by S. T. Macnamara, ALB '02

S. T. Macnamara, ALB '02

Among an undistinguished cluster of concrete, mid 70s buildings exists one of Boston's many public high schools. For someone walking along its abutting boulevard, crossing the street is a risk due to wide lanes and locals who do not hesitate to lurch ahead before the light turns green. At 7:05 in the morning the best strategy for traversing the six lanes has struck me as a moral compromise. I associate myself with a group of hooded and whooping teens, many of whom sport do-rags and other accoutrements of youthful defiance. When they cross, I cross; and they seldom use the crosswalk, which, of course, is the compromise. Cars slow and horns blare. I travel with the group, even as I am a foot taller than most of the girls and even some of the boys. Spanish, Haitian Creole, and English curses stream toward the cars. The boys are less threatening than they are jocular in their abuse, and I ignore it. Already building up my defenses against disillusionment early in the morning, I smile to myself knowing that another day of teaching is about to begin.

Less than a mile away from this intersection reside the marble columns and manicured lawns of Harvard Medical School. Adjacent to these sits Mass Art, another institution that epitomizes the talent and passion that feels so absent here. One block over is Boston Latin, the renowned exam school, and two blocks farther, just beyond one of the nation's best hospitals, is a private girls' preparatory school where nearly half of each class earn early admission to an ivy-league college. I know these places, and yet early in the morning they feel much farther away than a mere 15-minute walk. For my students the separation is more than a temporary geographical and psychological gulf; it is a socioeconomic chasm.

Teachers at Madison Park Vocational High School are a varied assortment including ambivalent 30-somethings and 50-ish veterans. Some are still enthusiastic after 30 years in the profession, while others are visibly bored and frustrated. Some are looking for a way out, tired of teaching an endless stream of students whom they cannot manage. Punishment and reward seem not to exist in this place where reading ability is often at a first-grade level and simple subtraction cannot be accomplished without a calculator. Both the students and the staff have replaced optimism with resignation. There is a tacit acknowledgement that considerable time is lost everyday. The teachers know that they are not teaching enough and the students know that they are not learning enough. From my perspective as a tutor it is hard to say who is to blame.

One fact is clear, however. The disparity between inner-city schools and the schools of more affluent neighborhoods is real. The expectation levels and overall success of students at different high schools is widely disparate. In the past four years I have had the opportunity to tutor at both Boston Latin and Madison Park. While both draw students from the Boston area, the two schools sit in lamentable contrast. The much-debated MCAS test serves as a simple measuring stick. While Latin's students pass the test in record numbers, cornering the market on some of the highest scores in the Commonwealth, Madison's students are failing at a record rate. Fully 99 percent of Latin's students pass the test on the first attempt, and yet an astounding 95 percent of Madison's students have failed both the verbal and the math portions of the test after repeated attempts. There are few stopgap measures to rectify this shortcoming and it is widely acknowledged that something much more fundamental needs to be addressed regarding the educational system's unfair treatment of low-income students.

One program that does attempt to create greater opportunity for students is GEAR UP. The GEAR UP program, which stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, is a federally funded Department of Education program with the goal of increasing the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in post secondary education. Harvard is one of ten colleges and universities that make up the GEAR UP Boston Project. At Harvard, GEAR UP is a collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Office of Government, Community, and Public Affairs.

I have been working with this program during the past semester and have seen improvements in the ninth and tenth graders with whom I have worked, but the obstacles to college admission here are considerable. With a tracking system that ushers students into fields such as carpentry, auto mechanics, cosmetology, and allied health, the school offers little for students who would like to go on to college. With a curriculum that has Algebra II as its highest math class, even the best students will find it difficult to gain admission to college. There is little in the way of real science instruction and there is no foreign language requirement. Moreover, only a few students take the SAT. The reality is this: if the MCAS is too difficult to pass, then the SAT is also too difficult.

The semester will conclude at the end of June and most of my students will move onto the 11th grade in spite of poor grades and low literacy and math skills. They will have four more opportunities to pass the MCAS, and if they do not pass they will not graduate from Madison Park. So far most of my students are choosing to ignore this reality. One student told me, "you're white and I'm black. You come here from Harvard and think you can change things. I'm telling you that the system is unfair. You help me and maybe I go to college, but look around. Look at this place. This doesn't happen in Brookline. The color of your skin is everything. They don't care. What's the point, you know?" It is listening to kids like him that make me keep tutoring. Even if I do not have the answers, I do believe that listening to this frustration is a start. As I have worked with him I have seen some subtle changes. He is turning in more of his assignments. He is taking more responsibility for his work. He is showing me his anger instead of expressing it as boredom. He is right, though. The kids at Brookline High do have more resources than the students at Madison Park. Harvard and places like it remain very far away. The tutors who make the commute over to Madison Park are constructing a bridge between a world of neglect and a world of opportunity.

Last week I worked with a student who was reading excerpts from the Odyssey . We talked about Odysseus and the idea that the reality of our lives is mingled with our desire for something more complete. I spoke to him about a man who is lost and yet in the midst of chaos finds his way home by telling stories. Odysseus creates an identity. We talked about Eminem's movie 8 Mile and how sometimes the journey from one place to another is a lifetime's work. When I told him about Circe and temptation, I did not need to elaborate on the sexual subtext. He reflected for a while and stared into the book. Finally he responded, "Ya, he went to the beach every morning and cried because he wanted his wife, not Circe." The bell rang and I said that I would see him next week.

This is an example of the meaningful rapport that tutors can develop with students and is perhaps the reason why we enjoy the work. Admittedly, the experience we have is different from what the teachers experience. As a tutor I can sit one-on-one with a student. Teachers rarely have this luxury. My view of Madison Park is not pessimistic, but I do wonder what it will take to create a successful and engaging learning environment. Loud and unruly classrooms are no places to learn and yet this is what these kids experience everyday. Time with a tutor is often their only reprieve.

Macnamara was selected as a finalist for the Massachusetts Institute of New Teachers (MINT) program in the upcoming summer. (See CARC Panel: Preparing for a Career in Teaching for more information about the MINT program.)