachers, like Trish Pierson and Carol Slocumb and Marnie Beck, are warrior-poets for their students. Surrounded by disharmony and heartbreak, they do not slow down, quietly blooming into supernovas behind classroom doors.
“It's never as good as you think it is, and it's never as bad as you think it is.” I think Barbara's words are right, but not how she intended them, as a mind-easing crutch about how all experiences gravitate to the middle. If you teach, especially in the hostile, neglected inner city, you hold children's hopes and empowerment in your hands. It's true that it's never as good or as bad as you think it is; it's much better or much worse.
On my last day at P.S. 85, as I was boxing up my teacher's desk, I found a jagged paper scrap, ripped from a worksheet about Finding the Main Idea, containing a message I had written to myself at some dark moment that winter:
#1: I care.
#2: Because of #1, I am not a failure.
Footnote: Caring is more than hoping; it is acting and being a constant, relentless agent for Good Things .
I think about these things often, and about how to mitigate the personal toll of inner-city teaching and create a healthier academic and social experience for students. I remember little moments, like when Seresa used the word ludicrous. And big moments, like when Sonandia fought to stay in my class.
And I think about disappearing before I could correct my mistakes.
I left P.S. 85 and moved on to another community where I've found my footing as an educator. As ever-prophetic aphorism fan Barbara Chatton once reminded me, one door closes and another opens. I have enough open doors to be alright. For the out-of-sight, out-of-mind children of the Bronx, there are still many doors to wrench open, many doors to build.
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to each of my colleagues and students at P.S. 85 for playing a role in a life-changing experience.
During the process of writing this book, I was sustained and encouraged by many extraordinarily generous people, particularly my parents, my sister Amanda, Colleen, Mr. Joe Truitt, and my friends who read early drafts and offered constructive criticism.
I am also indebted to my tireless and resourceful agent, Linda Langton at Langtons International Agency, as well as my dedicated, insightful editors, Cal Barksdale and Tessa Aye at Arcade Publishing. Many thanks are also owed to Dick Seaver and Jeannette Seaver for believing in this story and helping it to find a place in the world.