Lessons from the Bronx

Edward wasn't doing his work. I had given the twelfth graders in my summer school class the following writing assignment: "Have you ever done something that you regretted or that made you feel guilty?" We were reading John Knowles's A Separate Peace, and I kept thinking that if ever there were a book more disconnected from my inner-city students' lives than this tale of overprivileged youngsters at a private prep school, I had yet to see it. Looking at Edward, a young, black seventeen-year-old who would remove his contraband doo-rag whenever his unfailingly accurate sixth sense told him that the deans were approaching the classroom (and put it back on as soon as they left), I knew I was in trouble. His paper was blank, his pen lay on his desk untouched. Instead of writing, he was making exaggerated yawning and stretching noises.