I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had (9 page)

Small victories, I think, as I make my way down the corridor in my cool sneakers.

I
N ADDITION TO
all their other classes, most teachers are assigned advisory—today’s term for homeroom. I don’t have any official advisory students, but I soon begin acquiring unofficial ones, and as soon as I do, that term,
advisory
, makes perfect sense to me. This is the period when teaching is all about advice, when you serve as part counselor, part friend, part surrogate parent. As one of the teachers in my SLC told me, counseling can be a bigger part of the job than teaching. “In poor schools, the teacher has to pick up the slack created by less involved parents and more kids with problems.”

My first unofficial advisory kids are strays. I meet them in the hallways or cafeteria, or when I’m working with one of the teams
or clubs. Then they start turning up and camping out in my classroom. First one, then two and more. I do have air-conditioning, and that’s a lure. I also give out half sandwiches to anyone who needs one at lunchtime, but they also seem to like hanging with me, and I’m a sucker for that. Soon they’re coming every day, first thing in the morning, during fifth-period lunch, or any time they can finagle a hall pass. I ask, “Where are you supposed to be?” And they all have the same answer, “My teacher knows I’m here with you.”

Then I have to write a note to the teacher explaining that they’ve been with me and I am sorry for them getting back to class late. This strikes me as funny because when I was in high school I used to practice writing notes and signing my name in preparation for the day when I became a teacher and had to write a hall pass for real. But it’s not really funny. Most of these kids have problems, and some are serious. When a good kid comes to school late and looking like hell, I’ll try to go easy, couch my concern in a compliment, such as “You’re never late, what happened?” But what do you say when the answer is “They turned off the electricity on us last night, and it was too cold to sleep. It was a crazy night.” You offer sympathy and write him the note. You do what you can, which too often is not enough, but you have to be willing to try.

Phil is sixteen, one of a group of four boys that I call the Wanderers because they’re constantly walking the hallways. They dress in black and have complexions so white and pasty I wonder if they’ve ever even seen the sun. Always together, they come to school every morning, swipe their student IDs to prove they’re on campus, then just roam for the rest of the day. Northeast is so huge and there are so many nooks and crannies to hide in that if a student knows the school well enough and keeps moving, he can avoid going to class all day. These four are masters of avoidance.

When I first notice the Wanderers, I can’t resist trying to talk them
into going to class and taking school seriously. Other teachers tell me I’m wasting my breath. The Wanderers have a well-established track record for getting in trouble. But I always think that very few kids are really bad and many are just mixed up. When I catch Phil alone one day, I ask what his dad thinks about him skipping classes, and he tells me he has no father. His mother is alone, and his older brothers have all been in trouble. “So what else is new?” he asks. But instead of sounding sullen, Phil seems to be challenging me to answer. I want to try to help. That’s what teachers do, right? That’s what I’m here for.

The other three Wanderers refuse to see any value in changing or in anything I say. They razz Phil about me, but then he starts coming to my room at lunchtime on his own. I give him half a sandwich, and after we get to know each other a bit, I ask for his roster. I visit each of his teachers. Big surprise: he’s failing all his courses because he never goes to class. One teacher tells me that Philip’s cut class every day since school started. Another says he has over sixty unexcused absences and his teachers have all but given up on him.

Remembering that each of these teachers has another 149 students to worry about, I ask them to please give me the assignments he needs to make up, and I’ll make sure he completes them. I know it’s extra work for them, but despite their skepticism, they give Phil and me the benefit of the doubt.

I want to show Phil that his teachers do care what happens to him. I want him to see the importance of changing his behavior. I talk myself hoarse trying to get him to see the error of his ways. But just when I think I’m making some headway, he’s charged with credit card fraud. It seems he and his friends used a stolen Visa card.

Phil’s arrest really shakes me. I try to tell myself that I just arrived in his life too late, that there’s nothing more I could have done, but the last time I see this kid he tells me he’s facing a three-year jail sentence. He’s also beginning the Twilight Program, a night school
for kids who work or have problems and want a General Educational Development certificate. I tell him this is his last chance, but that if he gets his GED the judge will take that into consideration. “Show them you’re trying,” I beg.

