I used to work at a tutoring center on a small private college campus in Westchester, NY several years ago. Our offices were a safe space that students visited for help with writing papers, coursework, math, ESL. We hired several peer and professional tutors every semester to provide such services to our student body, and very often, I also took on a small student load. It was tremendously fulfilling work, helping students navigate challenging course material or a tricky writing assignment, watching
them come into their own, grasp the content, and produce assignments that met curriculum standards.
That’s my experience with tutoring. Then, there’s the experience of Anisha Lakhani, a former teacher whose novel “Schooled” was just published by Hyperion this summer. She taught (and was even the Middle School English Chair) at the high-profile NYC private school Dalton for a decade, but quit last year following her disillusionment with the culture of cheating in which she found herself.
Lakhani was raking in the dough (over 200 bucks an hour) for private tutoring sessions with the children of wealthy clients on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Her closet was filled with the latest designer fashions and she was hanging with all the right folks. As the Jersey-born Columbia graduate sank deeper and deeper into this world, she discovered a vicious inner circle in which educators, parents, and students were enmeshed: Parents, eager to see their kids excel, hired tutors like Lakhani to help student swith school assignments. Students, accustomed to being treated with kid gloves and occupied with AIM, Juicy Couture, and their active social lives, expected Lakhani to essentially do their homework for them. And, teachers, intimidated by parents, knew not to give in-class writing assignments or to even raise the question of whether a paper was written by the student or a tutor, kept silent.
Based on her experiences as a tutor as well as those of her colleagues and parents, Anisha Lakhani’s “Schooled” takes us into the crazy world of Anna Taggert, a recent Columbia graduate who goes against the wishes of her parents (they could have been desi!) and takes up a job at a private school. Despite her initial idealism and desire to imbue her students with the spirit of literary greats, she is very quickly beset with a host of problems: pushy moms, low pay, a rundown apartment, and a school administration which warns her not to make her lesson plans too complicated (she’ll make the other teachers look bad). As the months pass, Anna decides to take up a tutoring gig on the side to supplement her measly income. That’s when things spiral out of control. Her values go whoosh and she falls head over heels with the all things Juicy and Chanel; with shopping sprees; with blonde highlights; and with the experience of being the “cool teacher” who gets invited to Kanye West bar mitzvahs. (Sidenote: The novel also features a desi character – a fellow math teacher – who also gets equally corrupted by the lure of tutoring.)
Eventually, things settle down and Anna looks in the mirror and realizes who and what she has become — and unlike Lakhani, who has quit teaching and turned into a full-time novelist and socialite — returns to the classroom ready to reform her students and herself. But until that happens, readers will get an unnerving look at the Upper East Side annals of overambitious, competitive, and heartbreaking private education. The novel follows in the footsteps of books like “The Nanny Diaries” which provide the insider/outsider point of view. In fact, by the end of this week, movie rights will be sold. And though it’s not literary fiction by any means, it is an intriguing sociological study into a culture of cheating with a dash of pedagogy and activism thrown in.
“I thought it was time someone spoke out. Yes, certainly there were many hardworking students and decent families, but so, so much cheating is occurring and it needed to be exposed.” Lakhani told me in our e-mail Q&A which follows below the fold. Maybe parents and teachers alike will cull some advice from this morality tale from someone who knows what it’s like to walk in their shoes. I certainly hope some conversations about reform emerge from this book, or else it will be just a fictionalized navel-gazing venture.
Q. “Schooled” is a thinly veiled fictionalized version of your own experience as a teacher and a tutor. Agree? Disagree?
A. Schooled is based on my experiences, but I was absolutely not as easily corrupted or as naive as Anna. For 
example, my protagonist only teaches for one year. I taught for almost a decade, got my Masters (at TC!) and was Middle School English Chair. So in that regard, I both agree and disagree. Many of Anna’s stories are my own, but an equal amount are stories I heard from my colleagues and other tutors so I compiled them with Anna’s experience.
