Free The Great Expectations School by Dan Brown Page B

grumbled.
    While I waited on the empty platform for the next D to showup, I saw Karen Adler. Karen and I were introduced at the August Professional Development at P.S. 85, but we had never had a real conversation. She also taught fourth grade and was a second-year Fellow, although this was her first year as a classroom teacher. We struck up a tired-eyed chat, starting with how the D train is an asshole.
    Karen graduated with an English degree from Vassar in 2002 and went straight into the Fellows. Her first year at P.S. 85 was as an in-school floating substitute (or “cover teacher”) with an irregular schedule that was so terrible that she cried every morning before getting on the train. She commuted from Brooklyn, making a ninety-minute trek each way.
    We were in the same boat as beleaguered fourth-grade teachers, but Karen's extra year of experience gave her a strong reference point to start the year. She was phenomenally organized and devoted to her students, but also she possessed an amazing, deeply ironic sense of humor about the job. I stopped eating lunch alone.
    I visited my students’ previous teachers for advice. Before the year started, some had offered quick tips like, “Eddie is very slow with math.” Now that I had gotten familiar with my characters, I was hoping for more concrete ideas on how to help or simply control them.
    Carol Slocumb looked the part of an old-guard Catholic schoolmarm, ruling her impeccably organized third-grade class with scowls and systems. I was surprised to learn that she was only a second-year Fellow, since she already had a reputation as an expert classroom manager. I soon respected Ms. Slocumb as one of the most kindhearted people in the school, who put on that tough façade in the classroom because it was the only way to keep the students under control.
    Carol had had Dennis Foster and Tayshaun Jackson last year. When I asked about them, she solemnly shook her head. “Tayshaun. He was pretty consistent until that mess with his brother. Then forget about it. It's a real shame because he's smart. And Dennis is sucha sad story.Very, very slow. I stopped calling home because I knew the beating he would catch.”
    My understanding of the mess with Tayshaun's brother went as follows: The Jackson family has no father and six kids. The oldest is twenty. Tayshaun has a twin brother and they're the youngest. Last year, the twenty-year-old brother molested Tayshaun's twin, causing the twin to suffer a mental collapse that resulted in institutionalization. With his twin brother and best friend gone, Tayshaun decided he wanted to be expelled and started bringing matches to school. His intelligence made him even more of a negative force in the classroom, since his rebellious snickers were more conscientious objections than random grumblings. He drove Ms. Slocumb nuts.
    Stacy Shanline looked like she belonged at Fashion Week rather than Public School 85. She had taught Sonandia, Destiny, and Lito Ruiz in third grade. “Sonandia is a doll. I love her. You can tell why she's so wonderful; her mom loves her. You know Olga, right?”
    Of course I knew Olga Tavarez. She was a P.S. 85 paraprofessional who unobtrusively checked in on Sonandia several times a day. She made sure Sonandia was punctual and dressed neatly. She always smiled and said good morning to me. She held Sonandia's hand and said things like, “Have a great day, Sony. I love you.”
    Shanline continued, “Destiny is such a sad story. She's really a sweet girl, but her parents give her
nothing.
Her cousins are always beating on her and she has terrible asthma. She's really sensitive. Actually, she's more than sensitive. She's a wuss.” I thought about how Destiny made a point to approach me every day with some statement that resembled, “My cousin zipped me up in a suitcase,” or “This morning, my brother bit me in the knee.”
    â€œAs for Lito,” she went on,