SCHOOL DAYS

Crossing the school playground in the morning, I look for signs to tell me how my day will be. As a substitute teacher in the central city, my assignment can fall anywhere from 1 to 100 on the Nicholas Nicholby to Summerhill school scale.

First, I look for some sign of authority. If I see the principal out on the yard, this is good – and if she knows the students' names, even better!

I was told this is a magnet school, which somehow implies that something good enough is happening here to draw children from other schools in the district. And another good sign, the houses in the neighborhood are quite substantial and look well cared-for. This test of association between neighborhood and student body proved to be a false-positive.

I read these signs in the way some people consult astrologists or tarot cards – to help cushion the blows of reality. But reality always comes, and the other signs aren’t good.

The school yard is pocked with potholes, laid out in what appears to be a carefully planned grid, bisected by huge cracks from which sprout tall green weeds – to provide the only touch of color. The bell rings – noone notices. No little children in two straight lines here. I open the door and they tumble over each other wrestling, shoving, and angry. As I suspected, the teacher left no plans, no instructions, no schedule or even a class list.

When all else fails, bribery beats out threats – and we finally have a modicum of order. Now take out your reading books. “We don’t got no books. The next door teacher gives us them when they finish.”

One boy yells out “Hey teacher, when you start to cry?” You first, I thought – but I do want to cry. I want to cry for these kids who are being cheated out of their only chance for a basic education. They have no advocates; noone fights for their right to have a classroom environment that encourages them to learn. Noone fights for their right to have their own books. Who cares that the playground looks like a minefield in Afghanistan? They have been written off and noone wants to enforce the discipline necessary to reclaim them.

They live in an area known as ”the jungle”, a collection of sixty year-old poorly maintained, graffiti covered apartment buildings and they lost the lottery – they got the wrong school and parents who do not, or cannot, or don’t know how to, change it and make it better.

It’s lunch time and I catch up with a young male teacher. I ask “What kind of magnet is this?” “Mean, bad kids,” he says with sort of a laugh. “Those thrown out of other schools. You know,” he says, "when I get into my car in the morning, I’m driving to Hell”.