I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had (6 page)

Three
 

M
S
. D
ENAPLES
has me on truancy duty. For the first hour of the school day, I’m to circle the campus wrangling stragglers. If parents drop their kids off late, I’m supposed to tell the parents it’s their job to get their children to school on time. If kids are dawdling, I’m to personally escort them. “Whatever it takes.” As she says this, Ms. D. puts her hands on her hips for emphasis.

Confronting students about being late is not my idea of fun. These are probably not the honor roll kids, and they don’t know me from Adam, but I don’t dare try to wriggle out of it. I’ll work this beat with Ms. D. every morning for the rest of the week and periodically throughout the year. “Truancy and tardiness are no laughing matter, Mr. Danza.”

“Yes, Ms. DeNaples.” I can’t help wondering if anything
is
a laughing matter for Ms. DeNaples, but far be it from me to test her. I decide that if the kids and parents wonder who I am to be telling them to get to school, I’ll say Ms. DeNaples is all over me and put the same fear in them that I feel. If some of the tough kids act up, I can always call my camera crew for backup. Yes, some of these guys truly
scare me. A few have tattoos up their necks, and struts that not even Eminem could match. They make Al G look easy, which I’m still hoping he might actually be. I just have to remember that they’re only kids. But as we patrol the school grounds, I see in Technicolor what America’s schoolteachers and school administrators are up against.

Even though the bell has rung, way too much of the student body is still outside. A few kids are racing to class, but others are taking their sweet time. A pod of smokers hang out in a side alleyway off Algon Street. I tell them to put out their smokes and get inside, and they don’t budge. Finally I plant myself in front of them and tell them to “give up that dirty habit.” Then I spot a bunch of kids who are walking in a totally wrong direction,
away
from school. “Hey!” I yell. “Come back here, you guys! School’s
this
way.” Busted, they shuffle around and pretend not to hear me. It’s disheartening in the extreme. The fact that they wind up in school today is no guarantee that they’ll get there tomorrow.

Suddenly a battered VW Bug pulls to the curb, and I open the door for a redheaded boy in an Eagles sweatshirt. “You better hurry up,” I tell him. “Ms. DeNaples is on the warpath.” Then I lean down and say to the woman in the driver’s seat, “You know you’re bringing your son to school twenty minutes late? That’s not acceptable.”

The mother, wearing a turquoise sweat suit, fishes for a scrap of paper in her handbag and asks me for my autograph.

“Only if you get your son here on time from now on,” I say. I mean it, but she just laughs.

A
N HOUR LATER
in class, Monte’s pencil is tapping so hard I compliment him on his drum skills. Eric Choi is folding an elaborate origami object. It has moving parts, requires all the concentration he’s not giving me, and will make me cry. But not yet. Not in class. I’ve been warned, forget about smiling, and never let them see you
cry. “Gimme that,” I say, pocketing Eric’s little paper wreath. We both need to focus.

“All right. Who would like to read their story?”

Crickets. That’s what it sounds like as the kids shift in their chairs, avoiding eye contact, secretly checking their cell phones and texting.

“Emmanuel?” I walk back to a large, quiet kid who sits beside Paige in the back row. Yesterday he told us he was on the debate team. He’s got to be good. But he shakes his head. “You don’t want to read it? You don’t have to stand up, you can read it sitting down.” No answer. “How about if I read it?” He shrugs as I pick up his paper.

“ ‘When I was younger,’ ” I read, “ ‘I was scared about riding on roller coasters.’ You know, I was, too.” That gets no smiles. I finish reading Emmanuel’s piece and ask for another volunteer. Not a single hand.

I thought at least Monte would pipe up. But now I’ve started. Anything to stop the crickets. I ask for Paige’s story and offer to read it aloud. She’s written about going to South Street in a rainstorm. I break into song, “ ‘Where do all the hippies meet? South Street, South Street.’ ”

All right, they snicker. But a snicker beats a blank stare. Before long I’ve read out five of their stories. They’re all pretty light. I understand. The kids don’t know me well enough yet to unload for real, so they’ve written about theme parks, basketball, shopping—extensions of their introductions on Day One, which to me already seems months ago.

“Danny.” I call on our sweet-faced rear tackle.

He looks up, and his expression seems to twist sideways. “You mind if we read our own stories?”

I meet David Cohn’s eyes. He looks like a young Grim Reaper. I stammer, “Sh-sure, Danny. Yeah. I just thought I’d help us get started, I … Go ahead.”

I return to my desk and sit down as Danny reads a story about
scoring his first defensive touchdown. I feel like a complete schmo. This time when the bell rings I’m thankful. What if I were a real teacher and had four
more
classes like this today?

I
NSTEAD I’VE GOT
football practice. I’ve never played football except in the street, but that makes no difference. I’m going to have my face rubbed in all the extra demands placed on real teachers, and just see how I like it. I’ll work with the marching band, the debate team, the school paper, soccer team, drama class, and choir. I’ll sub for and audit other teachers, proctor tests, do hall duty and cafeteria duty, attend weekly planning meetings and perpetual professional development seminars. I’ll be so tired that I fall asleep in front of the principal, on camera. But all of that is yet to come. Right now I’m one of four assistant coaches under Head Coach Chris Riley.

