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Crash course: A novice teacher sets out to change some inner-city lives — and changes his own

As he watched his eighth-grade pupils pour out of a majestic church on a cool June graduation day, Ted Kroeber was exhausted but smiling. It had been a tough year. A boy confronting the shocking death of his father. A pupil with shattered self-confidence combating a lifetime of school failure. Girls wondering whether they should have sex for the first time.  Along with the student crises, the 23-year-old teacher his pupils call "Mr. K" had faced a gut-wrenching decision of his own. Would he — after two years in the gritty neighborhood he felt called to serve — continue teaching?

Kroeber is among more than 150 people who have joined one of Chicago's first innovative attempts to bring a new kind of teacher into the city's poorest, most troubled neighborhoods. The Inner City Teaching Corps (ICTC) recruits top college graduates willing to give two years to help plug a severe teacher shortage in city Catholic schools. After a summer of training, they are in the classroom and — thanks to a state law passed in 1997 — they can earn an alternative teaching certificate at the end of their first year.

In its 10 years, more than half of ICTC teachers have remained in teaching and many others have gone on to related public-service work such as juvenile law, social work or education policy.

A desperate gamble

The fast-track process raises a critical question: Can an energetic, passionate college graduate who has never taken an education course learn to teach well so quickly? And if that teacher, like Mr. K, doesn't know if he will stay in the classroom after two years, is it worth giving him a try?

Those questions are paramount as educators grapple with an anticipated shortage of 2 million teachers in the next decade.

Some educators warn that the shortened training will only put more bad teachers in the classroom. But supporters argue it's past time for a fresh approach to finding and nurturing the very best people for the job.  In Mr. K's case, there was no shortage of passion. He wasn't at all sure he wanted to teach as a career — for years, he had dreamed of becoming a filmmaker — but he fully expected to change kids' lives.

It didn't take long for the first wake-up call. While Kroeber was teaching at St. Malachy Grade School on the city's West Side in his first summer, an eighth-grader was gunned down in daylight at the end of his own block, apparently an innocent victim in a gang shooting.  Kroeber was shellshocked but determined. His pupils would need even more than he expected.

In his first year, Kroeber worked at a dizzying pace. After finishing his summer coursework, he took over his first class of eighth-graders at St. Paul/Our Lady of Vilna in Pilsen. Many pupils at the school, in a poor, Hispanic neighborhood, were the first in their families to plan for high school.

That initial year had its highlights. After hours of advice from mentor teachers observing him in the classroom, he felt his teaching steadily improve. He earned his alternative teaching certificate.  But there were plenty of setbacks. During his first year, Kroeber had to compile a teaching portfolio that reflected on his lessons and pupils. In that thick document, his concerns were obvious.  "They are frustrating as many adolescents are," Kroeber wrote. "They possess that youthful arrogance that was within me just a few years ago and even still flares up. This is so troublesome to me because there have been many instances where I have been ignored solely because I am an adult with some words of advice."

Later, Kroeber was elated after two pupils were accepted to prestigious boarding schools but deflated after one dropped out the following fall.

But by last fall, when Kroeber took over this, his second class, he was ready. This would be his chance to make his biggest impact.   Kroeber set two main goals: Teach the pupils to never fear failure and replace hours of TV with a love of books.

The challenges came fast. In the first week, pupil Jose Bucio confronted a horrifying scene after walking inside his small brick home around the corner from St. Paul. His father had just committed suicide. About a week after the funeral, the disciplined, nearly straight-A pupil returned to class, quiet and sullen. Kroeber asked Jose if he wanted to talk. Jose said nothing. Ulisses Campos was another problem. Kroeber had been warned by other teachers that the hefty, goofy and fidgety boy with the persistent stutter was nearly impossible to motivate. And then there was Julian Cano with his attitude problem, folding his arms and rolling his eyes whenever he was reprimanded. Yet Julian was one of the youngest kids to run the Chicago Marathon, and with little training, because he thought it would be a good challenge. There had to be a way to channel that energy. And how would he inspire Viviana Gonzalez with the expressive brown eyes, who was more than a bit distracted by boy problems?

In a variety of ways, Kroeber tried to build a motivational haven for his 30 pupils. An avid reader, he filled the shelves in his classroom with biographies and books on sports and history. He searched for clues to subjects of interest to each of his pupils. "A teacher's job is to find that thing that clicks with a kid and just assault him with it," he said.

