Teacher, Revised

by ALISTAIR BOMPHRAY

Teachers in the house—raise your hand if you’ve ever imagined yourself as some kind of Sisyphus, eternally pushing that rock up the hill and watching it roll right back down again.

Maybe you can relate to this guy?

The myth itself seems suspiciously like the brainchild of some burned out ancient prof on his way home from the Lyceum. Year after year of puppy-faced ephebes—it must’ve seemed a kind of damnation for the tired old fellow.

In my sixth year of teaching now, each year has been different enough to avoid simple comparison to Sisyphus and his plight. Call my teaching memoir 101 Ways to Get Your Ass Metaphorically Kicked by Teenagers. The journey has been anything but monotonous.

But then there’s the business of getting my seniors into college. They come to me each September with only the barest sense of how one goes about this “college-going.” SAT? Is that, like, a kind of STD? (I’m exaggerating their ignorance here, but not by much.)

Let me explain. Most of my students don’t have anyone at home who can help them through the application process in any explicit sort of way. This isn’t because their parents don’t care or are negligent—they just don’t have the time or the tools (e.g., bureaucratic know-how, reading/writing skills) to be much help. These students will be the first in their families to go to college, if they do go. Take into consideration the criminally low percentage of students of color enrolled in four-year colleges, and you begin to understand the urgency of this colossal task.

It is a task, by the way, that is not spelled out in any teacher contract. Granted, it is the stated mission of just about every failing school to “establish a college-going culture,” but nowhere in my contract does it specifically address the time I will spend reminding kids to register for the SAT, editing personal statements, writing letters of recommendation, doing one-on-one mentoring, etc. Nor do I receive any extra compensation to make up for all of the lost lunches (which is, necessarily, when a lot of this work happens).

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking for more money or more prep time. I’m just saying, This is the job.

Now for the anecdotal part of my post. What follows are the absurd lengths I went to in order to get one—emphasis on one—of my students registered for the SAT.  Real talk.

