Abstract:

Bill Ferriter, a North Carolina NBCT, describes Baldacci’s story of her experience with lateral entry in Chicago as “evidence that America’s inner-city schools are not failing because of a lack of commitment and passion on the part of its teachers.”

Citation: Baldacci, L. (2004). Inside Mrs. B’s Classroom: Courage, Hope and Learning on Chicago’s South Side. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Full Text:

By Leslie Baldacci
2004 (237 pp. / paperback)
McGraw-Hill
ISBN: 0-07-141735-4
$22.95

Reviewed by Bill Ferriter
Salem Middle School
Raleigh, North Carolina

Working for the Chicago Sun-Times as a journalist in the 1980's and 1990's, Leslie Baldacci had it all: successful career, engaging co-workers, political contacts and influence. At the same time, the Chicago public school system was caught in a morass. Drugs were rampant, violence was common, and student achievement was sinking at an alarming rate. Poverty had gripped the system and was all-consuming for teachers, system level leaders, and politicians alike.

Having covered the failures of the public school system for years, Baldacci made a decision that would change her life forever: to forgo her career as a journalist and to become a teacher. Confident in her ability and convinced that one person could indeed make a difference in the world, Baldacci resigned her position with the Sun-Times and applied for a two-year "Teachers for Chicago" internship which would place her in one of the most difficult urban schools in the city. This book is the story of those first two years.

After initially applying for one of the 100 Teachers for Chicago internships (a program that encouraged professionals to enter teaching as a second career), Baldacci describes her "Urban Teacher" preparation program: Six weeks of summer sessions intended to teach candidates classroom management skills, teaching methods, learning styles, and differentiation. "The first year is gonna be hell," candidates were told, "The first month will be the worst experience of your life." And all, Baldacci thought, for $24,000 a year!

Upon completion of the whirlwind summer session, Mrs. B was assigned to a seventh grade position at a dangerous school on Chicago's South Side. "Do you have any idea what you're getting into over there?" she was warned by a police officer friend. It would have been impossible for Baldacci to fully understand what she was getting herself into, and had she known, she may not have traded in the life she was about to leave behind.

In many ways, her first years truly were hell. Working in a building that typified urban decay, Mrs. B had to adjust and adapt to circumstances that most professionals would never imagine. "My desk had four drawers," she wrote, "My chair was broken. The cupboards were full of junk I would never use, coated with years of dust...There were forty desks, which seemed excessive. There weren't enough electrical plugsŠA huge chunk of blackboard, ancient, heavy slate, jagged and lethal, lunged forward behind the screen, threatening to slash right through it...Behind the maps were unsightly chalk boards ruined by years of wear and subsequent efforts to cover them with contact paper and other sticky stuff. What a mess." Books were dated at best and non-existent at worst. Even basic materials were purchased at her own expense.

When her first class of students arrived, Baldacci was taken by surprise yet again. "They were horrible," she writes. "Horrible! It was a freaking nightmare. I had never seen kids act like that in a classroom with an adult present." Worn out, disillusioned, and seemingly defeated, Mrs. B survived in a state of constant exhaustion.

But something strange was happening. Mrs. B was growing attached to these children who were seemingly throwaways to the world. She was driven by a deep desire to see them succeed, even in the face of the amazing obstacles that life had thrown their way. She was moved by and committed to them. "Leaving school to walk home after gunfire had spit bullets through the neighborhood...they were my role models. As long as they kept coming to school, so would I."

While other interns dropped out of the TFC program at alarming rates, Baldacci continued. Without the support of a mentor or her administration, her work was one of the greatest challenges of her life but occasional joys kept her going. Seeing students take pride in their work and their classmates, watching them grow as a group, feeling their accomplishments even when small, she was making a differenceŠand she loved it!

Baldacci's story continues in an engaging prose that brings her students and co-workers to life and is both an inspiration and a tragedy. We see into a world where love and determination can make a difference—where one committed individual can touch lives and change futures. Knowing that Mrs. B is still teaching in Chicago leaves readers with a sense of hope that perhaps our inner-city students aren't being left behind.

But readers are also left to wonder how well our country is serving its neediest students. Looking into schools where teachers are poorly trained and not supported, where basic materials and facilities are not provided, and where children live in almost incomprehensible poverty, it is easy to become disheartened. How many heroes like Leslie Baldacci, after all, can we expect to hire for $24,000 a year?

Inside Mrs. B's Classroom should be a challenge to all who read it. It is evidence that America's inner-city schools are not failing because of a lack of commitment and passion on the part of its teachers. Urban schools are failing because we're asking poorly paid and prepared teachers to face down seemingly insurmountable challenges. Read Leslie's story and let yourself be warmed by the bonds that she forms with her students, but do not ignore the conditions in which she struggled.

And then ask yourself whether or not there is equity in American education.

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