Phil nods and says he gets it. But I can tell he doesn’t really. He won’t last in the program. He feels buried, thinks he’s lost too much ground and will never catch up. “You can, Phil, if you want to,” I plead, but I can feel him already slipping away. I want to throw him a lifeline but have no idea how. How do you help them all?

A
NOTHER OF MY
unofficial advisees is a senior named Courtney, who sings in the choir and acts in school plays. She used to spend her free time in the choirmaster’s office, but after finding me she starts hanging out in my classroom instead. She’s a popular girl, funny and bright and getting ready to go on to college, but one morning she comes to me in tears. “I’m not going to graduate.”

“What are you talking about? You’re a great student. I thought you were doing well.”

“I am, except I’m failing physics.”

Uh-oh. I can’t write a definition of physics, let alone offer any real help in the subject. I stall. “Why are you failing?”

“I got behind, and I can’t catch up.”

“So you just haven’t done the work, right?”

“Right,” she says, eyes averted.

“Wait a minute. Who says you can’t catch up? Who do you have?”

I recognize her physics instructor’s name from orientation. “Believe me,” I assure her, “there is no way a first-year teacher wants you to fail. Let’s go see him.”

Asking for help can work wonders. Teachers appreciate that. And
like Phil’s teachers, Courtney’s is willing to work with her. Unfortunately, as good a student as she is, Courtney, like Phil, has let herself slip dangerously behind. It will take real commitment and work to catch up.

I give her my “mountain” speech, which I used to give my own kids when they felt overwhelmed by schoolwork. “It’s like when I used to wash dishes for a Jewish caterer. We would serve seven-course dinners for over three hundred people. After each course, hundreds of plates, glasses, pots, and silverware would be piled high on the dishwasher’s counter. That mountain could look so overwhelming that I didn’t know where to start, but I learned that if you just get to work on one piece at a time, little by little the mountain gets smaller, and eventually it’s gone.”

The good news for Courtney is that there’s time. And support. My assistant on the TV production crew, Kelly Gould, was a physics major in college. I enlist her help, and she and Courtney make a good team. They decide that Courtney’s big project will be a Rube Goldberg contraption that turns on her hair straightener. After building it, Courtney enlists another girl from the unofficial advisory, a beautiful black girl named Farah, and together they make a video of her contraption in action. First Courtney describes all the moving parts and their purposes. Then she introduces Farah, who makes a twirling, spinning entrance and, Vanna-like, activates the machine. A ball rolls, dominoes fall, Matchbox cars slide down ramps, and finally a hammer falls and hits a switch that turns on the straightener. It takes more than a few attempts to get all this to work as designed, but eventually they’re successful. Courtney earns an A on the project.

She catches up in her physics class, and the threat of not graduating is forgotten. However, the lesson is not lost. She overcame her own doubts and triumphed. Hard work paid off, and she saw that really
anything is possible. I do my own little victory dance, a triple-time step with a break.

E
VENTUALLY KIDS FROM
my English class start joining the half-sandwich club—often when they’re in some kind of trouble. Matt becomes a special project, as he’s always getting in fights. I can relate to that, but in certain ways Matt tops even my own youthful self. He has an anger problem and a self-image problem. Objectively, he’s a good-looking young man with a sandy brown crew cut and soulful eyes, and girls think he’s cute. He reminds me of Steve McQueen. A strong athlete, he’s the starting middle linebacker for the football team—where it’s all right to hit people—but in class he’ll nudge other students and then argue when they nudge back. He’s constantly in motion, and I have to ride him to go back to his seat and pay attention. Nothing I try succeeds in settling him down, though.

By the end of October, Matt is tied for the dubious record of getting into the most fights at school. His last one was bad. A friend of his was jumped and then Matt got into it with some African-American students. And now four of these same guys have jumped Matt, working him over pretty badly. Black-eyed and bruised, his face is a mess. I phone Matt’s father, who says he’s worried, too. “Matt’s antsy,” he tells me. “He has so much energy. But he also says there are problems at school with some of the kids.”

I get what his father’s saying. “There’s a racial element involved” is how one girl in my class puts it. Ever since he was jumped, Matt’s had a different attitude, as if he’s ready to blow up any second.