I.     Mirella picks up an SAT fee waiver from the guidance office. She promptly puts it in a folder where it does not see the light of day until the registration deadline.
II.     I remind Mirella, oh, a dozen times, to seal the deal, will you? She does not.
III.    On the night of the deadline, Mirella attempts to register, but realizes her fee waiver is still in the folder which she left in her English teacher’s classroom.
IV.    Mirella calls me—the first of many “Mr. Bomphray, help!” calls I would receive throughout this saga. Luckily, I’m still at school (because I’m a crazy person and agreed to coach tennis—again—which means I basically live at school during the fall). I hunt down a janitor to unlock the English teacher’s room and locate said folder. I text Mirella her fee waiver identification number.
V.     Mirella registers successfully.
VI.    The day before the SAT, Mirella sprains her wrist playing volleyball, some kind of set gone horribly wrong. She calls me at 10 pm to ask what she should do—she can’t write, so how is she supposed to take the test? I’m at a bar and wisely decide not to pick up.
VII.    Mirella shows up for the test anyway. She asks someone official looking, “Can I take it next month instead?” They make her wait around for an hour before advising her to go home and change her test date on the College Board website.
VIII.    The website, it turns out, is all kinds of confusing, especially for someone not fluent in the art of online transactions. Mirella stops by my room and asks if I will help. She is wearing a cast. Instead of messing around with the website, I call College Board’s helpline (mercifully, you can skip over their computerized system by pressing 0). The customer service rep informs me that Mirella will have to pay a $22.00 change fee. I say, “But she paid with a fee waiver originally.” She responds, “Sorry—no exceptions.”
IX.     I ask Mirella if she can pay the $22.00. She says she can ask her dad, but that he doesn’t get paid until the day before the deadline.
X.     The day before the deadline arrives. Either Mirella’s dad doesn’t get paid or he can’t spare the $22.00. Mirella calls me and asks if I will lend her the money.
XI.     At school the next day, we attempt to change Mirella’s test date once and for all. I enter my credit card # twice, but for some reason the College Board system isn’t allowing the change.
XII.     I call again. Strangely, this time the rep insists Mirella will need a new fee waiver. I say, “But she already paid. You wouldn’t make someone who paid, pay again, would you?” The rep mumbles something and puts me on hold (forcing me, incidentally, to listen to some of the most god-awful pop bullshit ever). After a song and a half, the rep returns and tells me there is a problem with Mirella’s account and promises to call back later.
XIII.    Later that day—still the day of the test date change deadline—I get a message on my voicemail notifying me 1) the undisclosed “problem” has been resolved, 2) Mirella should be able to change her test date, and 3) she must do so before midnight EST. Unfortunately, I don’t listen to the message until  8:00 pm PST, which leaves only an hour. I call Mirella, give her my credit card # over the phone (yes, I trust my students), and wish her godspeed.
XIV.    Fifteen minutes later, Mirella calls me back and tells me the system isn’t allowing her to make the change.
XV.     The next day, I call College Board again, this time filled with puffed-up, self-righteous indignity. I know things might get ugly, so I ask Mirella to step outside of the room. The rep apologizes (they all do this), tells me there still seems to be a problem with Mirella’s account, and puts me on hold again (it’s like an unholy version of the Jonas Brothers, this College Board music). After two songs, a different, more managerial sounding voice picks up the line. She tells me there is nothing they can do at this level, that they have sent an email to headquarters, that I should hear back in 5-7 days. I tell her her day of reckoning will come.
XVI.     I go on to the College Board website and channel my ire into a hastily composed email. Shamefully, I use the term “civil rights abuse.” When I press ‘submit,’ it feels uncomfortably like farting into a sewer.
XVII.    Mirella asks me, “Am I going to be able to take the SAT, Mr. Bomphray?” I reply, “I don’t know, Mirella. I don’t know.”
XVIII.    Five days later, I get a call from College Board headquarters. A helpful woman tells me she wants to rectify the problem with Mirella’s account right now, like, right now right now, that is, without putting me on hold or making me listen to Jonas Brothers’ B-sides or promising to call me back later. Then she drops this shocker: Mirella doesn’t have to pay the $22.00 if she can provide proof that she missed the test for a medical reason. I have no idea why they didn’t tell me this at the start. I’m so grateful something is going to be done that I don’t ask.
XIX.     Mirella produces the required proof. I fax it over to headquarters.
XX.     Victory at last. The helpful woman from headquarters leaves a message on my voicemail informing me that Mirella is registered for the November SAT. I share the good news with Mirella. We weep.

So I guess what I want to ask all of you is, Am I freakin’ nuts? Should I have let Mirella handle some of that on her own? Obviously, I want to give kids the tools to navigate these kinds of bureaucracies without my help, but on the other hand, there is no way in hell Mirella is taking the SAT this upcoming Saturday if I hadn’t stepped in.

To get into college, kids have to jump through a whole circus’ worth of hoops. And a lot of those hoops, as detailed above, are the product of bureaucratic excess. They have nothing to do with who is the better applicant. What those kinds of hoops amount to is a filtration system. The kids who don’t know how to navigate the system (or who don’t have someone to show them how) get filtered out.

This is just another way in which college access is related to socioeconomics and not simply merit. As in, if your parents know how to call up College Board (just finding their phone # requires a little investigation) and put up a stink, then you’re in. If not, see you down at the JC, I guess.

As for Sisyphus, next year he will be pushing a whole new batch of seniors up the hill. Only in my version of the myth, Sisyphus gets a few moments of rest—a summer’s worth, perhaps—once he gets up there. Just long enough to check out the view and maybe learn to play the guitar or something. And then back to work.

P.S. Here’s a link to a well-researched article about the profiteering and all-around shadiness of the so-called non-profit College Board: http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/diploma-mill/2009/05/13/taking-ats?page=0,0