A small white sheet with the red letters "accountability" found a home over the chalkboard. On the front lectern, he posted a Gandhi quote: "You must be the courage you wish to see in the world." On each pupil's desk, he taped this from Frederick Douglass: "Without struggle, there is no progress." Mr. K also gave pupils his home phone number. He treated them to lunch. He coached the flag football and basketball teams. He started an after-school chess club. Kroeber was planting seeds.

Humble lodgings

In ICTC, Kroeber, a top college student, made $5 per day, plus medical insurance and money that could be applied to student loans. His home was a shabby old convent in Chicago's Little Village, where he shared living space, meals and two telephone lines with seven other people in the program. Kroeber's room in the commune was a tiny one at the end of the hallway, just big enough to fit a twin bed, a nightstand and heaps of dirty clothes. He taped up on the wall dozens of 3-by-5 index cards filled with motivational quotes he picked up over the years. One of them, from baseball great Jackie Robinson, was a favorite: "No life is important except in the way it teaches the lives of others."

After the Christmas break, Kroeber had some especially encouraging results. After weeks of after-school chats, Jose was opening up about his dad's death. "Before I thought of what would happen if my dad died and I would of never guessed it, not in a million years," he wrote in January. "This essay has a particular meaning. It's about the change and anger I feel inside. I'm tired of people telling me they're sorry for what happened. I know they mean it, but I know they don't understand."

By then, Jose was an after-school regular in Mr. K's classroom. "A lot of teachers have friendships with you in the classroom, then go their separate ways," Jose said one day after school. "Some people just see him as a teacher. I see him as a friend."

By this time, it was clear Kroeber also had won an important ally in the school principal, Sister Dolorine Lopez.

Because Kroeber had prepared pupils for the Constitution test for much of the year, he pushed hard on one of his dreams: taking them to Washington, D.C. For many pupils, it would be the first trek out of state, except for visits to relatives in Mexico.

Weathering the setbacks

Despite the headway he seemed to be making in the classroom, Mr. K still had plenty of maddening moments. To get his pupils to improve their writing skills, he introduced a "writer's workshop" that had them writing dozens of stories, poems and letters. At least 10 kids turned in obviously plagiarized papers. Kroeber was also let down by Julian's continuing behavior problems. After the principal complained that he had mouthed off to her, Mr. K talked to Julian and decided he hadn't adequately apologized. Julian's trip to Washington was canceled.

Kroeber tried to take the setbacks in stride. "You have to look for small miracles," he said. "There's just lots of disappointments. We're in the business of human beings."

One afternoon after school, he was flipping through a magazine article profiling the kids who had pulled the trigger in a series of school shootings. In nearly every case the killers lacked strong adult relationships. "That's my worst fear for these kids, that they'll have no role models," he said, whispering while a group of pupils lingered near his desk.

Solving the mystery

One cold winter day, pupils filed into Kroeber's class for a science lesson only to find their teacher lying on the floor, apparently unconscious. Jackie Lopez ran down three flights of stairs to tell the principal. The rest of the class panicked.  But this was just another of Kroeber's attempts at creative teaching. He pointed to a coffee cup in the garbage next to his desk and a cryptic note beside it. By tracing evidence, the pupils could figure out who drugged Mr. K's coffee and stole $3,000 he had stored for a class trip.

Over the next two weeks, they studied the crime scene and used their emerging analytical skills to crack the case, then held a trial to prosecute the suspects. For this lesson, Kroeber had another special goal in mind — rebuilding Ulisses' confidence. Ulisses was already an after-school fixture and played on Kroeber's basketball team. His teacher's involvement seemed to be inspiring him. He carried around a thick book on baseball that Mr. K had given him and was reading others voraciously.

Under Kroeber, Ulisses got the first A of his school career. "He just kept pushing me. Man, that's what I hate about him," Ulisses said.

Ulisses was assigned the prosecutor's job and embraced it with a diligence that surprised even his teacher. During cross-examination at the mock trial, his barrage of questions for Ms. Vidal, a teacher posing as a suspect, made it clear he was a changed boy. "I got Ms. Vidal to collapse on the stand," Ulisses said with a smile.

The successes were encouraging for Kroeber, but he was still torn. During Christmas break at home in California, he felt a pull to return to his family and girlfriend there.

