Radical by Michelle Rhee Page B

part of their lives.”
    The next day Craig Washington refused to stop talking during our math lesson and pinching the girl in front of him.
    â€œKeep it up,” I said, “and I am going to walk you home after school. Let’s see what your mother has to say about how you behave in our class.”
    He laughed and kept cutting up. I guess he figured it was another one of my empty threats.
    When school let out I found Craig, tapped him on the shoulder, grabbed his hand, and said, “Let’s go, son,” just like I imagined Rhoda Jones would.
    We started walking. Much as he tried to maneuver out of my grasp, I kept his hand in mine. His buddies along the way stopped and watched.
    â€œHey,” one said, “there goes Craig with his teacher. She has to hold his hand. Little boy needs to have his hand held!”
    Craig was pained the entire walk home. I, however, took pleasure in the taunting, hoping it might dissuade Craig from taking actions that would warrant further hand-holding. “I ain’t no little boy!” he argued back to his friends. “I don’t even know who this crazy lady is !”
    It was a long way to Craig’s house. He lived out of the neighborhood. Sweating profusely, I knocked on the door. His mother answered. I explained that her son had been acting out in class and making it hard for me to teach.
    â€œHe’s ruining it for the rest of the students,” I said.
    â€œDon’t worry, Ms. Rhee,” she said. “I’ll get on him. Trust me, this won’t happen again. Right, Craig?”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” Craig replied.
    And it didn’t.
    I visited more homes. In some I met with parents willing to help. Others were too surprised to comment, and a few wouldn’t even open their doors. But I came away from each visit with a better understanding of my students and what they were up against. I adjusted my teaching accordingly.
    Once word started to get around that Ms. Rhee was out in the neighborhood, and that I was often the first one in the parking lot and the last car out, even the drug dealers and the older kids who hung out on the corners and stoops started to take notice. I tended to park on the street, rather than in the teachers’ lot. One evening I left school just before dark and walked to my car. I passed a few men sitting on a stoop.
    â€œHey, Ms. Rhee,” one of them said. “Don’t worry. We’re looking out for your car.”
    I smiled and wondered how they knew my name.
    At the end of April, when the monitors from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, came back to my classroom, they said, “These kids are actually learning something. This is not a great classroom yet, but you have definitely turned it around.”
    After the doubts and the welts, I was relieved. I had never failed at anything. For me, quitting was failure. I understood how difficult and depressing teaching could be, but I also caught a glimpse of its rewards.
    D URING THE SUMMER AFTER my first year, I didn’t work another job. Liz, Deepa, and Rose were driving cross-country to California. I chose not to join them. I spent all summer preparing to teach again.
    A few of my aunts were visiting from Korea, so I put them to work cutting out shapes for my students. It was a little sweatshop of Korean ladies. They gabbed and gossiped and made bags of shapes that I could use to teach math.
    At Harlem Park we didn’t have a lot of books, so I went to my dad’s medical office every day and photocopied books. I made lesson plans. I kept Bertha Haywood’s advice in mind and tried to come up with surprise lessons. And then in August, I shoved everything in my car—the photocopies and the bags of shapes—and drove back to Baltimore for my second year.
    I arrived early to set my whole room up. I was big into colors and making the room super exciting. And so I had made all these posters with bright colors,