Emergency Teacher (28 page)

“Javier, you are out of control. Do you realize that? You are out of control.”

It was my last card, and thankfully it worked. The intensity in my voice must have scared him. His face went blank, and he ran out the door and down the hallway. I turned on my class.

“What is wrong with you guys?!” I cried. “I asked you to be quiet.”

I felt bad that I had taken my frustration out on them, but I needed to be back in control for a minute. I'd never had a student belittle me like that and in front of the class whose respect I'd worked long and hard to earn. I was a teacher, but as I stood there seething with rage, I realized I was also human.

As May stumbled into June, the school veered into madness. All day long screams echoed in the hallways. “Fuck this school! I hate this fucking place! You motherfucker! What the fuck!” I could hear them in the teachers' lounge, the bathroom, and my class. They rang in my ears driving home. The police were called four separate times in one day. There was a fight in the cafeteria. A seventh-grader was picking on some kid, and when Gigi, the hallway monitor, stepped in he screamed in her face,
“vete al mierda,”
which is Puerto Rican slang for “eat shit.” When Hector, the school police officer, stepped in and tried to take the boy out of the cafeteria, the kid punched him in the face. So Hector pushed him against the wall and roughed him up, then handcuffed him.

All my kids came running up from lunch bouncing off the wall and shouting about police brutality and saying the boy had a knife. When they came to class like that, it made it twice as hard—and usually impossible—to settle them. Rumors that several students had knives made me nervous to walk around the hallways. My kids didn't dare ask to go to the bathroom anymore.

When I'd hear a swarm of kids coming, I'd duck into my classroom and hide, for fear of having to confront them. I didn't know what was worse, confronting the students and risking their wrath or ignoring them and feeling impotent. I hated to admit it, but I was scared. Pack mentality reigned, and teachers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time could be in real trouble. Several had already been punched and pushed down. One afternoon, I saw Mrs. Jimenez fumbling desperately to lock her door and then, literally, running out of the building for her car. Ms. Vinitzsky's room was so overcrowded, she stopped accepting any more students. Mrs. G. was absent, and so was Ms. Rohan.

Mr. Rougeux's room, in which students calmly prepared for final exams, was the eye of the storm. Mr. Rougeux had created from scratch final exams in all his subjects. He'd also created review sheets and mock exams for his pupils to study. This kind of schedule was probably standard at schools across the country. At our school, only a handful of teachers were organized enough to give real final exams that mattered. I had put together a final exam in reading class only.

While teachers had the relative safety of their classrooms, the students had to actually go out into the hallways. If a student wasn't an instigator, he was a target, like Big Bird, who was picked on for his huge size and gentle nature. For a few weeks I couldn't understand why he arrived late and hung around after 3:00 PM, waiting for the buses to leave and the crowd to clear. His struggle broke my heart. He didn't want to break the rules and anger the teachers, but when he got jumped, not one teacher would be there to help him. In my classroom, Javier disappeared for a week, but then suddenly reemerged. The morning he returned to class, I settled everyone.

“I have to talk to you all about something serious,” I said. I pulled out my stool and sat in front of T61. “I'm proud of our class. We are well behaved; we do a lot of fun stuff, learn a lot, and we take the most field trips. Because of that, we've gotten seven new students in the last two months, and I'm happy they're here. Everyone in here follows the rules, and I've been proud and happy with all of you. The reason why we're doing so well is that everyone in here follows the rules.”

I turned to Angela, a student who had been moved into T61 by her mother a month earlier. She had been in another sixth-grade classroom that was notoriously out of control.

“Angela, you told me in your last class that no one followed the rules. Can you tell me what that was like?”

“It was terrible,” she said. “We never learned nothing. Everyone just ran around all day. They hit the teacher, and he cried three times. We didn't go on not one field trip.”

She said exactly what I'd hoped. I took a deep breath and prayed this was working.

“Well, it's come to my attention that we have a problem. We have one student who is not following the rules, and that upsets me. We have a student who erased the board while I wrote on it. We have a student who walks in and out of here and bothers other students and disrespects me.”

I didn't look at Javier, but I didn't have to. Everyone else did. Josh gave him a sneer.

“What happens in society when people don't follow the rules?”

“They go to jail?” Vanessa said.

“That's right. Society decides they can't live in it anymore, and they are removed. Well, I don't want any of my students removed from this class. But we can't have one student just ignoring the rules, because it brings everyone down.”

My brutally honest approach was risky. It was a direct plea for help with a student that I couldn't handle on my own. I felt like my class's solidarity was being put to the test. Kids could be so fickle with their loyalty. Had I built up enough trust that they would support me? Javier sat stone-faced, and no one else spoke.

“Do I have your support with the rules, and are we agreed that we want everyone to follow them?”

