Assignment Trying for Veteran Actor Tony Danza

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PHILADELPHIA - Mr. Danza was having a bad day.

The laptop acted up. Few students were ready to present their projects, and the group was restless, giggly and distracted. A few snickers erupted when the new reading assignment, the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, was passed out.

"Turn around. Turn around. Put your feet this way," the first-year teacher urged one of his sophomore English students, motioning to the front of the room.

Last year, actor Tony Danza arrived in Philadelphia with Hollywood credentials and a dusty degree in education but no teaching certificate.

With the blessing of city and Philadelphia School District officials, he became a first-year English teacher at Northeast High School and the star of the A&E reality show Teach, which has yet to run.

Six months in, Danza loves the job. But it's also tougher than he ever imagined, and sometimes he wonders whether he's done the right thing, he said last week.

"It would be hard in any case, but trying to do it as a TV show makes it even harder," Danza said. "As a first-year teacher, you don't always know what you're talking about. Sometimes you look like a jerk."

His first week in the classroom, he cried three times, he said. Explaining the concept of the omniscient narrator, Danza didn't get his facts quite right, and one of his students straightened him out.

Cameras rolled the whole time. He said he felt like calling every teacher he'd ever had and apologizing because he just didn't get how difficult their jobs were.

So far, Danza has guided his 26 sophomores through units on poetry and social justice, Julius Caesar and Of Mice and Men. Although he teaches only one class, a double period in midmorning, he signs in at 7 a.m. like everyone else. He submits lesson plans, attends daily meetings with his colleagues, and covers others' classes.

"I just come to work every day; it's not like there's a makeup trailer outside," said Danza, 58. "I iron my own pants sometimes - pain in the neck that it is."

One of the first times Kelly Barton, Northeast's administrative liaison to Teach, met the actor, Danza was sprawled on his classroom floor with cleaning supplies and a scrub brush. (Danza is a neat freak.)

"You have this image of what a celebrity is, but he's not that way here," Barton said. "When I saw him on his hands and knees, I thought, This is a normal guy."

On a recent morning, Danza started his class with a discussion of the previous night's cheerleading competition.

Northeast's squad took second place, and students were crushed.

"Sometimes you work your butt off, and it doesn't pay off," Danza said. "There should be some pride in what you did."

Then it was onto the vocabulary word of the day, compassion.