I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High

by Tony Danza

“No one ever seems to question why the burden is all on the teacher to do the engaging, when we ask so little of the students, or for that matter, their parents.”

Whenever I hear politicians try to justify cutting the arts in public education, I think of this extraordinary boy. Although he can do a backflip off the stage to the auditorium floor, he’s not a jock, or a math or science whiz, nor is he a candidate for class president or yearbook editor. But with his poetry, he’s a rock star. It’s what gets him to—and through—school.

“Because of all this bad press about bad schools, parents come in predisposed to complain about the teacher.” That empowers the kids to act out whenever a teacher is strict, Glen explains. The kid gets in trouble, but the parents blame the teacher. The school’s forced to reprimand teachers whose only crime may be high standards. “It’s an exhausting, destructive cycle.”

“What teacher has time for a life, let alone a salary to support one? And yet, to hear the politicians and parents scream about us, you’d think we were all running off to the Caribbean, destroying our students’ futures, and stealing the public blind.”

The final essay question asked, “What was the most important lesson you learned in class this year?” I go back now and flip through the answers again. It shouldn’t amaze me that the students all used correct essay form, but it does. It shouldn’t surprise me to see some of my own phrases in their handwriting, but it does. And it certainly shouldn’t touch me to know that the lessons many of my students consider most powerful were not scripted in any book, but this in particular shakes me to the core. “Make the best of a baaaad situation,” Nakiya wrote. “Take part in your own education” appears in Al G’s loopy cursive. And for Ben-Kyle, the most important lesson was that “books are more than books. They are stories, too.” In almost every essay, I find advice that I’ve given them, almost verbatim. This is why people teach, I think. This is how you make a difference. They heard me and they remembered. That is one thrilling accomplishment.

A good cause, topical, and you never know, I might get lucky. I came away from that meeting thinking, Well, there you have it. That’s America’s attitude toward education in a nutshell.

Learning, most of this country seems to think, is like medicine that we know we need but refuse to take unless somebody makes it so entertaining that we forget to think it tastes bad.