By Peter Slevin, The New Yorker, October 18, 2021
Phyllis Ford-France didn’t know what to expect when the doors opened at Chicago’s Michele Clark High, on August 30th, but she was feeling anxious. For eighteen months, she had been teaching mostly into a pixelated void. “They were not really online. They just turned on their avatars, and they would go away,” she said. But, when the students arrived, they couldn’t get enough of her. Now, several times a day, just before the bell rings to start class, a gaggle gathers outside Room 130, where Ford-France, the ninth-grade history teacher, smiles and returns their energetic hugs. As current students press through the doorway to take their seats, they often find one or two of their predecessors sitting at desks near the back of the room, waiting to see when the teacher will spot them and shoo them, laughing, into the hall.
In the first days of the school year, Ford-France mixed brainteasers and getting-to-know-you games with messages designed to show that she recognizes what the students have endured. She also asked each of the ninth graders to write an autobiography. “I want to know everything about you,” she said. “Your first kiss. Your first edible. Your first drink.” What she got back rattled her, even after eighteen years at Michele Clark. “A brother getting killed or a father getting killed, or a mom and dad in jail, or how they use substances to cope,” she told me. “What truly is mind-boggling is that, in spite of their challenges, they’re still coming to school.”
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