I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had (30 page)

A voice outside summons one of the other novitiates, then a few minutes later Joe. I put my ear to the door, but we’re too far away
to hear what’s happening. I can make out what sound like cheers, but that’s it. The other math teacher is quaking now. He asks if I’ve ever been through a fraternity hazing. I say yes, when I was in high school. He hasn’t but now starts reciting a litany of news reports about young men who’ve drowned, suffocated, or died of alcohol poisoning during fraternal inductions. I tell him I don’t think there will be anything like that today. Still, he has me spooked enough that when my name is called, I practically leap out of there.

In the yard behind the garage stand some twenty men, including Joe and the other new member—who both appear to be just fine. I relax. Mr. Smith is here, and Rob Caroselli. Most of the others are guys I’ve seen around school all year.

The group speaks together in a kind of chant, instructing me to stand and state my name. Then they ask if I’m sure. Okay, they’re messing with me. “Yes, that’s my name,” I reply, trying to catch Joe’s eye, but he’s now one of them and playing it totally cool.

Then it’s one crazy question after another. Some are vulgar frat-boy jokes, but there are also a couple of serious questions about being a teacher.
Why are you here? What can you offer to students that someone else can’t?
I answer as best I can, attempting to be clever and impress the club, but after a while it becomes a real grilling, with a free-for-all of follow-up questions. Mostly they’re silly, but I can’t help feeling as if I’m on trial for the crime of impersonating a teacher all year. Even here and now, trying to have fun, I still feel the need to prove myself to this group of veterans. The questions continue until finally the men seem satisfied with my answers. It’s time for the open vote.

“Should Mr. Danza be admitted to the Sons?”

To my relief, everyone yells, “Aye!” Joe and Rob clap me on the back, and I scramble out of my induction costume as fast as humanly possible, then grab for a beer like a drowning man.

Seconds later, I’m one of them, hazing the last candidate, who somehow makes it out of the garage without needing to be carried. I have substantially more sympathy for him now.

Afterward we have a barbecue and sit around talking about—what else?—teaching. To these guys, their profession is both a calling and a way of life. The mood is good and bad. The retired teachers all seem to miss the classroom and look back on their careers fondly. The current teachers love their work, but everybody’s concerned about the way teachers are portrayed in the media and in our culture.

One retired teacher, a tall man with a mustache, waves his cigarette and reminds me about the letter he sent me at the beginning of the year. I remember! This is Harry Gilbert, who retired three years ago after over three decades in the classroom. How can I forget the suggestion in his letter to always carry a shield in case of an unwanted woody—or his more heartfelt advice never to embarrass a student? It’s good to finally put a face to his words.

“I voted to tap you for the Sons,” Harry tells me. “Figured you deserved that much for sticking it out all year. Wasn’t sure you would.” I thank him for his vote and for his letter.

But they’re not done with me yet. After Joe has a few drinks in him, he lets me know what he and the other teachers really thought when they first heard I was coming to their school. It turns out Harry wasn’t alone in his predictions. I’ve climbed an even steeper hill than I realized. Back in September, not one of them would have called me a future Son of Happiness.

Then Joe asks the fateful question. “So, Tony,” he says. “You coming back next year?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him, but even as I say it I know I do.

I need to go home. I need to work on being a husband and a father. Also, I have to admit it, teaching is awfully hard work.

Twelve
 

A
LL OF A SUDDEN
it’s the last week of school. I wake up on Monday fuming. Mondays annoy me anyway, what with the whole week of work and uncertainty bearing down, but today I’m radioactive. I don’t really know why, though the TV production is one logical scapegoat.

The camera crew needs to film the end of the year, just in case the network orders additional shows, so I have to go back on camera for two more days. They’ll shoot commencement, which is Friday, but Leslie also wants a goodbye in the classroom, and because the vast majority of students skip the last couple of days, he wants me to pretend to say goodbye today. All the old arguments about cooking reality come back to haunt me as I drive to school.

What I’m feeling is out of proportion to my anger over the shoot, and I’d do well to figure out what’s really bugging me. When I get like this, I can be unpleasant. But I can’t figure it out, and when I arrive at my room, the crew bear the brunt of my mood as they set up and mike me. Then I start in on the kids, who turn up behaving like their usual rowdy selves. I actually drag Eric Choi’s chair out into the hall with him in it.

But it’s when Les Grief appears and takes me aside that I really snap. “Ready to shoot your goodbyes?” he says, as if inviting me to dance. And that does it.

“No,” I tell him, under my breath but coldly and right in front of everyone. “School’s not over. We’ve still got this week. I’m not going to say goodbye now. And I’m not going to fake it.”

“Then what are we here for?” he challenges me.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

The kids are watching this family feud with their mouths gaping, loving it even though they’re not sure who to root for. When Les storms out, there’s dead silence. The cameras are rolling.

I really don’t care. I turn my attention back to controlling my unruly class.

Charmaine asks, “Mr. Danza, what’s wrong with you? Why are you so crabby?”

Two other kids chime in, “Yeah, what’s up with that? School’s practically over.”

I glare at them. “Because for some unknown reason, I’m going to miss—”

That’s as far as I get. Out of nowhere and yet again, I break down. The sobs come up in great choking waves, the tears worse than ever. How can I not return to these kids next year? What’s
wrong
with me?

My waterworks get them up out of their seats, and before I even know what’s happening, we’re locked in another huddle—even Al G is hovering close. Some of them are crying with me, this time. I sputter how much I love them, how much I’m going to miss them, how they’ve changed my life. They pat my back and squeeze me tight. They take all the anger out, and Leslie gets his goodbye.

