faced, some of what she felt at the time, and strategies she employed to
transform the classroom for meaningful learning for African American chil-
dren. The author concludes with some thoughts about the demands of the
profession and what it takes to persist.

Felicia called me early one morning. She told me that she had a friend
who needed advice about managing her fifth-grade class. Earlier that week
another girlfriend called about the same thing. In fact I have spoken with
numerous teachers with similar concerns--chaos in the classroom, children
out of control, lessons that were planned according to university instruction
that did not work for the children in their classes. What went wrong?

What do we all have in common? We are all young, African American,
beginning teachers employed in the inner city, and the majority of the
children in our classes are African American. All of us have been trained
at a reputable university with a nationally accredited teacher preparation
program, yet we have not been prepared for the realities of teaching in
an inner-city school district. All of us are asking the same question: "How
do we educate this population of children successfully?"

When I walked into my classroom on the first day I was shocked at what
I saw. In front of me were a group of third graders who were totally out
of control. As a matter of fact, the children did not acknowledge my
presence at first. Instead, they continued to throw books and paper at
each other. After raising my voice several times, I finally got their attention.
Their attention, however, only lasted about 5 minutes at a time. By the
end of the day my voice was gone, I had been cursed at and threatened
with bodily harm, and absolutely no teaching had occurred. All my intri-
cately planned lessons, prepared meticulously with the guidance of my
university professors, had failed miserably.

Later, I was told by a veteran teacher at the school that several teachers
were so intimidated by the children in my new class that they had left the
school district in violation of their contracts. The last teacher had placed
Bibles and crosses in the classroom, claiming the children were possessed
by demonic spirits. I was also informed that the majority of the children
in the class could not read.

For the next several days I assumed the role of authoritative rule enforcer.
This meant punishing the children for every infraction without exception.
This was not effective. The children became more daring. They showed

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