Q. Why write a novel and not a memoir?
A. Like I mention in my previous response, as a memoir Schooled would not have been as juicy. Most teachers who are also tutors do not want to speak on record because they fear losing a very lucrative secondary income. I really wanted to tell my crazy encounters as a teacher and a tutor in Manhattan, but I also wanted to tell their stories. Everything in Schooled DID happen, but the students and scenarios are compilations of experiences and I didn’t want to be another James Frey!
Q. After ten years working in the private school system, what prompted you to get out?
A. I thought it was time someone spoke. Yes, certainly there were many hardworking students and decent families, but so, so much cheating is occurring and it needed to be exposed. In the beginning I thought making a thousand or even two thousand dollars an afternoon tutoring was a delicious way to supplement my teacher’s salary. It was only when I started receiving assignments from my own students that were so clearly the work of OTHER tutors that I started to feel as if I was undoing, after school, was I was DOING during school. The story needed to be told.
Q. There were parts of the novel that screamed chicklit (brand names, descriptions of NYC East Side apartments, shopping excursions, etc.) and then, there were the parts which turned serious and almost reflected on assessment, educational pedagogy, etc. As a tenured educational professional, did you also feel caught like Anna between the inner and the outer pulls and are you telling readers that this is a typical experience for teachers?
A. You know, I regret using so many of the chicklit aspects - the brand names, descriptions of NYC East Side apartments, etc. I’m a writer, and it’s in our blood to constantly want to revisit and revise! When I reflect on Schooled, what stands out to me today as to why I wrote it is that I think something is seriously, SERIOUSLY wrong with education. I’m not saying it’s happening across the board, but yes, we are living in a world where high priced adults are being PAID to help CHILDREN with their homework. And the most depressing fact is that many college students have no idea that some of their peers are STILL getting tutored by their highschool tutors! Think of it this way - if you’ve always had someone help you with your homework, what suddenly makes you a competent adult ready to do college homework? It’s when the calls started coming in from parents who wanted me to help their college students that I became really depressed and realized I need to tell this story.
Q. You chose to create a non-Indian protagonist who is viewed as “exotic.” Is Anna Taggert supposed to look like a person of color? And if yes, what prompted you to weave in this matter into the novel?
A. Yes, Anna Taggert is supposed to look like a person of color. This may be very controversial, but I’m just going to say it - - - it is my strong belief that many of these “pushes” for diverse students and faculty are actually racist. Not all, but some. I can’t help but wonder how much of hiring a diverse faculty is about promoting diversity itself or attracting a student body that will secure optimal acceptances to elite Ivy League Schools. If Langdon Hall had 200 white, Jewish kids in their senior class, would that have secured them as many college acceptances than a class mixed with other ethnicities? Oh I’m sure there are very glib responses from schools about how I’m giving such a bleak view on this, but am I really?
Q. What has been the response of your former colleages and former clients?
A. I thought they would be furious, but surprisingly the large response has been overwhelmingly positive. Several colleages have read “Schooled” and now said they are inspired to only assign in-class work. Former clients have been thrilled - - many parents said that while they hired me to tutor their children, it was largely out of a need to level the playing field for their children and not a personal belief in tutoring. I have heard that conversations regarding the role of teaching in education - and it’s potential dip into the world of CHEATING - have sprung up as a result of my book and I’m thrilled. “Schooled” has an end because its a novel, but I wrote the book to spark long overdue, and well-needed conversations throughout the country.
Q. Have you given up tutoring for life? What about teaching?
A.I will never tutor again. I will never sit down with a child and help them complete an assignment that they need to complete by themselves. Period. Teaching was the one great love of my life. At a recent booksigning, the principal of a school in New Jersey told me that he would hire me. He said, “You’d be surprised how many school districts will actually view your book and this undertaking as brave and honest.”
Q.I’m curious to know about your parents’ response to your experiences as a teacher and tutor. And, now, to this book.
A.My parents found the book funny on a superficial level, and on a serious level are thrilled and very proud of me. Like Anna’s parents in the book, they were always concerned with how tutoring was sucking the morality and the meaning out of my day job!
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