T
HE REST OF THE WEEK
only a handful of kids come to class, and most aren’t even my students. The air-conditioning is on strike again,
and I’m pretty much resigned to just shooting the breeze with the kids. Two of my girls, Paige and Tianna, show up with a DVD and ask if we can watch a movie. They’ve been nagging me to watch this film all year. “It’s so good, Mr. Danza.”

What I know about
Freedom Writers
is that it chronicles the true story of a young teacher, played by Hilary Swank, who goes to an inner-city school and tries to make a difference. It’s a by-the-numbers tale of rough kids and a caring teacher who refuses to give up on them. “I don’t want to see some sappy movie,” I say over and over.

“No, Mr. Danza,” Paige insists. “It’s real good. You’ll like it.”

Finally, they wear me down. “Okay, put it on.”

They jump up, put it in the computer, turn on the projector, and then take seats directly in front of me. For the next two hours I sit at my desk and sob as the movie plays on the front wall screen and Paige and Tianna watch me as if I’m the show. They love that it gets to me. That’s just what they hoped would happen.

Afterward, they hand me Kleenex and pat me on the back. I seem to have passed some kind of challenge. Belatedly, I get it. That movie was their final test for me. If the story touched me as it did them, that would mean I really do care and they’re right about me. They
are
right about me.

There is one moment in the film, though, that resonates with me in a way I cannot explain to the girls. Swank’s character, Erin, is arguing with her husband, who just does not understand her all-consuming zeal for teaching.

Erin turns to him and says, “I don’t know, but in that classroom my life makes sense.”

B
LINK TWICE
, and it’s graduation day. Technically, it’s a regular school day for the few underclassmen who deign to show up, but all the energy on campus swirls around commencement. At noon I head
down to the football field, excited and honored to be the commencement speaker.

The mood is electric. Philly has pulled out all the stops, weather-wise, and the stadium shines under a bright blue sky. The stands are full to bursting with proud parents, relatives, and friends, and chairs have been set up across the field, waiting for the graduates to file in. Self-conscious in my cap, gown, and even a turquoise blue cowl, I share the dais with Ms. Carroll, the district officials, the senior faculty adviser, and the senior class president.

I’ve sweated over my speech as if it were the State of the Union address. When I read it to my teacher friend Bobby G., he thought I was worrying so much about it because I wanted to say something that the students would always remember. I bought that for a minute, but then realized this past year has made me enough of a realist to know that
always remember
is way too high a bar. I told Bobby, “What I want is just for them to listen and not let the words go in one ear and out the other.” Just hear it for one day, I think now, because that’s how we learn: one day at a time.

“Pomp and Circumstance” begins to play over the loudspeakers. It takes more than an hour for Mr. Flaherty to announce each and every name of the nearly seven hundred graduates as they take their seats in the sun. The young women are gowned in Viking red, the guys in classic black—with red ties. They are a diverse and beautiful bunch, and their beaming faces make a powerful sight.

Finally everyone’s settled and Ms. Carroll welcomes the graduates, family, and friends to the commencement of Northeast’s Class 169. She is followed by one of my unofficial advisory kids, Dion, who happens to also be president of the student body. In his speech Dion singles me out for “all the stories [I] so unreluctantly told” him. I shoot him a peace sign; he’s got my number, but he did pick up the ukulele from me.

Now it’s my turn. I gaze out over the throng, clear my throat, and take it from the top. “For those of you who don’t know, I am Tony Danza, a.k.a. Mr. Danza.
Mr. Danza
. Boy, do I like that.”

It’s a little tricky addressing this class, since I didn’t officially teach any of them, but I did get to know many of the seniors through the half-sandwich club, talent shows, dances, and my coaching duties. “My first week,” I tell them, “before you kids came to school, a couple of football-playing seniors helped me set up and decorate my room. They were so tall I didn’t need a ladder. They helped me put up my fadeless paper.
Fadeless paper
, that’s teacher talk. Like
graphic organizer, model it
, or
collaborative learning
. Watch out; don’t make me say
Venn diagram
.” At least the teachers chuckle at that.

I turn the talk to the graduates. “By finishing high school and getting your diploma, you have done something that nearly fifty percent of kids your age don’t do. That’s right, one out of two kids that start high school in America do not finish. So you beat the odds. You’ve set the table for a good life. Now, as you go forward, make sure you continue to put the work in to make yourself good at whatever you choose to do.

“You have the time and the opportunity to find your passion,” I assure the graduates, “but remember that time is finite. Don’t waste it. Remember that if the time you have now is well spent, your whole life will be enhanced. As Shakespeare says, ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.’ ”

I expect I’ve lost more than a few in the audience with that quote, but I figure I earned it. “And now for some general
after
high school tips.” They’d enjoy this next part more if I played it for laughs, but I can’t do that. I’ve seen too many Northeast kids—or their older brothers and sisters—crash and burn this year. So I tell them straight, “Take care of yourselves. That means, don’t abuse your bodies. And
take your time with love
. Don’t be in such a rush. Girls, know that the guys are up to no good. And, guys, be responsible. Understand that the choices you make are pivotal. One wrong move and
your
life is very different, so get your own lives in order before you have to think about taking care of someone else.”

I thank the parents and families, and I make a plea. “As a teacher, I appreciate parents who stress the importance of education, because the schools and teachers can’t do it alone. We need your support. We need a culture that celebrates education and holds it up high, where it belongs. You have stood by your children, and it has, so far, paid off, but we all know your work is not done. Please don’t stop having high expectations for your children.” That said, I know from experience that some of these parents are supportive to a fault, so I remind them that the kids are now officially not kids anymore. “Call on them to start being adults. Not all the way, but get them started. Sorry, graduates, it’s time.”