Ten students said yes, and Javier shouted, “No!”

I repeated it again, more forcefully, and this time everyone said, “Yes!”

Did they truly support me? In the hallway after class, Javier pushed through the crowd and hissed, “You did that on purpose.”

I looked him in the eye and said, “I didn't say your name.”

“Everyone knew it was me. You just tried to embarrass me,” he said.

“Look, Javier,” I said locking the door as we walked out. “Everything I said was true. And you brought it on yourself. Start behaving.”

Javier disappeared for the rest of the day, and I sent in a pink slip on him for cutting, just to cover myself. I saw it later, on the floor under Mrs. G.'s desk.

I saw Javier only once or twice more during the school year. He showed up a week after our blowout and got into a fight with Pedro. I pulled him by the arm and he screamed, “Don't touch me!” Then he ran into the halls and sprayed a parent with a water bottle in front of the vice principal. Javier was suspended for days. By the time he returned, with his father in tow, his prescription had been filled. The father promised this would calm him down. The next time I saw him I had to call on him twice.

“Javier? Javier?” He looked sedated, his lids half closed. His lips parted, and he said “Huh?”

F
or most of the school year I had fretted over the future. On some days, teaching clearly seemed to be my calling. Working with the students left me feeling invigorated and inspired, and the emotional attachment to the students was so strong that the prospect of leaving my new home in Julia de Burgos felt gut-wrenching. Another year offered the opportunity to rectify my mistakes and put to use all I'd learned. I wanted another shot to do it right. And I didn't want to leave my kids. I dreaded saying good-bye.

But then there were the tough days. The fights, the arsons, the petty battles with the principal and the administration, and the sense that a handful of students were running the school. By May, this all pushed me over the edge, and I wasn't sure I could keep my sanity or my dignity for another year. This job was too physically punishing, too mentally exhausting, and I was afraid of becoming so accustomed to all of it that I would stop wanting to make a difference. I went to Mrs. G.'s office to tell her.

“I've decided not to come back next year,” I said softly.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Probably go back to journalism,” I said. “I don't have a job yet, but my family and friends are in New York, so I'll go there.”

“I understand why you're leaving, you know,” she said. “We're raising everyone else's children. I stay in it because I like it. I wouldn't do anything else. But I realize I'll never be rich. I'll never make more than $70,000. I have a master's, and anywhere else I could make a lot more. But I like what I do. They sure don't make it easy on you!”

Her phone rang. No doubt Mrs. G. had a million things to do.

I had thought she was cynical, but maybe she was just realistic. She had immediately sized up Jovani and tried to get him “out of our hair,” while I had insisted on “reaching him” and just spread myself out too thin. I invested so much time and energy in him, and to what end? In doing so, he ruined class and contributed to destroying many children's only chance at learning. Perhaps my time would have been better spent focusing on the kids who weren't as lost as he was. So whose strategy was right—Mrs. G.'s or my own?

I wondered how the other teachers at the school had changed and adapted over the years. Had they all started out like me? Our school was so dysfunctional that at some point, it was only natural to start adapting. I felt myself adapting. I remembered how outraged I'd felt walking into Rogia's special education classroom and the anger with which I had earlier dismissed my team teachers. These reactions were so naive in hindsight. Every teacher reacted to these tiny affronts differently. The Venezuelan teacher turned a blind eye; Mr. M. the substitute blamed the students; the principal hid the problems for her own ambition; Mr. Rougeux's talent lifted him above it all; Mr. Whitehorne's strength enabled him to bend when he had to and fight when he thought he could win; and Ms. Fernanda, the new English teacher, quit in protest. How was I reacting? I had stayed the year, longer than most. But I could not come back. Sitting with Mrs. G., I realized she would probably have loved to have had things improve. She was stuck here, though, dealing with the situation the best way she could. She had two little children, a husband, bills to pay, and given all her responsibilities she couldn't afford to be fired or to dedicate her life to overturning the monstrous school system. In a way, that was hero's work.

I wanted to be a success story and to have a message that new, idealistic teachers could succeed in this environment. I could see now that it was much more complicated than I had ever imagined as a twenty-five-year-old.

I took a deep breath and said sincerely, “You know, I've never thanked you for all your support.”

She smiled. “Good luck. Send us a postcard.”

Passing the row of sixth-grade lockers—skinny rectangles bunched together on top of each other—made my heart hurt a little. I boxed up the last of my things, straightened the desks, and swept the floor. I had a pile of my decorations and workbooks to give to Ms. Rohan for next year. I packed up all the books we'd read:
Bridge to Terabithia
,
Iggie's House
,
Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul
,
Where the Red Fern Grows
,
Pedro's Journal
,
Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone
,
Tuck Everlasting
, and
Scorpions
.

