The Good Teacher

The course called "Refresher Math" at James Lick High School in San Jose, Calif, (pop. 150,000) is a dumping ground for the supposedly unteachable--and the untaught. The math ability of its students runs to about fifth-grade level; their IQs are the school's lowest. This year a phenomenon startling enough to be called a "miracle" by James Lick Principal William Baker is taking place: Refresher Math students are beginning to learn math. Catalyst of the change is a wiry, tireless 36-year-old Turk named Tanju Ergil, who does not own a teaching certificate.

Ergil was hired on a provisional basis last fall to teach art and math. He had taught a year at Stanford, three years at the Army's language center at Monterey, a year at a New York junior college and two years at a San Francisco prep school, but lacked the education-course credits required for a permanent post in California public schools. Within days after he showed up, he startled faculty and students.

First, he proved to be a relative rarity among high school art teachers--an able artist. Said one student: "We never had an art teacher who could really draw before." Next, he roused the slow learners in his math course from their vegetable torpor. His method: "I told them that they had to work hard because in order for me to feel a dignity in my work I had to accomplish something, and that something was to teach them math. I said I was very interested in not wasting my time. At first they didn't believe me. They were accustomed to not doing their homework and having the teacher say, 'All right, that's a zero.' But I made an issue out of it. I embarrassed them."

More About Everything. When some of his students refused to be roused, Ergil announced that he would wrestle any boy who did not turn in homework. Half a dozen or so of the huskier kids took him up. The slightly built (5 ft. 9 in., 145 Ibs.) teacher marched them to the gym, convinced them in successive falls of the importance of hard study. Ergil's qualifications for teaching, it turned out, included wrestling for his alma mater, the University of Istanbul. Other qualifications of Liberal Artist Ergil, now a U.S. citizen: two years of pre-med training, three years of political science and law, a master's degree from Stanford in French literature.

With rough stuff and great patience, Ergil teaches his slow learners math, and in the bargain teaches them something of self-respect. Said one newly awakened child: "I want .to learn more about everything." When Ergil persuaded school officials to let him try to teach his backward youngsters algebra next year, there were twice as many volunteers from the slow learners as he could handle. Said Principal Baker-of the algebra project: "I don't believe it can be done, but if anyone can do it, he can." With an eye to state programs for low-IQ children, he added: "If he does, it is going to upset a lot of applecarts."

Squeeze the Lemon. Not all of Teacher Ergil's innovations have been made in the slow youngsters' math class. To bright students who complain about the quality of their classes, he advises, "First squeeze your teacher as you would a lemon, and when there is no more lemon juice, then you can complain. I don't know a single teacher in this school who has been squeezed of what he knows." Two months ago, a group of college prep students pestered Ergil to play lemon. Result: twice a week, after school hours, he conducts a seminar in philosophy. Ergil gets no added pay for the course, and students get no course credit, but attendance is large, even on afternoons when the baseball team plays at home. A Mexican farm laborer's son assessed the seminar: "Everywhere else people tell you what to think. In other classes, reasons are given out of a book. Here, I get them out of myself."

Principal Baker calls the rigid certification requirements that block Ergil's advancement "ridiculous," meanwhile can only rehire his teaching phenomenon in a temporary post. Uncertified Teacher Ergil drives into San Francisco two nights a week to take education courses, will have to plow through instruction in such matters as "Mental Hygiene and Personality Development" before he gets his certificate, probably in January. Tired, and a little vexed, he said last week: "I feel in the teaching profession you do not have money, but you do have integrity of the mind. You do not have to compromise with knowledge. But now I am forced to do so. A teacher should be judged only on the students he turns out."

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