A&E TV presents TEACH TONY DANZA. Danza struggles to make an unexpected and dramatic career shift but he’s also giving back to the community by teaching 10th grade English at an inner-city high school. The school is a true mix of different socio-economic classes among the students – challenging him to find ways to connect with students across a variety of backgrounds. It’s a tough crowd….will he succeed in being a positive role model for these kids?
The seven episode series premieres on Friday, October 1st at 10PM/9C.
Synopsis:
Long before his iconic acting career, which includes roles in “Taxi” and “Who’s The Boss,” Tony Danza received a degree in History Education. During the 2009-2010 school year, he took on his most challenging and rewarding role yet as he stepped into the classroom as a full-time teacher at Philadelphia’s Northeast High School . “Teach: Tony Danza” follows the first year-teacher as he instructs a 10th-grade English class with 26 students in back-to-back 45-minute periods.
The series will look at the challenges Danza faced and the rewards he experienced as a first-year high school teacher. Under the watchful eye of Northeast Principal Linda Carroll and in-classroom teaching coach David Cohn, Danza applied incredible creativity and ceaseless dedication in his day-to-day tasks of planning lessons and executing them in the classroom, administering quizzes and exams, grading homework, engaging in small learning communities with other faculty, and meeting with parents.
Upcoming episodes -
“BACK TO SCHOOL” - Friday, October 1 at 10/9C
Mr. Danza arrives at Northeast High School in Philadelphia and meets most of the faculty, including his teaching advisor, David Cohn, and ball-busting principal, Linda Carroll, who warns Mr. Danza that if he screws up, he’s out. On the first day of school, he meets his diverse class of students, but soon learns that teaching is harder than he realized when one student questions whether or not Mr. Danza is qualified to be teaching anything. And in an attempt to bond with two of his students on the football team, he becomes an assistant coach. He then realizes he knows far less about coaching football than teaching English and questions whether or not he made a mistake becoming a teacher.
“TESTED” - Friday, October 8 at 10/9C
After half the class fails their first quiz on “Of Mice and Men,” Mr. Danza fears that most of his students aren’t doing their work. As a result, he risks legal repercussions when he denies three of his “special needs” students the use of the resource room because he thinks they’re being lazy. And to make matters worse, Mr. Danza’s brightest student wants to drop out of his English class because he isn’t being challenged enough. Pushed to the limit, Tony breaks down in tears.
Some great links to check out more info and cool stuff on it:
Teach Tony Danza official page on A&E
Teach Tony Danza Facebook Destination
To see the full sneak peak