The principal announced another faculty meeting in the library, this one about grades. Mr. Whitehorne told me the Puerto Rican—dominated cluster was looking to replace her with a Spanish-speaking principal, and two major fires in one school year would be sufficient justification.

I'd been worried about grades, which were due shortly. My big question was whether I should hold any child back. I didn't think it would help them much, but I wanted to be tough and have standards and live up to my word that if you don't try, there would be consequences. I felt that was only fair to the students who did listen and make an effort.

What would the principal suggest? She talked about holding a hard line with the kids. She'd pushed us to do “everything that we can to help each student” because “failure is not an option.” She'd set up a ton of roadblocks for any teacher who tried to fail a child.

“As you fill in the mark-sen sheets with each student's final grade, search your soul,” she said, a slight smile playing on her lips. “See if you really want them back here next year. Ask yourself if there is nothing you can see in reviewing their grades that can help them move on,” she said. “Because if you retain them, we will have to deal with them again next year!”

The teachers burst into laughter. From all sides of the room came shouts of “Have mercy!”

I glanced at Mr. Whitehorne, who sarcastically called out, “Well, our promotion rate just took a hike.” Laughter spilled from all sides of the room. Teachers were high-fiving and chuckling—nudge-nudge, wink-wink—with the principal.

“Okay, okay,” the principal said, catching her breath. “Now, now, it is a professional that realizes that at a certain point we've done all we can. And it is a professional that realizes when you can give all you can, and when you say, ‘I have nothing left for them,'” she said. “Studies show that coverage students have poor attendance rates and poor academic performance ....”

A teacher stood up and cut her off.

“Yeah, so leave your ego behind!”

A hearty applause broke out. “No pressure,” the principal said gleefully. “I'll support you either way. However, if you retain them, they're yours next year!”

The meeting was over. After the faculty meeting, I caught up with Ms. Ortiz.

“What happens if I tally up my kids' scores and see that I have some who have failed?” I asked. “Do I fail them?”

“Every teacher uses their discretion,” she answered. “To me, if a kid makes an effort, any effort at all, I'll pass them,” she said. “I'm failing two kids, and these are kids that just never showed up and never did any of the work.”

“But what about the kids that, say, can't read?” I asked.

“I'll pass them, anyway. Otherwise, they end up like some of these kids you see running around here that are way too old for this place,” she said. “It doesn't matter, anyway. They'll push them through.”

“What do you mean?”

“They'll promote them, anyway. They always do, especially if a parent comes down and complains. That's why I always keep very good records. But, in the end, the administration passes them. It's like the principal said, do you really want them back next year?”

I gave two students Fs: José R. and a girl named Jen. When we received our report cards, though, they all said the same thing at the bottom: “PROMOTED.” Someone had changed my grades from 55s to 65s.

I confronted the principal, who said, “Cross it out and write ‘RETAINED.'” When I pointed out to her that crossing it out on the hard copy didn't change anything on the school computers, she told me to “make a copy and leave it on my desk.” I knew she had changed the grades, and she wouldn't change them back. What did it matter?

I returned to my classroom. Oddly enough, José R. was back early from lunch and waiting for me. “Hiiiiiiii, Meeeesssss,” he slurred.

He was grinning and held a gigantic binder in his arms. I felt that familiar mix of pity and resentment toward him that had made him such a troubling student to deal with all year. He saw the report card in my hand.

“That mine, Miss?” he asked slowly.

I looked down at it, mostly C's and D's on the page. I thought about all the times I had threatened José R. to work or he would fail and be held back. He had ignored me. I felt like if I handed him the report card, he would laugh at me.
I told you so, Miss. I know this system better than you do!

I sat down next to him. “José, I have your report card here. It doesn't say it yet, but you've failed two subjects, and you may have to repeat sixth grade.”

At first he looked shocked, and I thought my bluffing had worked. All year, I'd warned José R., and I couldn't help feeling that, finally, the teacher had some power in her classroom.

“José, I've been trying to help you all year, but you see, there are consequences for your actions.”

“Noo, Meeesss,” he sang. “Because I'm moving schools.”

And then he began to laugh and laugh and laugh. “I'm moving schools.”

Even though I had his grades in my grade book and pink slips to show he had fooled around and bothered other students all year, test scores to show that he couldn't read or write well, and a diary full of my failed efforts to intervene and help him, none of it mattered. He was right.

He would move on. He would be falsely promoted, probably up to twelfth grade, if he wanted.

Together we sat alone in his sixth-grade classroom. I surveyed our room, taking in the cracked fluorescent lighting overhead, the used workbooks stacked up on the shelves, the trash and graffiti outside the window, and back at José R., who had stopped laughing. He was sitting still, looking at his teacher.