Front of the Class Read online

  Jim asked why, out of all the other choices I might have made, I wanted to be a teacher. Principals never failed to ask me this, and I always loved responding. Somehow, it made me stronger just to hear myself saying the words to someone else.

  “I want to teach so I can be the teacher I never had,” I said. “I want to be a RAH! supportive force in my students’ lives. I … woop, woop! … believe that’s the best way to help children learn and grow.”

  The questions kept coming, and the answers poured out of me. It felt great to speak of all these dreams with people who honestly seemed to be interested in hearing me. And I could tell by the way Jim and Hilarie both nodded their heads that they liked my responses. By the time Tourette’s came up I felt completely at ease.

  I told them about the many times I had explained Tourette’s to children, and how they reacted. “I don’t ever want Tourette’s to be a … JA! ja, ja … topic that’s off-limits,” I told them. “I like to be open and honest, and if a question is too personal, WOOP, I just say it’s too personal and move on.”

  Jim had been sitting behind his desk with his fingers laced behind his head. Now he leaned toward Hilarie and me and spoke in a solemn tone. “I hope this isn’t too personal,” he began.

  I straightened in my chair and told him to fire away. I was expecting the worst.

  “Do you make those noises in your sleep?”

  Hilarie burst out laughing. So did I. I’d answered about a million questions that summer, but none of the other interviewers had asked this particular question. Jim said he was just curious, and I assured him it was a fair question.

  “No, I don’t make noises in my sleep,” I said, “because I’m so relaxed.”

  The interview went on for more than two hours. At one point, Hilarie asked me if I liked Chinese food. When I said yes, though a bit surprised by that question, she laughed and said that when an interview was going well, she liked to break up the predictable questions with an unexpected one. She had three she chose among: (1) What is the best shopping day for sales? (2) What is T’s? (3) Do you like Chinese food?

  Well, I didn’t know anything about shopping and wasn’t familiar with T’s, either, which I later learned was a local restaurant.But I liked Chinese food just fine, and the more time I spent at Mountain View, the more apparent it was to me that I liked this school a lot, along with the unique atmosphere that Jim and Hilarie had created.

  The interview lasted long enough for Jim to see what I meant about not making noises in my sleep. The longer I stayed in his office, the fewer noises I made. None of my other interviews had lasted long enough for me to get so relaxed.

  At the end of the interview, Jim and Hilarie both said they wanted me to meet with their fifth grade teachers, which was a very good sign. We made an appointment for a few days later.

  “I knew from our interview that Brad was a very strong person—not overpowering, but a leader and someone the children would look up to,” recalled Jim. “We felt confident that Brad would be a good teacher if given the opportunity. We just had to be sure we had a place for him.”

  I left feeling exhilarated; I knew there was really a chance this time! Even though the school year was on the verge of starting, it was still possible to get a late-entry teaching job. At Mountain View, Jim suspected that he might need to add a fifth grade teacher to accommodate the new families that moved to the district over the summer. The suburban communities of Atlanta were growing fast, with new homes appearing as quickly as construction crews could build them. School principals typically didn’t know exactly how many students they would have when the school year started. That’s why each year there was always a last-minute shuffling of teachers and a very few positions that came open late. I thought about all those new houses on cul-de-sacs and hoped fervently that there would be enough fifth-graders to warrant another class at Mountain View. Any size class would be fine. Any size class at all.

  The day of the next interview came, and the meeting with the fifth grade teachers went very well, even though only three of them could make it. We all crowded around a little table in the school library while they passed my portfolio around. They noted that I had worked with fifth-graders as a student teacher, and that was good, but these people were classroom veterans. I have to admit that I was more than a little intimidated.

  I called the school every few days, and Hilarie told me to be patient. I did a few more interviews in the meantime, but none went as smoothly as the one at Mountain View. By now, the school year had begun and I was really getting antsy. Patience was never my strong suit, and I worked hard to keep the impatience from turning into despair. I felt good about the interview at Mountain View, but I also tried not to dwell on the fact that no matter how good the interview felt, I was still very much in the ranks of the unemployed.

  At home, my tics kept acting up. Yip. Jerk. Bark. Chomp. I debated whether I should waste time trying to substitute teach, or if I should look for a part-time job doing something else. But what else? Teaching is my passion; it’s what I know how to do. Anything else would feel like a waste of time. I was so drained. When I wasn’t stewing over my unemployment, I was worrying about what kind of excuse to give my folks the next time they called.

  When friends called, I gave reasons why I couldn’t go out. I said I was tired, which was true because of all the ticcing. Often I fibbed and said I had other plans. Later, if one of those friends asked how my weekend had gone, I casually said those plans had fallen through. I really wanted to keep in touch with the friends I had made earlier in the summer, but I just couldn’t bear to go out and field more questions about not having a job. I didn’t want them to know how down I was. I didn’t want them to know that Tourette’s was keeping me from getting hired. I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me.

