Mista K: Local Author Recounts Experience as a Teacher in Inner-City Schools

John Kaminski doesn't mind that his Jersey City students never gave him an apple on his first day. He'd have even been thrilled if the students did homework and not called him "Mista," the English teacher says.

Kaminski is a native son of Ridgewood and the author of "Mista," a self-published novel about his experiences as a teacher in the Twilight Program, dubbed "The Twilight Zone" by many in Jersey City. Kaminski worked as an English teacher for the program in 2002 and 2003 before moving on to safer pastures in Northern Highlands Regional High School after a stop in River Dell High School for a year.

The twilight program was in essence, a night school for students in Jersey City public high schools (an Abbott district, meaning its operations were managed by the state) that for whatever reason were unable to complete the traditional day school. It maxed out at 12 students, but it wasn't 'a teacher's dozen' by any stretch of the imagination.

"Those twelve students can give you lots of problems at any day, at any time," he said.

While the mission for Kaminski was to provide the English section for students needed to graduate, mostly students around 18 or 19-years old, it was hardly teaching, he said.

"I would only have certain students for a period a day. They'd go home to living in the projects and living with all the issues that that entails. Violence, pregnancy, gangs, drugs, raping. They would go home to these nightmare situations and I would contrast that to my growing up in Ridgewood, New Jersey."

For some students, it was hopeless from the get-go, he said.

"How can they be expected to go home and read a book or do homework when they have these very difficult lives? Parents aren't there, no money, trying to figure out what to do with themselves."

Even with home lives in disarray, Kaminski found most students uninterested in education. He says that students wouldn't do homework, and most were content with just passing the class, not learning. Some did want to excel, largely young single mothers, but they were few and far between.

"Imagine getting straight D's or D-minuses and that being perfectly acceptable," he said.

According to Kaminski, most just didn't have the initiative. And some chafed at his approach, too; they weren't receptive to what they considered a 'white' education, preferred Kaminski teach in ebonics, and didn't feel he was deserving of their undivided attention or respect. The now-veteran teacher says that he doesn't necessarily believe a more experienced teacher would have fared much better considering the circumstances. What they could have used, he said, were more black teachers they could relate to.

In a script almost Dangerous Minds-esque, Kaminski says life was threatened on multiple occasions, a reaction to him holding students accountable for their actions.

He doesn't believe the students would have followed up on their threats, he says, largely because they had as much initiative in that arena as they did in the classroom.

Although tasked with teaching students the required English curriculum, he says there's only so much a teacher can do.

Kaminski himself admits he didn't take the job for its opportunity to reach disenfranchised youth – it was the first job he got after graduate school; his mother taught in Jersey City for decades, and at the time he wasn't certified, so he was placed in the twilight program, an alternate route program where teachers take courses and teach at the same time.

"I left Jersey City because it would have broken me down too much," he said. "When you teach in an inner city it's not about teaching the subject, it's about dealing with all the other issues."

Kaminski has been an English teacher in Northern Highlands for five years, and says he loves it there. Students, parents, teachers and administrators are all motivated to learn and hold themselves and others accountable.

It wasn't managed well, he says. Many of the classes he'd have to take to achieve certification were during times he'd be scheduled to teach. Beyond that, there's "not a lot of accountability in the program," he said of twilight, which has been axed due to budget cuts in many districts, such as the one he'd worked. Administrators, Kaminski states, were looking more at just the numbers to push students through the system and not actually provide quality education. Parents were not absolved from the blame either, Kaminski said.

"There's not as much importance placed on education" in inner cities, as places like the more affluent areas in Bergen County, Kaminski said. The parents that did care, Kaminski found, were often unable to make much impact. Some worked three jobs to put food on the table and had to worry about just making ends meet. They just didn't have time, he said.

Teachers too were part of the problem. Many were stressed, inexperienced and not stern enough to control the classrooms. The administrators and unions were often of little help to teachers as well, failing to provide the support and resources teachers needed to at least give them and students a chance.

"The teacher's union is there to preserve the job for the teacher and not always the interests of the student. For every job, they're getting money. They can do a much better job of helping out education."

Between students, teachers, parents and administrators, there's enough blame to go around in why the schools and many of its programs are failing, but Kaminski says that ultimately for him, the question is how effective was the program over the last eight years.

"You have to question how much money went into the program, how many students graduated," he said, though Kaminski cautioned looking too much into the numbers. There's as much art as there is science to it. 

"It's not all about the check in the graduation box. What happened to that student afterward? You don't always have that data either."

"That's the question of the book–are they better off with or without a high school diploma? Some wouldn't want to do any work but still received the diploma by doing the minimum. Is that really a high school diploma? Are they now going to use that diploma to get a better opportunity?"

Maybe more critically, do the students even have the fundamental knowledge to get that opportunity should they pursue one?

While Kaminski says he doesn't believe there's one magic answer to saving these students, he doesn't think today's approach is working.

"Pouring more and more money into the system is not the answer."

For any teacher considering working at an inner-city school, you may want to heed some of his advice:

"There's more than just teaching. You have to deal with other teachers, administrators, parents. And you're never trained for these things and it happens so quick. A situation happens but you can't talk about it; you have to figure it out and do the best you can."

Teach students with respect. In some cases, just them showing up is a miracle. But at the same time them being in difficult situations doesn't give them a free pass. You have to be tough."

Kaminski's book "Mista" is available on Amazon.com and at Bookends.