“Yeah, I was antsy as a kid, too,” I tell his father. “But we have to straighten out his attitude, and you have to help.”

He says he will, but a few days later Matt tells me he’s on the verge of being expelled. This is still on my mind when I stop, on my way
home from school, in front of Joe Hand’s Boxing Gym at the corner of Third and Green. Joe Hand is a local boxing promoter who has a chain of these gyms around the city. Walking past this neat little storefront every day, I’ve noticed that it’s nearly brand new, which is unusual for a city boxing gym. It has rings both front and back, and quality heavy and speed punching bags. There’s a computer room, where Joe Hand lets kids in the neighborhood use the computers for schoolwork. He also drops the monthly dues and lets them train for free. There are knowledgeable trainers and some good fighters who work out here, including the undefeated welterweight Mike Jones. There are also businessmen and some women getting into shape. My bad knees have talked me out of joining, but I’ve been sorely tempted, and today I remember the real reason why. Boxing has a special place in my heart because it was my ticket out of trouble and into a new life when I was young.

Before learning to box, I was always in fights, in and out of school. I liked the action. I was small and thought I needed to prove I was tough. After I learned to box, I no longer felt that need to prove I was tough, because I knew I was. Also, just in terms of expended energy, boxing takes some of the fight out of a kid. Even a kid like Matt.

I enter the gym and meet the manager, Petey Pop, and one of the pro trainers, Dan Davis. As I stroll around the rings, I feel like I’m home. Petey asks why I don’t come by and work out, as long as I’m living right around the corner.

“I’m getting old,” I tell him, but Davis convinces me we can work around my bad knees, and with that I’m in. I agree to come by a couple of times a week to hit the mitts and the bags. I also order a cobra punching bag to be delivered to school.

The cobra is mounted on a spring that’s anchored in a sand-filled pedestal. It’s a speed reflex bag for combination training. The next morning I get permission to install it in one of the visitors’ locker
rooms across from the football coach’s office. The space is small and shabby, with a row of lockers and benches on either side. My plan is to set the bag up in the open area in the middle, and during fifth period I’ll teach Matt to use it.

When I tell him about this plan, Matt’s excited. He’s up for punching anything, and the prospect of punching something called the cobra positively sings to him. Then other kids spot us carrying the bag and two pairs of boxing gloves down the hallway, and pretty soon I’m the Pied Piper. Both boys and girls want in, nerds as well as football players. Before long I’ve got about a dozen kids perched on the benches taking in the lesson.

I’ve been practicing with a bag like this for years, so I decide to show off a little. The cobra is used to develop hand speed, hand-eye coordination, and balance, and I quickly set it dancing. The rhythm is hypnotic. Then I throw a seven-punch combination, left jab, right cross, left hook, right uppercut, left hook, right cross. The kids hang on every move. “And always finish with the left hook,” I say. “Like this.” Bang, the bag whiplashes.

“Wow!” The kids applaud. “Mr. Danza can still fight.” Music to my ears!

Everybody then takes a turn with the gloves and the bag. A couple of the girls do better than the guys. For some reason, the girls aren’t as self-conscious. They’re just having fun. The boys tend to get more competitive, which can be a problem. But Matt excels. He’s big and strong for a fifteen-year-old, and he throws himself fully into the workout. As I’d hoped, the exercise does seem to calm him down, a midday release for all his pent-up energy.

Over the next few weeks we go down almost every day during fifth period and trade rounds. I make Matt work harder than I do. Then we start meeting at Joe Hand’s Gym, and Matt gets to train with some real pros, like Boogaloo Watts, a famous Philly fighter from my era. Matt actually has some potential and talent. My strategy
seems to be working. He appears more confident, less like he needs to prove how tough he is every day. And boxing and working out with him wins me his respect and some trust, which makes life easier for both of us in class. But it’s not a cure-all. The more time I spend with him, the clearer it becomes that Matt has a fire smoldering deep inside. Although it’s not exploding quite as often, it’s not fully under his control, either. Because we are closer now, I expect him to be less disruptive, but some days he’s just too wound up; he’ll roam around the room, touching objects, elbowing his friends, still way too antsy.