Emergency Teacher (22 page)

The teachers organized an emergency meeting. A student had threatened Ms. Fernanda, the seventh-grade English teacher, with eight-inch-long metal scissors. In the library, Ms. Fernanda stood in her billowing skirt and described what happened. “He walked up to my back and held the scissors, and then made sexual gestures. The scissors also touched me,” she said. All the forty-five teachers in the room were quiet. This was bad, but worse things had happened this year without any teacher meetings being called. Would this be the final straw?

“In the thirteen years since I've been here, this is the worst it's been,” our union leader said. “We had Ms. Johnson pushed on her back. We've had Ms. George assaulted. Now Ms. Fernanda, and it's not over yet. The warm weather is coming, and it's only going to get worse.”

From a table in the center, Ms. Vinitzsky stood up: “What happened to the boy who assaulted Ms. Fernanda?”

“He was suspended for three days out of school,” Ms. Fernanda said. “But not before I had to cover that class again with him in it. The students saw what he did. They see that we don't do anything about it.”

Ms. Vinitzsky said, “That boy is the one the girls complained had his penis out in the hallways. I mean, why can't we do anything? That's a sex crime! He should be arrested.”

Someone asked Ms. Fernanda if she'd asked to have the boy arrested.

“No. That kind of behavior tells me that he himself was probably sexually abused,” she said. “He needs counseling, not to be arrested.”

Looking around the room, I saw a lot of good teachers. There was Mrs. Tooley, the science teacher, who mixed strictness with love and won her kids over by inspiring them; Mr. George, whose teaching style was so clear, no-nonsense, and interesting that he had his eighth-grade math class already doing algebra. Ms. Vinitzsky, whose stern love could seat even the most angry special education students. (Mr. Rougeux, of course, had skipped the meeting.) We needed more good teachers like this—a whole school of them. All the vacancies and untrained teachers overwhelmed the rest.

The union leader stood up. “What we're considering is an informational picket.”

Mr. Whitehorne explained that it was against our contract to strike, so an informational picket meant arriving early and protesting outside the school before 8:20 AM. All the teachers murmured. This was a big deal.

“Look,” Mr. Whitehorne continued, “What we're talking about here is a protest, and it won't work unless we have support from everyone, and everyone is on board. If only fifteen or twenty teachers are going to show up, forget it. There can be none of this: ‘Oh, that morning isn't good for me.' If we're going to do this, we have to do it right. We'll have signs and press releases and media coverage.”

“What is it exactly that we want to ask for?” I asked.

“We want teachers for the special education students, and if they can't get them, then the kids need to be transferred somewhere they can get services,” Mr. Whitehorne said. “Then, we want the paperwork for getting students into the discipline school expedited.”

Ms. D. raised her hand. “Is this picket going to hurt my chances of getting hired in the suburbs?”

“No, no,” Mr. Whitehorne answered. “But we have to be prepared to stand by each other. It doesn't mean there won't be recrimination or attempts to pick off those perceived as leaders. Brothers and sisters”—his speech was now like a sermon, complete a few “Amens”—“We have to put a stop to this. These are kids that haven't had a teacher all year. And you've seen what the bureaucrats want to do about it. They want to cover it up. They're not trying to solve it. If we get out there, and parents see us, it will say something. We've done it before, and it has reenergized the whole staff.”

When he finished, we applauded. Thank God for Mr. Whitehorne. Here was someone who could command attention and make change—a true leader. Why he wasn't principal? The district's “Principal Certification” program required years of classes and tuition money, and he just couldn't afford it.

Mr. Whitehorne's words gave me strength. I wanted to believe that we could change things for the better. I felt this surge of confidence and gratitude. I wanted that protest. I wanted to do something to show that we weren't just ignoring what was happening here. I needed to act because I was aware of my growing complacency.

The protest never happened. The administration stalled us with promises, and then the school year ended.

I looked up to see
Time for Kids
twisted into a baton. Jovani and Jose R. were on the verging of pummeling each other to death. I took a deep breath and readied myself. My class had come together over the last few months, and I was teaching almost every day, with one exception: when Jovani and Jose R. were both in class. Together, they were too strong a force to reckon with. Lifting his magazine, Jovani hit José R., who then screamed, fell out of his desk, and faked dead. I ran through the routine—The Teacher's Laws of Least Intervention: I negotiated; I threatened detention, suspension, and phone calls home; I promised good grades, gum, and a certificate. Nothing worked.

“Just ignore him,” I said to the class. “Don't get yourselves in trouble.” They did ignore him for a few minutes, but it was too distracting. Jovani got up and tried to knock over the list of vocabulary words I had standing by my desk. I stopped the lesson.