Riley is an alumnus of Northeast and a member of its 1986 championship team—which unfortunately was its last championship team. A hard-nosed motivator, he welcomes me aboard and hands me a whistle to hang around my neck. I hate the feeling of not knowing what I’m doing. I try to run the kids through their drills, but I have trouble even blowing my whistle. Across the field, Riley shakes his head.

We finish practice and go into the locker room. Riley calls a meeting, and the players take a knee. As the coach stands in front of them, I’m thinking I could use a rousing speech right about now. This ought to be good.

“Coach Danza has something to say.”

I blink. Coach who? I like the sound of “Coach Danza,” but … what else did he just say?

Sixty football players wait for me to tell them something that will help when things get tough in their first game of the season. Doing
my best to think fast, I merge their challenge on the field with mine in the classroom. Brilliant!

“You know,” I tell them, “I’m a first-year teacher this year. I never did it before, and it’s like a roller coaster. So I’m up against a lot of stuff. Like you, out on the field.” Trying to relate to them, I describe my screwups in this morning’s class, but the more I talk, the worse my morning seems. Before I know it, these are the words pouring out of my mouth: “It was so bad it made me doubt what I was doing. Maybe I should just go home. I mean, I live in Malibu. What the heck am I doing here?”

I catch myself, mortified. I didn’t really just say “Malibu,” did I? Clearly I’ve got stuff I need to work out, but how could I stand here at Northeast High School and talk about feeling homesick for Malibu? In front of the
football team
? Am I out of my mind?

Coach Riley looks like he’d like to drop-kick me back to Malibu and put us all out of our misery, but it’s the team’s respect that finally pulls me together. They’re still waiting, expecting me to behave like a coach. I scramble to get back to the challenge they face as members of a team that’s about to go up against fierce competition. “All I’m saying is, if you guys focus on the job, put one foot in front of the other, and depend on each other, and have some fun out there, then it’s going to be a piece of cake tomorrow night.”

I get out of the locker room alive, but barely. My own whining chases me. Sure, we all face adversity and sometimes wonder whether we can get the job done, but can’t I even see who’s in front of me?

T
HE NEXT NIGHT
the Northeast Vikings play their first game in a driving rainstorm. We lose. The coach has his players take a knee in the end zone. I stand with the other assistant coaches as Riley paces back and forth in the downpour, trying to make sense of the game
for himself and everyone else. “We have to work harder and learn our lessons. We have to think about what we did and what we didn’t do, then get it out of our systems and come back and do better next time.”

I know this moment is not about me, but I can’t help taking his words to heart. As the lights go out in the empty stadium and the rain keeps falling on some very disappointed young men, Coach Riley is fired up and raring for more. And soon we all feel his energy stoking ours.

“We finish what we’ve started,” Riley says as he punches the air. “We go out and try again.” He waits for this to sink in. “Come on, let’s get out of the rain.”

I meet David Cohn in his office for my daily postmortem and show him the piece of origami that I took from Eric in class. “Impressive work,” David says.

“Too bad I’m not teaching art.”

We laugh. Then he gives me some valuable advice. “Think about doing more with less.”

I don’t get it.

“Less of you, more of them. Focus on your lesson plans, spend more time on less information, be specific, and stick to the topic. Let them read—and do—their own work. Did I really see you look up a word in the dictionary for Chloe today?”

Shamefaced, I nod. “I wanted to make sure—”

“You make sure by watching them do it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Every new teacher struggles to find the right balance.”

“This is harder than opening in Vegas.”

“You’re trying too hard to make them like you.”

Bingo. “Can I teach them if they
don’t
like me?”

David sighs. “You can’t learn
for
them, Tony.”

“But I get the feeling some just don’t want to work.”

“There’s a difference between not wanting to work and not wanting to learn. The student has to, at the very least, be interested in learning. It might make you more interesting to them if they like you, but teaching is not a popularity contest. It’s about getting them involved in their own education.”

I know this. I’ve written and posted it in my class, remember?
TAKE PART IN YOUR OWN EDUCATION
.

“Get out of the way,” David advises. “Let the kids do it.”

“Right.” I repeat, “More with less.”

He likes that I’ve made a connection with the kids. “But I hear your voice too much and their voices too little. Teaching is different today. Teachers don’t just stand at the board and lecture while the kids take notes. What we’re ultimately teaching them is to teach themselves.”

When I get nervous in front of the class, which is often, he says, that’s when I talk too much. “You’re performing the class, as opposed to teaching it. At times, it gets so bad that you ask a student a question, then answer it yourself.”

This all stings, but I have no grounds to dispute him. On the contrary, the evidence is stacking heavily against me. Coach Riley said he kept hearing my voice with his team when what he wanted to hear was the kids. And my wife and kids, too, have been known to complain about my interrupting and commenting. From my perspective, that shows I’m engaged in what they’re saying! But now I wonder if this habit of mine might be part of the problem in my marriage and family. Have I always been this way?

“I’m afraid to wait,” I admit to David. “The silence, it scares me. When you’re an entertainer, that kind of silence could mean you’re bombing.”

“In a classroom, when it’s silent, they’re thinking. You’ve got to give them time to think.” David reminds me of some of the principles of collaborative teaching that I learned during orientation. The teacher breaks the students into small groups, then sets out the lesson and has the kids work on it themselves while the teacher moves around the room guiding them individually—and quietly. “There will be times when a whole group is silent, but that doesn’t mean they’re not working.”