I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had (18 page)

When I arrive at school the next morning, Kelly Barton is waiting for me. He calls me into the office where David Cohn and I meet every day, and very casually thanks me for the great trip. Kelly’s a big blond guy, always genial, the kind of guy who can fire you without hurting your feelings. I brace myself for what’s coming. “By the way,” he adds, “I hear Sal’s bartender makes a wicked virgin martini. Amazing what you can do without alcohol. Get me his recipe next time you’re up there, will you?”

I’ve caught a break. Problem solved. Count on Kelly to remind me that some things are just that simple.

But other problems loom, as I discover when my cell phone rings. It’s Leslie Grief. “It wasn’t cheap to charter that bus, you know,” he launches in. “We had to take out extra insurance, pay the crew overtime, cover all those theater tickets.” None of this is news to me. Cost was the main reason I had to work so hard to persuade the producers to green-light the trip. Les reminds me, “Something was supposed to happen, Tony. Something, as in drama.”

I know then that Les has seen yesterday’s footage and is not happy. The camera missed my confrontations with Al and Matt, and the rest of the kids were too well behaved, having too good a time. “The network’s going to pull the plug on the show,” Les warns me. “And I can’t blame them.” He hangs up.

Good riddance is my first thought. I hate constantly being miked and on camera, and I’m sick of these production battles. With every passing day I become more convinced that the kind of drama the network wants is exactly the kind that my students and I
don’t
need. I’m here to teach, and the kids are here to learn, and that’s all that really matters.

On the other hand, I do like being paid, especially given that this
is by far the most difficult job I’ve ever had. I’d never bail on my class, but without the production I’ll be working as a volunteer. How do you act, feel, and function like a professional if you’re not being compensated? I feel a pang of solidarity with the millions of real teachers who must ask themselves this question every day. And then it hits me. I wanted reality? Well, I’m about to get my wish, big-time. Say goodbye to your Hollywood safety net, Tony. This is truly the real deal.

With all this on my mind, it’s not easy to wrap my thoughts around the day’s lesson plan, but I can’t put off sonnets any longer. Iambic pentameter, here we come.

“It’s like a heartbeat,” I tell the class, and lead them in pounding our chests.
Boom BOOM, boom BOOM
. “Sonnets have fourteen lines.” I draw them on the board. “Three four-line quatrains followed by a couplet. The rhyme scheme is
ABAB, CDCD, EFEF
, and the couplet is
GG
. Each line has ten syllables, and the accent is on every second syllable.” I’m on a roll now. “The quatrains develop an idea, and the couplet sums it up or gives a take on what’s come before.”

Then I pass out copies of Shakespeare’s
Sonnet Eighteen
. We read out loud as we pound our chests, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day …” The love stuff gets them, and the couplet kills, but they shriek when I tell them old Will wrote this to a young man.

What!

“Yes, and some of his other sonnets are to this sexy black woman.”

“Once you go black …,” cracks Al G.

This begins a spirited discussion of sexual preferences, both in Olde England and today. Gay rights comes up, and before I know it, the class veers from a Shakespearean sonnet to the headline issues of today. I’m thrilled as they connect the world’s most famous writer to their own world.

To make sure they grasp the structure and have some fun, I have
them compose a sonnet about our New York trip. They suggest lines, which I edit on the blackboard, then we read them out loud and revise together. The room rocks and rolls, everyone counting syllables as they make up phrases.

When our New York sonnet finally comes together, I am more convinced than ever that what matters most are these kids. The fate of the show and my paycheck are incidental compared to what I’m doing right here, right now.

Notice the iambic pentameter, and try pounding the beat out on your chest:

The network delivers on Leslie’s threat at the end of January. We’ve shot enough footage for about six one-hour episodes, and based on that footage, A&E decides six is enough. This means that the crew will come back a few times later in the year for some final pickup footage and interviews with the kids, but basically, I’ll be on my own here now.

As the filming quietly winds down, a rumor of a different scenario fans through school. Having heard that the production is ending, both students and teachers ask me repeatedly when I’m leaving. A few of the teachers might be hoping for a different answer, but I assure them I’m not going anywhere. When I said at the outset that they were stuck with me for a full year, I meant it. Brave words. And it’s true that I won’t miss the camera’s constant seeing eye in my classroom, or the daily wiring and unwiring of microphones. Still, I don’t do well with abandonment, especially when it carries the taint of failure. Will I lose my authority now that I’ve lost my cameras? What if I find I need all those props? I certainly don’t feel like celebrating.

Yet celebrate we must. Without coming right out and telling anybody that the series has been capped, the production company decides to throw a wrap party in a cool art deco bowling alley near my apartment. In addition to our crew, my students and all the teachers who appear in the show are invited, and we take over an upstairs room that has a square bar and its own six-alley bowling area, pool tables, and TV screens. It’s a spectacular place for a party, but not for the speeches and a screening that are central to our event. Downstairs, the main bowling alley is full of people whooping it up, and the sound reverberates through the walls. Every time someone bowls a strike
the cheers explode up the stairwell, drowning out our festivities. The venue seems a perfect metaphor for our whole production, I think.

The A&E executive who has just decided to cut us off at the knees hardly notices the noise barrier. But the students, parents, and teachers have to strain to hear him over the din. They’ve been promised that we’ll view the first episode tonight, and they’re eager to get on with it. Ms. Carroll, the only one allowed to see the footage as it was cut, is so happy with the results that she’s brought along Assistant Principals Sharon McCloskey and Peggy DeNaples. They’re almost as excited as the kids to see themselves on TV.

As the executive drones on, I look around and notice our show runner in the corner talking with another exec. The show runner is the director who sets a series’ tone and is responsible for the day-to-day shooting and flow of the production. I had a hand in hiring him back in August, and he seemed perfect, but then we began to pull in opposite directions. When there were problems in school, I could never be sure if they were real, or if he was just trying to crank up conflict. Once, when David Cohn was reviewing my day in the classroom, the director wanted us to leave the office and walk down the hall as we talked. His rationale was that the shot would be more interesting than our standard static shot in David’s office. This is not the way David would normally work; he doesn’t evaluate a new teacher while strolling down the hallway, but he complied. Then, as we were walking, the director, off camera and out of my sight, began to make stabbing motions to urge David to really lay into me. Drama! That did it as far as David was concerned. “I didn’t sign up to be an actor,” he told me. Not only did he refuse to play along but he later threatened to quit if the production didn’t lay off. I confronted Leslie on this and managed to keep David onboard, but from then on David understood what we were up against, and it kept us both on our toes. If the principal summoned me to her office, I had to ask myself, was
there a real issue, or had the show runner put her up to it? Katerina’s mother bringing in her illicit birthday cake was exactly the kind of thing he’d set up—hoping to get me in trouble. Of course, in that instance I managed to get myself into trouble without any help from him. But the worst of it was that every time a student had a crisis, I was afraid the conflict had been nudged by the production team. I never could trust them not to try. Suddenly it dawns on me: maybe teaching will actually be
easier
without them!

The executive passes the hand mike to Leslie Grief, who says all the right things. “This show is groundbreaking,” he tells us. “It shines a bright light on what is happening in our schools. You guys have done something very special.”

A loud crash shakes the building. Another team of players downstairs has bowled a lucky strike. What are we
doing
here?

“And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” Les says with his usual showman’s flair. He lifts his arm with a circular motion and directs everyone’s attention to the overhead monitors normally used to broadcast football games and bowling scores during league championships. The show’s opening rolls, dead silent. No sound.

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
 

S
O 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.