Picture a classroom of tough, inner-city adolescents with learning and behavioral problems who fulfill all the crazy stereotypes – guns, knives, drugs, broken families, and tough-guy personas. Now, infuse the scene with a bearded, skullcapped teacher – an Orthodox Jew – whose physical appearance musters presumptions of non-athletic stoic merchants, or doctor/landlord/lawyer-types. This scenario fascinated me in a dreadful sort of way. I was this teacher.
It was probably the Good Lord's sense of humor that brought me to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community School in Buffalo, NY. My only question was: Why me?
Years earlier, if I had changed a few courses, met different people, or taken alternate routes while commuting, I could easily have fulfilled a more conventional Jewish role such as becoming a fine pediatrician with a nice, successful practice, or attaining the moniker, "My-son-the-CPA." In truth, making a tough-but-honest living as a sanitation worker seemed more inviting than acclimating to life as a special education teacher in the inner-city. You gotta be flippin' kidding me!
But here I was, smack-dab in the middle of what promised to be a dramatic clash of cultures: White vs. Black, Jew vs. Gentile, Middle Class vs. Lower Class, Rap Music vs. Chassidic melodies, chicken soup vs. grits. Clearly, the dilemma centered on whether skullcaps and switchblades could get along. Would either of us overcome our biased notions about the other? A more crucial question was: Would I survive?
I had never intended to leave the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, New Jersey to tackle a degree in learning disabilities. And even though I received my training at a local school in my hometown of Buffalo, NY, I felt as if I had left the womb.
However, once I accepted this scenario, I became impassioned by idealism. I envisioned applying my newly acquired skills to the realm of Jewish education, hoping to disperse the cobwebs of disinterest and denial I perceived by organizing some sorely needed LD programs, (learning disabilities), within the Yeshiva world. Little did I realize that the fulfillment of that dream would only come to fruition after eight full years in inner-city public schools; schools that were a far cry from the Manhattan Day School Special Education Department, (Yeshiva Ohr Hatorah), I would later direct.
But my stint in the public school system, (which began at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community School), was far more significant than time spent simply to "earn tenure." It was a remarkable period where I was able to explore the question of whether or not academia had properly prepared me for teaching in the trenches.
Those early years, and especially my very first year, was a right-of-passage that was full of sharing, infused with laughter, interspersed with tears, and leavened with migraines. But most importantly, it was here that I began learning from my students. In fact, among all the things I learned while teaching at this school, it amazes me that somehow, in their own crazy, straightforward way, my students taught me to be secure in my own culture and to take pride in my roots.
As I reminisce about the events that transpired in the Buffalo Public School System, it still amazes me that my students and I actually survived them. However, the lessons learned still resonate. Today, I continually utilize and finetune the educational strategies I discovered while teaching at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community School. In fact, these tried-and-true tactics currently contribute to the success of my pupils at The Quest Center in South Florida's
Broward County Public Schools. I am always humbled when I acknowledge the fact that they were heat-forged in that very first classroom, at the school of "hard-knocks."
I also discovered something else, equally as profound, at MLK: That each and every one of us on this planet was put here for a good reason, and that everyone has something positive to contribute.
It's time we help one another do so.