  Even though I had lived in Atlanta only a few months, I had made a lot of friends. I knew people from Camp Alterman, and I knew people from St. Louis who had moved to Atlanta. These friends introduced me to their friends, and my circle had expanded quickly. Everyone I met easily looked past the Tourette’s and saw me as a person. So at least I knew that all the professional rejection wasn’t from something in the local water supply. Why, then, couldn’t these principals accept me the way other people in their town did? And why hadn’t I heard from Mountain View?

  Then one afternoon I got a call from Hilarie, who said they didn’t need anyone for the fifth grade, but they might add a second grade teacher. She invited me to come in one more time and meet with the second grade staff. Second grade was fine with me, too. I certainly wasn’t going to be picky, I thought, as I hurried over to meet them.

  I found that the second grade teachers were all experienced, too, each with at least ten years in the classroom. But although they asked a lot of questions, they were essentially the same questions I’d been answering all summer. It was as if the summer itself had been a dress rehearsal for this very moment. This was my twenty-fifth interview. I could predict in my sleep what question was coming next.

  Again I got the feeling that the teachers were impressed, and I felt a spark of hope reigniting. There were four teachers this time. Two had serious attitudes, while the other two were more laid-back. They talked about all the things the teaching staff did as a team. They seemed like a fun, closely knit group.

  When it was time for me to go, Jim and Hilarie took me aside and told me that the second grade teachers liked me. They needed to interview a few more candidates, but they would let me know by the end of the week. I drove out of the parking lot imagining myself as a Mountain View Elementary School teacher going home after a long day of classes. I sure wanted that vision to turn into a reality.

  A few days passed—each day feeling like a week—and finally a woman from the school district’s human resources department called. She asked if I would accept a job as a second grade teacher at Mountain View, and started to offer a little more information about the position.

  She never got to the end of he
r spiel. I was hollering into the receiver, “I accept! I’ll take it! Yes!” And with that, the long, intense search finally came to an end.

  As soon as the job offer came in, my extra tics disappeared as quickly as they had come. I was happy about it because they were really wearing me out, but I was almost happier for my roommate, Jordan, because the extra pressure of the job search and the tics was affecting him, too.

  “That summer, every school Brad interviewed with had a different excuse for why they couldn’t hire him even though there were positions open,” Jordan recalled. “Living with Brad really made me see how frustrating the ignorance of others can be. When the rejection letters started coming in, Brad’s head started slamming backward really hard, and I worried that it would happen when he was driving and he’d knock himself out. But as soon as Mountain View had the sense to hire him, those tics stopped. The tics were just a negative reaction to the mindlessness of all the people who wouldn’t give Brad the time of day.”

  For the rest of that day, my emotions ran the gamut from joy to exhilaration to disbelief and then back to joy. Even though I still had to show that I could deliver on my fervent desire to make the classroom a safe and fun place in which to learn—for all students—at last I would have the opportunity to try.

  I felt like a mountain climber who has strained and struggled and finally—triumphantly—reaches base camp on Mt. Everest. A moment arrives when blunt, cold reality strikes: now that the wish to attempt the ascent has been granted, the would-be climber not only has to actually climb that daunting mountain—he has to make it back in one piece.

  WE WON’T PLAY HIDE-AND-SEEK

  WALKING INTO MOUNTAIN VIEW Elementary School as a teacher for the first time was a momentous occasion. Before I opened the door, I took a moment to look up at the United States flag blowing in the wind. I’d seen our flag so many times when I walked into other schools, but this time it had new meaning. It was the flag at the school where I was now a teacher.

  My first day was a Thursday, and I had very little time to get my room ready and accomplish a lot of other preparatory tasks. My kids were already in classes with other teachers and would come to their new classroom for the first time the last hour of the day on Friday. They’d have the weekend to get used to the idea of a new classroom, and first thing Monday morning they would be all mine.

  I didn’t really have much for my classroom in the way of furniture or decorations—not even any desks. During my student teaching days, the cooperating teacher my senior year gave me the last week with her to make displays for the room I might eventually have. The things I made were intentionally pretty generic because I didn’t know what grade I’d be teaching. I had Winnie the Pooh and Tigger items, pumpkins, a spaceman, a big “Writing Center” sign, a huge star chart, and a few other things. These were already laminated and ready to be hung. My cooperating teacher said that when I finally got my own class I wouldn’t have time to make these things. She was definitely right about that. I had to work very quickly to get my room in order. Most teachers had a week to do what I needed to accomplish in just a day and a half. It was almost overwhelming; I had no idea how I’d get it all done.

  While I was busy getting the room ready, the school administration was also preparing for my class. I had forms to send home to the parents of my new students, and information on my new students to read. I also had a meeting with Hilarie Straka to discuss the details of the children’s own transition. Hilarie wrote a letter to the parents explaining that because of overcrowding in the second grade, their child would be switching classrooms and I would be the new teacher. She cautioned me that, initially, many of the parents would not be happy about the move because their children had been in school nearly three weeks and had made friends in their existing classrooms. But Hilarie and I both knew that children deal with change much better than most adults do. The kids would be fine.

