Am I a Teacher?

By Peter Borghesi

This is a memoir about a man who makes a significant career change in his fifties. He goes from a successful career in the corporate world to being a new teacher in an inner-city public school, a teacher to children with autism. The story largely follows his first year of teaching as he struggles to take on the challenges, confrontations and frustrations of working in an environment so different than any he had ever known. It is a real-life drama about facing fear of failure and self-doubt, and overcoming them with perseverance, compassion, and humor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543915983

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Author

This book is not a discourse on effective methods for teaching in an inner-city public school. Nor is it a how to for those over 50 years of age who are contemplating a career change. This book is about facing fear of failure and self-doubt, and overcoming them with perseverance, compassion, and a touch of humor. The launching point for this book begins with my career change after working thirty years in corporate America to working with autistic children as a special education teacher in an inner-city public school. You will follow me on a journey from a successful manager at Verizon Corporation, to a much different position as a first-year teacher. But that is only the surface. My story is not confined to describing life as a schoolteacher in the hood. This is a story of loss and redemption, and how a group of autistic children helped me find myself.

The stories in this book are an accurate memoir of my teaching experience, though I have changed some names to protect the privacy of those involved.

Peter Borghesi

Teacher of Students with Disabilities

Begin at the beginning, the King said, very gravely,

and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

The morning of November 23rd, 2003, was like most weekday mornings in the sleepy, suburban town of West Caldwell, New Jersey. The digital clock on my nightstand was blinking 6:30 a.m., a telltale sign of a power outage during the night. I’m going to be late for work! I thought. Bolting upright in bed, I wiped the sleep from my eyes and roused my wife, Nadine, from her sleep—never a good thing. What’s wrong? she asked, not yet fully in synch with her senses.

Power outage, I said, and the alarm didn’t go off.

What a waste of sleep time! she said, shooting annoyed looks my way. Then I remembered—today was not a workday for me, neither was tomorrow, nor the next day, or any day after that. Today was my first day of retirement from Verizon Corporation, the giant telecommunications company where I had worked for the past thirty years. When I first started, it was known as New Jersey Bell, later it became Bell Atlantic, and then Verizon. Regardless of what the board of directors named it, Verizon was the company that gave me my first job when I was a young, inexperienced kid straight out of college.

I settled back in bed and reminisced. June 1974. I was about to receive my bachelor of arts degree in English literature from Fairfield University. A misty rain gave way to breaks of sunshine on that graduation day, and the weather fittingly mirrored the mix of sorrow and euphoria felt by each graduate. After this day, college life would become a sweet memory, while the real world—with all its demands and responsibilities—waited in the shadows. For now, it was time to take an uphill walk from the campus center to Bellarmine Hall. Built in the late 1920s, Bellarmine Hall stood as the signature building of our beautiful Connecticut campus. Perched atop the highest point on the campus grounds, Bellarmine framed a magnificent view of the Long Island Sound. It was here, in this serene setting, where my college days ended and my adult life began.

I was the first one in my family ever to attend college. My parents proudly watched me approach the podium, shake hands with the dean, and receive my diploma. My dad was especially thrilled. He was eighteen years old when the Great Depression forced him to quit school and earn money to help support his parents and four siblings. Until the day he retired from his job as an equipment operator for the New Jersey Turnpike, he lived his life earning workman’s wages that were just enough to cover the expenses of a wife and three sons. The long and hard hours he put in for twenty-five years was all the incentive he needed to give his children the education he never had. Throughout my teen years he’d speak glowingly of the opportunities a college diploma would bring me. For him, and others who followed the path of a hardscrabble upbringing, a college degree meant a good paying job and a comfortable life.

But in 1974, the economy was feeling the pains of inflation. Interest rates were climbing, and businesses were reluctant to hire anyone, especially a kid with an English literature degree. I should have seen it coming. On graduation day, the dean called upon the graduates to stand and be recognized by our major course of studies. The math majors, business majors, pre-med majors, and all the others who graduated with practical degrees stood up and basked in the applause of family and friends. But all of them combined could not match the number of English majors—I being one of them. When it was our turn to stand, I was astonished to see the vast sea of English majors standing. I knew then that landing a job was going to be tough. Few businesses needed employees whose chief talent was analyzing the works of Victorian writers and medieval poets.

After graduation, I spent months beating the pavement looking for work in any industry that could use a talented kid like me to interpret the works of Robert Browning and Geoffrey Chaucer. It didn’t take long to realize that I had no useful skills to offer the business world. Sadly, writing poetry and quoting Shakespeare didn’t do a damn thing to boost corporate earnings. Therefore, I give kudos to Verizon Corporation for hiring this useless, long-haired neophyte into a career that helped me buy my first car, my first home, and put my kids through college. It was a nice gesture on their part.

In November 2003, Verizon offered a corporate buyout to hundreds of Bell-Heads, the unofficial title given to lifetime employees of the telephone company. Bell-Heads had the larger salaries, the most vacation days, and decades of service time. According to the company’s spin doctors, we were ripe and ready to pursue other opportunities. For the more cynical Bell-Heads, it was take the money and leave now, or leave later when downsizing gives you a corporate ass-kick out the door. I chose the first option. Two weeks before my fifty-first birthday and with two kids ready for college, I did what hundreds of others did—I voluntarily said good-bye to Verizon. That was a huge leap for a Bell-Head like me who expected a phone company job to last a lifetime. All Bell-Heads thought the same way; it was our corporate birthright. However, by the twenty-first century working for the same corporation an entire career was a dying phenomenon.

