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

Author:Tony Danza
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Secondary, Education, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Educators
ISBN: 9780307887887
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Published: 2012-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

TEACHERS’ LOUNGE

Gone Bowling

The network delivers on Leslie’s threat at the end of January. We’ve shot enough footage for about six one-hour episodes, and based on that footage, A&E decides six is enough. This means that the crew will come back a few times later in the year for some final pickup footage and interviews with the kids, but basically, I’ll be on my own here now.

As the filming quietly winds down, a rumor of a different scenario fans through school. Having heard that the production is ending, both students and teachers ask me repeatedly when I’m leaving. A few of the teachers might be hoping for a different answer, but I assure them I’m not going anywhere. When I said at the outset that they were stuck with me for a full year, I meant it. Brave words. And it’s true that I won’t miss the camera’s constant seeing eye in my classroom, or the daily wiring and unwiring of microphones. Still, I don’t do well with abandonment, especially when it carries the taint of failure. Will I lose my authority now that I’ve lost my cameras? What if I find I need all those props? I certainly don’t feel like celebrating.

Yet celebrate we must. Without coming right out and telling anybody that the series has been capped, the production company decides to throw a wrap party in a cool art deco bowling alley near my apartment. In addition to our crew, my students and all the teachers who appear in the show are invited, and we take over an upstairs room that has a square bar and its own six-alley bowling area, pool tables, and TV screens. It’s a spectacular place for a party, but not for the speeches and a screening that are central to our event. Downstairs, the main bowling alley is full of people whooping it up, and the sound reverberates through the walls. Every time someone bowls a strike the cheers explode up the stairwell, drowning out our festivities. The venue seems a perfect metaphor for our whole production, I think.

The A&E executive who has just decided to cut us off at the knees hardly notices the noise barrier. But the students, parents, and teachers have to strain to hear him over the din. They’ve been promised that we’ll view the first episode tonight, and they’re eager to get on with it. Ms. Carroll, the only one allowed to see the footage as it was cut, is so happy with the results that she’s brought along Assistant Principals Sharon McCloskey and Peggy DeNaples. They’re almost as excited as the kids to see themselves on TV.

As the executive drones on, I look around and notice our show runner in the corner talking with another exec. The show runner is the director who sets a series’ tone and is responsible for the day-to-day shooting and flow of the production. I had a hand in hiring him back in August, and he seemed perfect, but then we began to pull in opposite directions.

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