“Jovani, go to Mrs. G.,” I said.

“Good,” he shouted back, and walked out before I could give him a pink slip.

He returned a few minutes later. Mrs. G. had sent him right back. I could see the students were frustrated. The louder I raised my voice, the louder José R. became. Then he buried his head into his desk and began whistling. It was impossible to ignore. I ordered him to leave.

Mrs. G. told me that a teacher sent José R. to her at least once a day, and the week earlier she had received ten pink slips on him in five days. Punishing him was a double-edged sword because he was suspended so frequently he missed out on projects and fell constantly behind. After three days working on a lesson, the gym teacher would have José R. suspended, and he'd miss the test. Or worse, he'd miss three days of lessons and then show up on test day. He'd cause such a distraction that he'd ruin the test for everyone. Mrs. G. was trying to place him in special education, but that process would take months.

“See ya!” he cheered as he shuffled out. Jovani, in the same oversized dirty turtleneck and sweatpants, tucked himself into a corner and gloated.

For two minutes, class returned to its serene cooperation and quiet. Ronny answered a question and offered to read aloud again. The girls underlined vocabulary words. Then the door flew open and banged against the wall.

“Mrs. G. n' the vice principal ain't in their offices,” José R. mumbled. School security stood behind him, escorting him back to my class (i.e., making sure he was out of their hallways). My perfect lesson dissolved. Finally, I confiscated José R.'s magazine. While the rest of the class watched and waited, I got out the special workbook I had bought him. He pushed it aside. I tried to continue, but he was muttering in Spanish, distracting everyone.

José R., who weighed at least 150 pounds, was rolling his head back and forth and laughing as he swatted at tiny Jovani. I put my head in my hands. I was trapped—what good was another pink slip on José R.? The copies I kept in my desk were mounting:

Ronny had put down his pencil and was talking again. I snapped at him: “Ronny, do your work, I'm not going to tell you again.”

Ronny shoved his binder onto the desk. “Miss, can I change classes? I hate this class.”

There was a growing list of students who wanted out of the class that Jovani and José R. were in, and they said so openly.

Ronny's future worried me the most of all. Ms. Rohan said she had met with his father the previous week, and he said if Ronny didn't learn how to read this year he'd be pulled out of school for good. Ronny's father ran several profitable bodegas in the neighborhood, and he felt that if Ronny wasn't learning in school, his time would be better spent at work. I knew Ronny wanted a better life for himself than that of a store clerk. His last chance at an education was drifting away.

While I tried to figure out what I could do that would be different from every other strategy I'd tried, the class snapped.

“Shut up, man!” Ronny yelled at José R.

“Yeah, sit down,” another student called out. José R. didn't bow to the pressure; he jeered back. Soon, the whole class was yelling at José R. to shut up. Ronny, Rodolfo, the clique of little girls—Sayara, Marianna, Yazline, and Penny—all made themselves known:

I felt stunned, embarrassed, and pleased all at once. This was vigilante justice, and it was the last straw. I decided at that moment that whatever happened, I was going to teach—nothing could stop me. For the rest of the day, the class reviewed vocabulary, voiced their opinions, and wrote essays. José R. and Jovani waged battle, smacking each other as hard as possible with the workbooks I had bought them. It was a bizarre scene—90 percent of the class sitting angelically answering questions while two kids tried to kill each other. They fought, and we tried to ignore them. Ten minutes before school ended, from the back of the room, José R. shouted, “Miiiiissss, Jovani be hitting me. Help!”

“I don't care,” I said. “You're getting an F for the day.”

It was one thing for them to waste my time, but they were also wasting everyone else's time. I couldn't bear Ronny's helpless gaze at me, pleading for me to do something. Kids like Ronny were already so far behind in life that they were about to give up. Jovani and José R. were pushing their classmates' heads further under the water. No matter how they struggled, Jovani and José R. held them down. Back in September, I'd felt sympathy for the bottom-rung students, like Jovani and José R. Life hadn't been fair to them, either. Now my compassion had cooled. My attitude was hardening. They had transformed themselves in my eyes from victims to bullies.

I kept Jovani after school. If I kept both boys, they would giggle at me, so I let José R. go and promised to call his mother again. Jovani sat silently for fifteen minutes, withering under my glare. Technically, I was not supposed to keep students after school without writing them a detention the day before and sending a letter home to arrange alternative transportation. That system never worked because effective discipline had to be swift, and it had to be delivered personally. Alternative transportation didn't exist, so if I wanted him to stay I had to drive him home myself.