Books

THE GIRLS IN THE BACK OF THE CLASS, by LouAnne Johnson. (St. Martin's Press, $21.95.) Is it a "treatment'' for Hollywood or a nonfiction book about teaching? It's hard to say, though the evidence leans toward the former. After all, how many education books are promoted as a "sequel to the major motion picture'' or acknowledge an actress like Michelle Pfeiffer, who starred in the film version of Johnson's first book, My Posse Don't Do Homework? But what truly makes this seem like a Hollywood schtick is the stereotypical preposterousness of the characters, which sometimes are, Johnson tellingly informs us, "composites of two or more people.'' Her students, who attend a special program for endangered students at a high school near Palo Alto, Calif., are the archetypical tough kids who just need someone to really care about them--someone like Johnson, of course. She loves them so much--too damn much she tells her therapist--that even the most hardened break down in tears before her and vow to change their lives. In one scene, for example, Rico, a hoodlum with a soft heart--in Johnson's world, all students have, at bottom, soft hearts--drives Johnson to the San Mateo Bridge whence he flings his gun into the bay below. "Suenos con los Angelistos,'' he tells Johnson. Of course, such tender scenes are not for everyone, and so Johnson, a real-life ex-Marine (with a soft heart, of course), gives us plenty of Rocky Balboa-like confrontations, too. She challenges a threatening student to "come over here and kick my ass''; she puts a sexually suggestive student in his place by saying to him, "I'm old enough to be your mama, honey bun. But when you're 21, you call me, and I will wear you out.'' As ludicrous as most of the melodrama is, it must be acknowledged that Johnson does make some good points about the effects of poverty and despair on her students. She astutely notes, for example, that her students are so accustomed to failure that they sabotage their own chances for success, such as when a couple of students scorn an opportunity to work for a computer company. Finally, though, Johnson's narcissistic focus upon her own heroic exertions blind the reader to any possible insights. We can't help wondering: Would we want a teacher so focused on herself to be teaching our own children? "Sometimes,'' Johnson muses about her classroom work, "I'm a better actress than teacher.'' Based on what we read here, she...