12.Robert Ponte — Direct/Cross

ROBERT PONTE: Well, I mean, you get children, students of all types, all personalities, but when you see someone who chooses to set themselves apart, you want to know why. I mean, we really feel that community is important for these kids, to be a part of something, which was one of the reasons I brought him in. When I heard his story -- he came to me, asked me to join the group, he really was undertrained for the group at that point, but he seemed impassioned. He really -- "I want to do this."

I tried to lay out for him why he wasn't the best candidate and normally someone in his situation I wouldn't permit to join this group, not at this level of his piano experience; however, one of the things that I try to do, that the school tries to do, is to engage students in community. And it was clear to me, it seemed clear to me, that he was fairly new to the country, certainly to the school system, that this might be a good opportunity for him. So I'll often make exceptions for students for various reasons if I think that it might be a benefit.

ROBERT PONTE: Well, it's a jazz ensemble. It meets once per week in the evening. It's an elective as a music course. The prerequisite is that you be a solid, reasonably well-trained musician to begin with because from there you move on into areas of improvisation and creation, arranging, and you have to have a good solid set of basic skills.

He had -- my understanding is that he had had one semester of piano class, which really doesn't qualify you, but he was kind of -- I think I used the word "impassioned" before. He made it clear to me he really wanted to try this; he was very interested. I knew he didn't have a piano at home, at least that's what he told me, so we agreed he would use the piano lab at school whenever he could before and after school.

That's a burden on a student, and we discussed that, and I told him, "Look, I'm going to let you try this. I want you to have the opportunity. But to be fair, you need to know this is not going to be easy. This is going to be a burden on you to keep this up, and we'll have to talk along the way. So it might be too much for you." He seemed appreciative of that. You know, he thanked me. I took him at face value.

ROBERT PONTE: Ultimately. We met a couple of times for extra help after school. He was -- as always, he was respectful, but he wasn't able to keep up with the class.

So I made the decision -- there were a couple of -- I guess you could call them warning conversations. I told him he really needed to try to find a way to get in there to make the work happen. As I said, we had a couple of extra-help sessions.

I finally said to him, "Look, if we don't have some meaningful progress in the next few weeks, I can't let you play in the spring concert. You're not going to be ready." This is a team effort. I said, "I want to respect what you tried to do, the difficulty of your position, but I can't put you on that stage if you're not ready. It's not fair to the rest of the ensemble."

ROBERT PONTE: Well, he didn't yell at me, but he -- I guess it's fair to say he glared at me. I won't say I was ever nervous in his presence, but I was definitely not being able to read him. I was uncomfortable. I never knew how he would respond. Again, he showed so little aspect of himself in class, it was hard to know how he would respond to any particular situation.

He glared at me. He was not happy. He argued, respectfully, but the look in his eyes was not pleasant. I wasn't surprised by that, but not really knowing -- not understanding him the way I felt I did most of my students, I wasn't sure to what extent he would -- I didn't suspect any sort of physical altercation or out-of-control altercation, but I wasn't comfortable. I didn't know where he would take that.

ROBERT PONTE: He didn't seem to be adjusting socially, at least to the classroom. I wasn't aware of his situation outside. But it was very unusual for someone to come in week after week and remain isolated.

I'd had many students with language difficulties in the past, but there always seemed to be a way, some touch point, some interface with the other kids somewhere with me, and I never found that with him.

ROBERT PONTE: He did. I made an agreement. This is an elective. This is something the kids choose to do at night. And especially given his unusual circumstances of really not being prepared for the class -- and not his fault, I was trying to help him out -- I didn't want to ruin his grade point average.

I didn't want to put him in a difficult academic position, so we agreed on a gentleman's C. I said, "I will give you a reasonable grade here. You did make some effort, but you are in an unusually difficult circumstance." So that's the grade he left with. He went to his guidance counselor and had it changed.