Tony Danza reflects on a year in a Northeast High classroom for 'Teach'

"I know you kids signed up for this . . . but you didn't sign away your 10th grade," he said. "It's very important that you learn, you know, '[Of] Mice and Men' and the elements of plot and the who, what and why if someone's a hero, or a flawed hero and 'Mockingbird' and 'Julius Caesar,' it's important that you learn that. And just because we're doing a TV show, that doesn't excuse us. We can't make a game out of this."

Tenth grade was important, he said, because it's "your turning point."

"One of my big lessons was . . . get smart early. Don't get smart late. Don't wait till you're 18 to get smart," Danza said, noting that he himself wasn't much of a student in high school.

Decades later, he still feared some aspects of high school English.

"I was so afraid of Shakespeare. Shakespeare was coming. I was like, geez, how do I do this?" he said. "It was the most fun I had."

Turns out "Julius Caesar" could be used to illustrate one of Danza's favorite life lessons.

"Get smart early, right? 'In the affairs of men, there is a tide. Taken at its flood, leads on to good fortune,' " he said in a slight rearrangement of Brutus' famous speech. " 'Omitted,' " and the rest of your life is mired 'in shallows and miseries.'

"What does that mean? What is he saying? He's saying, get smart early."

Everybody's a Critic

 

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