The children of Room 227, Oyler Elementary School, are not troubled with small problems. Forgetting a lunch doesn't bother them, nor does hair that's a mess or breaking a pencil point. They have bigger issues.

        Once a week, one kid, whom we'll call Billy, says he wants to kill himself.

        Another kid tried to climb out a second-story window the second day of school.

        One kid bites the principal, another says he's bringing a gun to school, one hits his mother, one writes in his journal about his time at an orphanage. The father of another is in prison for killing a man in a bar fight.

        Then there's this one, taken from an e-mail Nick Corey sent me:

        “I have a 14-year-old in my class whose wife is expecting their second baby. (He) has swastikas (tattooed) on his knuckles and an Aryan tattoo covering his back.”

        These are Nick Corey's students. He teaches 14 kids, grades 3-8, nine of whom actually show up. None lives with his biological father.

        Some live in condemned buildings. Some don't have coats. Some don't come to school because the parent they live with was arrested the night before.

        The term for his students is Severely Behaviorally Handicapped. SBH. Mr. Corey has them all, in one room.

        A year ago, he quit teaching English at Moeller High School to do this. You could say he's nuts. I'd say we need more nuts. More people trying to make our broken town a better place.

        The future of Cincinnati doesn't hang with politicized pastors or ineffectual council members or we media, who eat it up so fast, you'd think our pens were spoons. The future is at the corner of Burns and Hatmaker in Price Hill, Room 227, Mr. Corey's room, where learning is going on, against all odds, and nobody's giving up.

        Nick Corey traded the comfort of Moeller for the potential of Oyler for 1,001 reasons, not all of which he understands. He got tired of driving his used Saturn through the student lot at Mo, filled as it was with new cars.

        He wanted to teach at a school where nothing was taken for granted. The tiny, everyday victories inherent in teaching are more profound at a place like Oyler, if only because they're the hardest-won.

        Kids once left Oyler dropping F-bombs on their new teacher; now they're in class, reading.

        Mr. Corey felt he had more to give kids who had nothing, as opposed to kids who had everything. One is a happily-ever-after place; the other has windows that look like black eyes.

        Corey could do more for the black eyes because, really, once you've reached happily ever after, what's left?

        “Privilege doesn't need a ton of help” is Mr. Corey's description. “These kids need help. Moeller's a great place. But I didn't love it there. I love my job now.”

        He is not some 21-year-old fresh from an elementary ed degree, ready to stop the world from wobbling. Nick Corey is 31. He doesn't live in the city or anywhere near it. He lives in Maineville.

        Room 227 is a combustible, last-chance classroom where actual teaching can be a luxury. You'd better come with chalk, eraser and degree in amateur psychology.

        Today, they're exploring the mysteries of whole numbers. Rounding up and rounding down. Mr. Corey scribbles numbers on the board. His voice booms like a drill sergeant's. He's the boss.

        Aaron, who used to live in the orphanage, catches on quickly. He yells the answer. Mr. Corey says it's right. He tells Aaron he did well. Aaron smiles. “They told me when I got here that these kids didn't smile,” Mr. Corey says.

        Mr. Corey didn't do this for the publicity. He even suggested I just call him “the teacher.” That would be impossible.

        He's a small brick in the wall of a city needing to rebuild itself. Maybe some of the kids he teaches will graduate, work a steady job, own a home, make a life.

        Someone has to help them. It won't be the people talking about boycotts.

        “It's so great when they get it,” Mr. Corey says. He's talking about his students.

       Contact Paul Daugherty by phone: 768-8454; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com.
       

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