When Caring Goes Too Far

Phoebe Maltz sings songs of praise to cold, unfeeling Stuyvesant High School:

My own most vivid memory of 11th grade was being called "Number 18" for the entire first semester, by a physics teacher who decided it was simpler to call all 34 students by number than to do anything quite so nurturing as make an attempt at learning our names. (One unfortunate girl got to be called "Number 2," and my date to Junior Prom was a nice young man named "Number 11.") . . .

High school students should be treated like nothing but a number--how else can meritocracy work if the young are not forced to prove themselves? At the private school I attended until high school, an attempt was made at making sure that, if a student cried "I don't get it!" or if her family decided to take their vacation during the schoolyear, everything would be OK, not to worry. No one was a number; each girl was a set of circumstances and difficulties that had to be taken into account when teachers holistically assessed her abilities. I preferred being Number 18.

I started out at the Grace Church School which, while private and quite tiny, was also a school of the old school along Episcopal lines derived from the harsh discipline of merrie olde England. For high school, though, I went to Dalton which, except for the rather large quantities of cocaine being used by the student body, was a pretty touchy-feely, new-agey place along the lines Phoebe describes. Hence, my physics class story, derived not from 11th grade but from 12th. As Phoebe says, "if a student cried 'I don't get it!' . . . everything would be OK." Except one day when it wasn't. "I don't get it!" a student yelped. So the teacher tried to explain again. Still not gotten. Another attempt at explanation. Still didn't get it. Then the teacher slumps into his chair, puts his head on the desk, and remains silent for a good little while.

It becomes apparent that he has started to -- yes -- cry softly and mutters, "I feel like I'm really failing here as a teacher. You're all smart kids, and if you don't get it, then I'm obviously not doing my job right. I just . . . don't get it." He then slowly moved out of the room, not to be seen again until two days later when we next had class. We never spoke of the incident again, but no one ever complained that they didn't get it anymore.