David Vincent Excerpts

He's annoyed only when another teacher who stops by tries to feed them the answers. If teachers jump in too soon, he says later, it drains students' confidence, shuts them down.

He waits instead. As long as it takes. Too many times, he says, teachers will accept an answer of "I don't know," and move on.

Not Vinson. He won't even let students say, "I don't know." That's kidspeak, he says, for "leave me alone." And he doesn't let students disappear like that in his room.

"I'm proud of you for coming in," he tells Wilber as they leave. "Are you proud of you?"

"Yeah," Wilber says.

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Vinson grew up in Spokane as one of the few African-American students in his schools. He knows what it's like to be different. And in junior high, he says, his grades were high but he "lived" in the principal's office. Bad attitudes don't faze him. It's his job, he says, to outlast whatever defenses students put up.

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Vinson savors the successes, but says it's been a tough year. He laments how many of his students aren't making it — more this year than in all of his other 20 years of teaching combined. He knows that's largely because many students skip class a lot. Still, he can't help but feel that if they fail, he fails.

He recently joined a school committee that's looking at ways to improve attendance. He volunteered this semester to teach freshmen who failed most of their classes last term. Until the very last weeks of the year, he called parents every time a student cut his class — even if they never call back.

Any student who enters his classroom is his business. Like Edgar, who shows up one afternoon with Elmer's brother to wait while Elmer finishes a paper. Edgar brags about his bad grades, although he also says he plans to start anew in the fall.

Vinson seizes on that.

"Why not tomorrow?" he challenges. "Work on the new you now."

"I can't."

"Yeah, you can."

They keep bantering back and forth. Vinson tries humor. He pretends that Edgar is 39, has a teenage daughter, and is still in ninth-grade English alongside her. "I know," Edgar says. "It's crazy. I'm going to graduate some year."

"Kids," he says, "need to know they matter."

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A few days later, good news. Wilber is back again.

He says he feels like another person — "one who cares." He returned, he says, because of Mr. V. "He told me I was worth it."

But the new Wilber is short-lived. A few days later, he's AWOL again. Vinson sighs. When Wilber does the work, he does well. But if he doesn't show up ...

All he can do now, Vinson says, "is remain loyal and supportive of him. Make sure when he's here that I'm glad to see him. And when he falls, help him get back up."