Relentless Pursuit by Donna Foote

Author:Donna Foote
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780307269393
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2008-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

Samir was not alone in feeling demoralized. Typically, teachers begin to pull out of the disillusionment phase after Christmas. For many in the Locke contingent, that wasn’t happening.

Taylor had spent much of her extended break “awfulizing.”

It didn’t really make sense, because she actually ended 2005 on a high. The vibe in her classroom was cool; the energy was good. The kids were really into her. Taylor found it strange. She wasn’t that much older than her students—she almost wanted them to call her by her first name. The girls especially liked to hang out in her room, and she liked talking to them. They wanted to know all about her, and the world from which she came. They asked about her boyfriend and about college, and if she went to football games and parties. She told them all about the beer-keg stands at USC where students, suspended by their legs, drank beer upside down. She wanted to be honest with them. She decided she would answer any question they asked. Except one. If they wanted to know about ditching, that was another story.

She was getting lots of positive feedback from the school. One assistant vice principal, Mr. Yette, had asked her to take over a twelfth-grade English class from a longtime tenured teacher. It was all hush-hush. He said that he wanted to make sure that all the seniors had portfolios and would graduate in June. Taylor took that as a compliment. The two UCLA literacy coaches also saw the promise in Taylor and took her under their wings. Chad Soleo was happy to hear all the good reports. One of his trusted colleagues literally gushed whenever she visited Taylor’s bungalow. Taylor knew it was tough to keep new teachers, and she appreciated all the kudos, but even she thought it was all a little over-the-top: I could tell them I’m gonna write “shit” and “fuck” all over the walls and they might say, “What a good idea!”

Samir was the exception. He spooked her. When she saw him at the one-hundred-days celebration at the Hollywood nightclub in early fall, he had a drink in his hand and was talking and laughing. Not long after that, he came into her classroom, said two words, and left after forty-five minutes.

She was giving a grammar lesson the day Samir came in, and even as she was lecturing, she knew he’d be tripping out about it. The lecture was too long, and the lesson that followed wasn’t thematically linked. She couldn’t bring herself to read the e-mail he sent afterward. She knew it would get her down, and then she wouldn’t want to meet him for the follow-up. Samir was pretty amazing. His notes were minute-by-minute, and he’d write things like “12:35, student’s head on desk.” It was scary and nerve-wracking whenever anyone came in to observe her. But when it was TFA, she felt like the weight of the world and all the poor children of America were resting on her performance. Again and again she thought: TFA is the parent you cannot please.

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