As Bad as They Say?: Three Decades of Teaching in the Bronx

1. Introduction

1 Introduction September is—for me—the most beautiful month of the year. Here in the Northeast part of the United States, the weather is nearperfect , not too hot and not too cold. The autumn leaves are in all their glory, and so am I. I have spent sixty-one of my seventy-one Septembers in a New York City classroom, beginning as a kindergartner and ending as a teacher. I guess that you can say that I never got out of school, and since most of my years in the classroom were spent in the Bronx, I guess you can say that I never got out of the Bronx; but then again I never really wanted to. In September 1944, after completing my very first day of kindergarten , I ran home from school (parents didn’t wait anxiously outside for their children then) to my family’s rented four-room apartment on Boynton Avenue in the Bronx and announced to my at-home mother (as most mothers were) that I had had a sensational day. I told her that when I grew up, I was going to be a teacher. My destiny was truly decided that day. Eight years later, in June 1952, when I graduated from P.S. 77 in the Bronx and received the award for Best Student in English, my career path was crystal clear: I would become an English teacher. In a hurry to begin my chosen career, I was very focused. I rushed through school, graduating in three and one-half years from high school in January 1956 and graduating from Queens College, New York, in January 1960. In between, in 1958, I married my childhood sweetheart —now my lifelong sweetheart. 3 4 Bronx Roots In order to become a New York City high school teacher in the 1950s and 1960s, one had to pass a series of pedagogical, scholastic, cultural, and teaching proficiency tests. These tests were usually given twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. Graduating in January placed me too late for the fall exam and too early for the spring one. My college advisor arranged for me to take a special exam in January, with the promise of a teaching position in February, if I passed. There was a wicked snowstorm on the scheduled exam day in January. I boarded the New York City subway, headed for Brooklyn Technical High School, where all exams were given. But the train didn’t move; I sat anxiously and impatiently, for over an hour, only to hear an overhead announcement that all New York City trains were shut down indefinitely , not for terrorist threats in those years, but because of a massive snowfall that blocked all the elevated tracks. First I cried; then I got off the train and called home—no cell phones then. Despite my tears, I was able to hear my mother’s calming advice: ‘‘Call Brooklyn Technical High School and explain.’’ I did that, and the person I reached was aware of the trains’ shutdown and promised to hold the exam for me, until whatever time I arrived, which was six hours later. I remember thinking, ‘‘Years from now, Janey girl, you will laugh about this critical day in your life,’’ but I wasn’t laughing then, that’s for sure. Two weeks later, I was notified that I scored high and was going to be appointed to my first school on February 1, 1960. My childhood dream was about to be fulfilled. That first year of teaching was incredibly difficult. The second year was also incredibly difficult. In fact, all the forty-four years that I was a New York City teacher were incredibly difficult, but they were also personally and professionally satisfying beyond my wildest expectations. The years flew by; my family grew; I had two fine sons; and I continued teaching in New York City. In 1994, through the auspices of the American Federation of Teachers, my Bronx high school students were matched with South African high school students in a classroom-to-classroom pen-pal program. I corresponded with Dr. Mahomed Hoosen Rasool, a high school teacher, from KwaZulu/Natal, South Africa. He was kind enough to send me information about South Africa and the ending of apartheid education in 1995. He wrote that under apartheid ‘‘there was no semblance of a normal school life [for his students]. Political violence, state harassment, poverty...