A halftime message

At halftime in the tiny gym at the Boys & Girls Club a few blocks from St. Paul, Kroeber, the basketball coach, geared up for a pep talk. The St. Paul team, with a 1-4 record, was crumbling on the court, trailing 26-8. "You guys are forgetting the stuff that you know," Kroeber said. "Eighteen points doesn't matter if you're playing your game. Forget about the scoreboard and just get out and do what you know how to do!"

All year long, Kroeber delivered variations of that message. He encouraged his pupils to push themselves as they had never done before. He forced them to show respect and follow rules. Those who talked back to him, smacked their lips or rolled their eyes got instant detentions. By year's end, he had given hundreds of them. Ulisses alone said he served more than 100.

As the year neared an end, Kroeber spent even more time with pupils outside class. He took them to movies or dinner. He spent hours after school playing chess. He took one boy to his first baseball game. At these many outings, Kroeber didn't talk about his plans for the following year. Most just assumed he would be back. Some said they looked forward to after-school visits with Mr. K once they got to high school.

In the final month of school, Kroeber had a good clue that he was getting through to pupils when letters were delivered to an ICTC retreat. "Mr. K, you're a teacher that I've never had before," Sergio Sanchez wrote, in broken English typical of many of the bilingual pupils. "One reason is that we can be friends outside of school. You're a teacher that may last many year to come. Hope you follow your dream to teach at St. Paul for many year." "You were there when my dad was not here so I consider you won of my closest friend," wrote the pupil whom he had taken to his first baseball game. And this from Viviana Gonzalez, who had so many boy and other problems that she and Mr. K came up with a "code-blue" hand signal that let him know instantly when she needed to talk: "Thank you 4 all the advice u've given me," she wrote. "I'll alwayz have a place 4 U in my heart."

At the end of May, all but one pupil made the D.C. trip.

Mr. K expected Julian to be furious about having to skip one of the most memorable events of the year. So when he came back to class scowling, Kroeber confronted him. He told him he could either end the year angry or gear up for a strong finish. Julian surprised even himself when he opted to take his teacher's advice. "After a while, I figured why be mad?" Julian said.

Despite their clashes, Julian was still a fan. "He's taught me a lot of things that I didn't know before," he said. "He's taught me to be a better person. He told me whatever I want, I can have it if I try."

Kroeber said he learned something valuable from Ulisses and Julian and a handful of others who had defied his initial impressions by year's end. "I believe every kid is reaching," he said. "I believe that more now because I've seen it so much. I've encountered a couple kids who people said were not reachable and I've reached them."

The final days

In the final days of class, emotions were high for the eighth-graders as they prepared to leave the school in which they had grown up. One afternoon Mr. K asked the class to form a circle around the room for "Circle Time." Throughout the year, this was the pupils' chance for feedback. But this time, one pupil asked Mr. K to share what he learned from each of them. Kroeber moved around the room commenting on the strengths of each pupil. When he got to Jose, the class was silent. Jose had faced one of life's most difficult roads after his dad's death, but somehow thrived, earning some of the best grades in the class.

"I'm in awe of how much you've handled this year," Kroeber recalls telling Jose that day. "You really bounced back from a really tough scenario and still kept a smile on your face." Slowly, quietly, tears streamed down Jose's face.

On May 29, the pupils took their seats after watching the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird." Slumping on a stool at the front of the room, Kroeber finally told them his plans.

"Next year, I won't be here," he said, his voice a notch above a whisper. Silence. The pupils barely moved. "I'm leaving teaching," Mr. K said. "I'm leaving Chicago and moving back to Southern California. But I want you guys to know I'll be in your lives as long as you want me to be and that I've really enjoyed teaching this class."

A second pupil asked if Mr. K would be back to visit. Kroeber made the answer a class lesson. This has nothing to do with his feelings toward them. It's about life. He has to move on to his family in California and to pursue a dream to become a filmmaker. "But I will be back a lot," he said. "You guys know how much a part of my life you are and how much of a privilege this year has been."

Viviana, with her wide brown eyes, began to cry. "It seems like I'm losing all my friends," she said later, clutching a wadded-up tissue. "I think it's real important to have a teacher like Mr. K. There's something about him. I don't know why, but everybody feels like they have a friend."

By Meg McSherry Breslin : Chicago Tribune
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134315802_chicago09.html