Browse Primary Sources
VI-"My Year as a Teacher" - Emily Sachar - Newsday and New York Newsday
" . . . After I had decided to leave teaching, and after the school year had ended, I no longer felt self-conscious about looking into the home lives of my students. . . . "
Newsday and New York Newsday 1989-12-03
Postscript: "My Year as a Teacher" - Emily Sachar - Newsday and New York Newsday
"Five of Sachar's eighth-grade math students met last week with a New York Newsday editor to talk about their experiences in her classroom. The students, one from each of the five classes Sachar taught, were: Ilka Bent, Sabura Alexander, Karim Licorish, Fredeline Amedee and Natalie Rodgers. They were not students profiled by Sachar in the series.
Newsday and New York Newsday 1989-12-06
VIII-"My Year as a Teacher" - Emily Sachar - Newsday and New York Newsday
"One shelf in my den has workbooks. Another has bags of smiley-face stickers, and another has dice and protractors. Next to my computer is a filing cabinet filled with puzzles I used in my year as a teacher at Walt Whitman Intermediate School in Flatbush, Brooklyn. "They were my teaching supplies, and I haven't been able to throw them away. After teaching math for a year, I decided not to return. But I still feel like a teacher, and I often imagine I'll go back to the classroom someday. . . . "
Newsday and New York Newsday 1989-12-05
VII-"My Year as a Teacher" - Emily Sachar - Newsday and New York Newsday
" . . . I scanned the rows of students. Scattered about were several dozen who didn't know their times tables, couldn't write a simple essay or couldn't understand a short passage in an elementary textbook. Yet, in less than two months, they would be adorned in caps and gowns and graduated to high school. I felt like I was watching a heinous lie. . . . "
Newsday and New York Newsday 1989-12-04
IV-"My Year as a Teacher" - Emily Sachar - Newsday and New York Newsday
"October 16, 1989, I had phoned their parents. I had scoured their records. And I had read their essays. But in my year as an eighth grade math teacher at Walt Whitman Intermediate School, there was one line I did not cross with my students. I did not go to their homes. . . . "
Newsday and New York Newsday 1989-12-03
IV-"My Year as a Teacher" - Emily Sachar - Newsday and New York Newsday
"Like many teachers, Nobile's school day didn't end when the last bell rang. She took classes after school to work her way up the salary scale. In New York City, teachers must earn one master's degree within five years to retain their jobs, and they must earn a second master's degree to get to the top of the salary scale. . . . "
Newsday and New York Newsday 1989-11-30
II-"My Year as a Teacher" - Emily Sachar - Newsday and New York Newsday
"Mary as a proud girl, the sort who found it easier to be nasty than nice. In those early weeks of school, she had come late to class, scowled at me in the hall, and told the other students to call me 'Mrs. Sucker.' . . ."
Newsday and New York Newsday 1989-11-28