For the first time in my adult life I didn’t have a job. Even during my high school days I had managed to earn money during summer vacations. Whether I was pumping gas at the Sunoco station, working as an office boy at a bank, or collecting tolls temporarily on the New Jersey Turnpike (thanks, Dad, for putting in a good word), I was always gainfully employed. Now, however, I was out of work, and the repercussions were unsettling. No longer was I the telecom manager who implemented solutions for the information superhighway. Without a job and without a purpose, I was nobody.

Following retirement, my morning routine consisted of a short drive to Dunkin’ Donuts. Once there, I’d cast an envious eye toward the many sharply dressed businesspeople who stopped in for coffee and doughnuts before venturing out to attend meetings, set budgets, and make important decisions. Meanwhile, I could do nothing more than fill my idle time sipping coffee and second-guessing myself for leaving my corporate career. I coveted their lofty status while mourning the loss of mine. When I had beaten myself up enough, I’d drive back home and pull into the garage. There, next to the cat food and litter, was a weathered cardboard box containing letters of appreciation from customers, and framed accolades that once heralded my accomplishments, the relics of a career in which I had excelled. Once emblems of a successful career, their presence now mocked me for what I had done. Perhaps I should have given them a better resting place than hiding them in a cardboard box in a dusty garage, but part of me didn’t want to look at them anymore. They reminded me of what I had lost. I needed to do something besides wallow in self-pity.

Naturally, I did what many people without plan or direction would do; I acted on impulse. I booked an ocean cruise to the Caribbean for me, Nadine, and our two teenage daughters. Though impulsiveness was totally against my usual method of problem solving, the vacation cruise turned out to be the guiding compass that led me to a new career. While sitting poolside just off the coast of Bermuda, I made a list of careers that fit my business skills. After paring down the list and removing the jobs that had no appeal, I was left with two choices that struck my interest. A job as a telecommunications consultant for a cellular telephone company was an obvious next path, but something else floated through my mind . . . something totally different from anything I had done before. Years ago, before graduating college, I had mulled over the idea of going into teaching, but the thought never grew legs. A teacher’s salary wasn’t nearly as attractive as a job in corporate America. However, now that I was financially secure, the prospect of teaching rekindled a flame that had turned to ashes so many years before. From that poolside moment of clarity, I set my compass on teaching as my next career. I ordered a piña colada, and enjoyed the rest of the cruise.

When we returned home, Nadine suggested I apply for a license to substitute teach in our public school district. I liked the idea and started the process to become a substitute teacher. By January of 2004, I was all set for my first shot at subbing. What followed next were ominous warnings from some of my well-meaning teacher friends. One longtime teacher said, Students can smell blood the moment they know their regular teacher is out for the day, then they’ll draw every drop of it from your veins. That advice was not what I wanted to hear. A couple of days later a call came from one of the schools needing a substitute teacher. The local junior high wanted me to fill in for the science teacher starting on Thursday. When Thursday came, my nervous energy prompted me to get there early—way too early. The double doors at the main entrance were open, but the building looked empty. I heard only the echo of my own footsteps as I followed the signs pointing toward the main office. When I got to the office I saw a stout, matronly looking woman busily loading paper into a fax machine. I noticed a large mahogany desk near her with a nameplate that read: Mrs. Hollender.

Mrs. Hollender? I asked, taking a chance that the fax lady was connected to the name on the desk. The fax lady did not turn toward me as she spoke.

She’s not in yet. Who are you?

I explained that I was the substitute for the science teacher and was looking for his classroom. She finally turned her head and gave me a once-over before turning back to her task. Mr. Anderson is out again? That’s the fourth time this month he’s been absent. I’m going to have a long talk with him when he gets back tomorrow.

From the sound of her voice I did not want to be the one to tell her that I was filling in for two days, not one. Look in the top drawer of Mrs. Hollender’s desk for a yellow envelope labeled 203A, she said. In it is the key to Mr. Anderson’s classroom. But I may as well leave the key in his door for all the times he’s not in it, she said sarcastically.

Thank you, I’ll find it, I said. Nice meeting you, Miss, uh, Miss . . . ?

Mrs. Buckley, she replied. Mrs. Iris Buckley. I’m the principal here.

There was no need to push my luck any further. I grabbed the key and left.

I found my way to Mr. Anderson’s classroom and entered. A plastic skeleton dangled from a coat rack, and the walls were filled with inspirational sayings like: The Whole World Is Waiting for You, and The Stars Are within Your Reach.

Mr. Anderson’s lesson plan book lay open on his desk. The lessons for the next two days focused on the pioneer era of space travel. That was fine with me. Back in the 1960s, when rocket launches were newsworthy events, I witnessed the infancy of the space age. Still fresh in my mind were third-grade memories of Sister Apollonia turning on the classroom TV so we could watch astronaut John Glenn Jr. become the first man to orbit Earth. As the rocket lifted off the launchpad, the good sister had us pray for Glenn’s success and the collapse of communism. I was also watching in 1969 when the United States landed a man on the moon. Both of these events qualified me as a living, breathing bystander to space age history. This was going to be an easy couple of days—right?

I reviewed the lesson plan three times to be sure that I covered everything Mr. Anderson wanted and was about to study it a fourth time when students began trickling into the classroom. Some traveled in groups, some alone, but all had their eyes glued to their cell phones. Almost every kid was either sending or receiving a text message. Within a few seconds of crossing the threshold, a student who appeared older than the rest broke away from his phone long enough to notice that I was standing behind the teacher’s desk.

Hey! he yelled to no one and everyone. "We got a sub