  “I knew Brad would get everyone past the Tourette’s and win both the teachers and the parents over; they only had to meet him to see how exceptional he is,” said Hilarie. “And he did bring everyone around. In just a matter of days Brad made people feel at ease.”

  What I didn’t know at the time was that before they met me, some of the parents objected quite strongly to moving their child into my class.

  “Brad was the new kid on the block, and the parents wanted to meet him before they acquiesced to the change,” said Jim Ovbey. “My request to them was: you go up to Brad’s room, meet him, and talk with him. After ten minutes you come back and tell me if he won’t be good for your child. Only one parent still had concerns, which we honored. She later requested that her child be moved into Brad’s class, but by then his class was filled and the opportunity for her child had passed.”

  I also prepared a letter to the parents to introduce myself and tell them a little about my philosophy and what they could expect. I was both excited and nervous about writing this letter. I had no clue whether I was doing it the right way. Only time would tell.

  Later that first day, I went into each second grade classroom and introduced myself to all the students. Hilarie and I both thought it would make the transition easier if all the kids knew who I was, and it did. As I went to the different classrooms, the kids were all sitting on the floor, and when I walked in, their eyes opened wide, as if they were excited to see me. That was good, because I was very excited to see them. The kids didn’t yet know which of them would be in my classroom, so they were all eager to learn about me.

  Due to a combination of nervousness and excitement my tics were pretty bad, so we talked about Tourette syndrome right away. I told them I had a neurological disorder that made me make noises and tics I could not control.

  “I was born with this … woop! … condition and right now JA! there’s no medicine that can cure it,” I said.

  The looks on their faces were priceless. I told them that when I was awake I made noises more when I was nervous, in an uncomfortable situation, or when I got excited, but when I slept I didn’t bark or tic at all. They understood right away.

  A hand rose in the back of the room. A tall boy from the back of the class wanted to ask a question.

  “Do you mean it’s like blinking your eyes?” he asked. “My brain tells me to blink my eyes all day and I can’t stop, but at night I go to sleep and don’t blink.”

  That came out of a seven-year-old. The question triggered the floodgates.

  “Do you go to movies?” one child asked.

  “Yes, but sometimes I get kicked out and that makes me feel sad.”

  “Do you go to restaurants?” asked another. I said that I did and that McDonald’s was my favorite place to go.

  “Does it hurt?” someone else asked.

  “Sometimes the tics hurt, like when my neck jerks,” I answered. “But the noises don’t hurt at all.”

  “How many people have Tourette’s?”

  “Over one hundred thousand people have been diagnosed,” I said, “but the actual number could be as high as one million because so many have not been diagnosed.”

  Another question came. “Do you know other people who have Tourette’s?”

  I told them how I have met a few, and that one, Jim Eisenreich, was even a major-league baseball player.

  “Is it contagious?”

  “No,” I answered. “Tourette’s is not … dra … DRA … contagious. You have to be woop! born with it.” I added that the tics usually don’t start until age seven or so.

  One girl asked, “What can’t you do with Tourette’s?”

  I asked what she meant.

  “Like can you not eat or drink?”

  I smiled and responded that, yes, I could eat and drink. But I also told them that they wouldn’t be playing hide-and-seek with me, because they would always know where Mr. Cohen was. Mr. Cohen always loses at hide-and-seek. I mentioned that when I was growing up and I played hide-and-seek with my brother, he would always find me. All he had to do was say, “Brad, why
aren’t you making any noises?” Then I would think about the Tourette’s and start to bark. He found me every time. I never was any good at that game, I told them. When all the kids laughed, I knew everything would be just fine.

  After visiting all the second grade rooms, I still had a lot to do. I wanted to use the star chart to introduce my theme for the year: Reach for the Stars. But as soon as I got ready to hang it up, I noticed that I didn’t have any tape. I also realized that I didn’t have a stapler to staple papers together. Or any paper for the staples to go into. I didn’t have any chalk, erasers, notebooks, or organizers. I had nothing.

  As I began making a list of what I needed, all of a sudden one of the teachers walked in with a load of supplies. She shrugged off my thanks and said she thought I would need the things. I couldn’t believe her timing. It was perfect.

  A few minutes later, more teachers arrived, pulling a red wagon behind them. In the wagon were more supplies, games, and other much-needed things for my room. They said they had walked around the school with this “Welcome Wagon” and asked all the teachers to fill the wagon with items a new teacher might use or that they no longer wanted. This wagon was literally filled to the brim, practically overflowing with all kinds of things I would need to get started.

  These teachers had gone out of their way to collect both necessities and niceties for me. I appreciated the supplies, but more than that, I was overwhelmed by the support that the teachers were showing by their actions. Then they surprised me once again, when they stayed after school to help me finish getting my room ready. I felt so honored. At first I said no, thank you. I knew they had more important things to do and families to attend to, but they insisted and began in earnest.

  One donated item was a small, tremendously ugly lamp. One teacher painted it a pretty shade of blue for me. Another teacher helped hang things around the room. Another organized my supplies. Yet another fixed a coffee table that had broken legs. Before too long, I turned around to find that my room actually looked like a real second grade classroom.