Review: Tony Danza's 'Teacher'

I'D LIKE TO APOLOGIZE TO EVERY TEACHER I EVER HAD: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High, by Tony Danza. Crown Archetype, 262 pp., $24.

Nothing is more gratifying for a teacher than to have a former student look back on formative times and think, "I'd really be a different person right now, were it not for Mr. So and So." But the idea that Tony Danza, of "Taxi" and "Who's the Boss?" fame, could be that teacher takes some getting used to.

In theory. Because, in reality, about four pages into "I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had," you're sure to feel as if you've squeezed your adult self into one of those weirdly shaped student desks, hoping today is not the day Mr. D drops that pop quiz on you.

There's a streamlined premise here: Danza loses a TV gig, wonders what to do with himself and decides to make up for past transgressions against his former teachers at Malverne High and, touchingly, his earlier, more reckless self. And so it's off to teach 10th-grade English in Philly's hardscrabble Northeast High, a school that has its students pass through a metal detector each morning. Honorable intentions quickly give way to chaos, and he ends up going through a crisis of the soul, against a backdrop of brawling girls, break-dancing students and a would-be Lothario who can't keep his hands to himself on the field-trip bus. And, oh yeah, there's a TV crew shooting the proceedings for an A&E series.

Anyone expecting Danza to mug his way through the year is bound to come away shaken by the man's sincerity. Overwhelmed, he solicits all the input he can get from his fellow teachers. " 'You have to be prepared to play many roles,' says an older woman who's been teaching for decades. 'You have to be a mother, father, sister, brother, social worker, counselor, friend and anything else they need.' "

That includes policeman, as when a student tries to goad Danza into a fight. You think, oh no, one of the cabbies from "Taxi" is going to pop a high school kid in the mouth. But self-discipline prevails, and we see a special, pedagogical kind of will on every page: the will to face a student's horrifying, out-of-school problems, or the will to devote hour upon unofficial hour to help a kid learn to read and, just as important, to feel good about herself.

And all the students do feel good about themselves when they manage to memorize a poem. Danza makes a compelling argument for the exercise: "It's the difference between a pianist playing while reading the sheet music and a pianist playing a piece he has memorized. If you know it, you feel it in your body as if it's a part of you."