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Letter to J., Who I Used to Mentor
Michael Copperman finds that the right moment to mentor usually comes on the way to somewhere else.Dear J.,I’m glad to get the opportunity to write you this letter—I don’t see you as often now, only...
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A Perfect Test
A San Francisco native travels to the Mississippi Delta for lessons on another America.Educational inequality in the United States is easy to define by numbers: The disparity in spending between the...
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Hope in What Work We Do
Even an empty classroom holds hope.Michael Copperman talks about the hope and rewards that come from teaching at-risk students.For the last eight years, I have had the privilege of teaching...
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Why I Hate Bullies
His school days are years in the past, but cruel comments by unthinking teens bring the pain of bullying back for Michael Copperman. I’m nearly home after a long run through North Portland, up and...
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Going Downhill With My Father
For Mike Copperman, a family hike turned into a realization of the roles he and his father share in each other’s lives. “Come on, Uncle Mike!” my four-year-old nephew Maddox calls, pulling at my shirt...
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Because There are no Guarantees
Embed from Getty ImagesSo many faces, in every shade of brown, but rising above the din, from the back of the room, loud laughter, two deep male voices.I still remember the Spring class four or five...
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Not Even Asian
Embed from Getty Images Out at a hipster bar this New Year’s Eve, an ironic antlered deer-head mounted to a wall and lights made from tin buckets hung from the ceiling, a friend and I leaned our backs...
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Stories from a Teacher, the Odds Against Students of the Mississippi Delta...
Embed from Getty ImagesOn the radio, well-meaning talk show hosts, dozens of them, ask me well-intentioned questions about my book, Teacher. The questions aggregate and expand, swirl about me.This...
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Schools of Hope
Embed from Getty Images Fall has come and gone, and Winter beckons. Here in the Willamette Valley, that means the grass is yellow and parched, the Himalayan blackberries have fallen from the thorny...
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Letters from the Children of the Future
Embed from Getty ImagesI am grading the final papers of my final intro comp class for low-income, first generation college students—mostly immigrants and blacks and natives.We read Ta Nehisi Coates’...
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The Day I Was Called a Cracker
Embed from Getty ImagesI did everything I could to keep Felicia in the classroom, even as her behavior frequently escalated beyond toleranceMy second year teaching in the rural black public schools of...
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