Teacher Chills Part II: Nicolas

I… hmm. I wrote my last "Teacher Chills" almost two years ago. My final teaching gig was at Roy H Mann in Brooklyn. I was there for two years and it wasn’t too bad. When I decided that I wasn’t getting paid enough and the politics were getting in the way of the teaching, I decided to leave and pursue my real estate ambitions in Smalltown. I hated that I wouldn’t be able to see how certain kids turned out, so I decided to do something about it.

I started a fake Facebook account and pretended to be a transfer student that was only there for a year. I “friended” the students whose progress I wanted to observe and made sure not to say too much. I didn’t want to get in the way of their success/failures, but made sure to give normal advice or comment when the mood struck me. Some of the girls are now young mothers which pissed me off, while others are in college. One of my favorite girls is in the Culinary Institute of America and seems to be doing well. The boys did surprisingly well, even those that I thought didn’t have a chance. For all the bravado and the bullshit they displayed when I was there, most of them are in college now with one in the Army. I’d stop by from time to time to see how they’re doing and look at the decisions they make. It was interesting, and an extra distraction at my security jobs. One of the boys exceeded anything I would have thought, and I’m writing this because of something he did that made me smile quite a bit this week: he wrote a book that got published.

Nicolas. I had his class for two semesters at Roy H Mann before they moved me to 8th grade math. He was pretty quiet but I could tell that he was my kind of kid: smart enough with a love of video games and bitches. His test scores were always in the 75-85 range, but his homeworks were always done on time. So when I checked the Facebook account and saw that he was advertising a book he wrote that got published, I immediately ordered it. The book, I Hope Nobody Sees Me, was pretty short but a decent read nonetheless. It detailed how he dealt with having a stroke in the 8th grade, a year after I left. The editing by the publishers could have been much better (or done at all for that matter), but the fact that he’s a published author at the age of 18 is pretty damned cool. When I was 18 I was working security to pay for tuition and finding new places to sleep in the CCNY library. This guy’s writing books...

I don’t fool myself into thinking I had anything to do with his success because I didn’t. Besides cracking a few jokes with him and teaching him some bullshit science and math lessons, I didn’t really have an impact on him. But seeing him succeed was nice, and a constant reminder of that small itch I’d like to scratch one day. I’m disabling the fake Facebook account in May/June once they’ve all went through their first college semester, as I’m already losing interest. It was, after all, the development that I was curious about. You know, when I left I always said I’d come back to teaching when I didn’t have to rely on the money. While my attitude may have changed, the desire is still there. There aren’t too many Nicolas Sullys walking around, and it was cool to see him and the others develop. Who knows what I’ll do when I retire and have some time on my hands?