Tony Danza–Howard relationship

The Tony Danza–Howard relationship is a sustained teaching relationship built around a contradiction: Howard says he cannot remember what he reads, yet school records identify him as gifted, and he later succeeds with books that engage him. Tony Danza responds not by treating the difficulty as settled, but by trying different ways to make reading practicable and interesting. Howard’s progress is real but uneven; his later collaboration with Matt to cheat on a Julius Caesar test brings their teacher’s investment in him up against an act of deliberate dishonesty.

A difficulty that resists easy explanation

Howard first comes to Danza after class during a unit on Of Mice and Men. The largest student in the class, he plays football, soccer, and baseball, and has no father in his life. Though he likes to fool around, he is earnest at Danza’s desk: “I don’t get this story. Doesn’t matter how hard I try, nothing sticks.” He describes rereading the same page without remembering it and concludes, “I’m not good at it.” His account makes the problem sound less like refusal than an inability he cannot overcome by simply trying harder.

Danza answers with direct instruction. He opens the book and models underlining important passages and writing notes in the margins, while reassuring Howard that rereading is a normal part of reading. To make practice feel familiar, he compares reading with soccer. Howard says he practices soccer a lot but insists that he enjoyed it from his first kick; Danza presses the comparison, suggesting that Howard likes it more now that he has become good at it. The conversation does not produce immediate agreement. Howard says he does not enjoy reading at all, and leaves unconvinced.

Danza’s next analogy comes from his own experience. He recounts taking up the ukulele after a thought-for-the-day calendar recommended practicing for thirty minutes each day for thirty days. At first, playing was not much fun; with practice, the instrument became something he loved and played almost as naturally as a third arm. He invites Howard to apply the same daily-practice idea to reading, choosing any material he enjoys. The story makes practice concrete, but Howard still goes out shaking his head. The scene captures the relationship’s method: Danza offers a personal example and a route forward, while Howard is allowed to remain skeptical rather than being written as instantly persuaded.

The gifted label and the search for a way in

Danza takes the conversation to David Cohn, looking for advice and sympathy. Cohn shows him a printout of students identified as gifted; Howard’s name appears near the top. The information sharpens Danza’s uncertainty. Howard’s reported difficulty might be a serious, long-standing problem, or, as Danza worries, he might be playing his teacher. The contrast between Howard’s own judgment that he is not good at reading and the school’s gifted designation leaves the difficulty unresolved. It also pushes Danza to consider what might make Howard want to read rather than relying only on remedial practice or prescribed assignments.

Danza sees a larger classroom problem in Howard’s complaint. He considers students who can read but do not choose to read, and worries that required reading exercises will not create an independent habit if the material leaves them uninterested. His response is to look for texts that students might actively want to follow. After hearing the class discuss the film version of Twilight, he obtains thirty copies of the first book and puts one on each desk. Howard is startled by its size—498 pages—but Danza sets a deliberately slow pace of three chapters a week, with Friday quizzes and worksheets to help students track the plot.

The strategy gives Howard a point of entry that the Steinbeck unit had not. He laughs at the love scenes, has no trouble with the quizzes, and complains less about Of Mice and Men. Danza presents the appeal of the story as part of the instructional purpose: the students can connect with Bella and Edward’s dangerous, forbidden romance, even if Danza himself finds it far-fetched. Howard’s response is not described as a conversion into an enthusiastic reader, but his successful participation contradicts his earlier certainty that nothing stays with him. The teacher’s method has shifted from explaining how to read to creating a reason to keep turning pages.

Participation and demonstrated learning

Howard’s involvement becomes visible beyond his performance on quizzes. During a school-wide Of Mice and Men scavenger hunt, he is on the team that reaches Danza first. Danza recognizes him as the student who says he cannot remember and does not like reading, but does not tease him; he meets Howard’s grin with a high five and tells the team that the game is not over. The final challenge is horseshoes, like the characters play in the novel. The activity makes the book’s world something the students can move through and compete with, rather than material confined to pages and tests.

The next day, nearly everyone passes the Of Mice and Men test, Howard included. Their answers show that students have understood the novel’s irony and biblical tone, despite the deliberately playful details that surrounded the unit, including fake dead mice and barley bags. Danza takes particular pleasure in the class’s results because they demonstrate comprehension rather than mere enthusiasm for activities. Howard’s result matters in light of his earlier disclosure: difficulty retaining a difficult book has not prevented him from learning its central features when instruction, repeated reading, and active engagement work together.

A similar willingness to participate appears during the Julius Caesar unit. Students translate Shakespeare into contemporary language, and Danza tests them on the first three acts. Howard is absent for the test because of an approved morning doctor’s appointment and arrives later, after the rest of the class has finished. Danza arranges for him to make up the test in the hall, with the classroom door closed while the other students review their answers. The accommodation is intended to let both parts of the lesson proceed, but it also creates the setting for the relationship’s sharpest reversal.

Trust, friendship, and the cheating incident

When Danza grades the tests, Matt’s and Howard’s papers contain almost identical right and wrong answers. The two are good friends as well as athletes, and the similarity prompts Danza to suspect that they have cheated. Reviewing footage from cameras in the classroom and hallway clarifies how: while Howard takes the test outside, Matt texts him from inside the classroom. The hallway recording shows Howard repeatedly taking a phone from his pocket, checking its screen, and writing on the test. The same camera arrangement that documents classroom life has caught the act in close succession.

Danza is angry, but the incident is not presented simply as a teacher catching a student. David Cohn makes clear that he does not intend to use the recorded evidence against the boys; the point, as Danza understands it, is teaching for real. Danza therefore confronts Howard alone after class and asks directly whether he cheated. Howard denies it with apparent indignation. Danza then asks how Howard explains the identical answers on his and Matt’s tests. The account establishes the evidence and the confrontation, but does not provide the outcome of that exchange. That limit matters: the relationship is neither resolved by an easy confession nor reduced to a single success story.

Significance of the relationship

Howard’s story shows the difference between being able to perform and being willing or able to engage. The gifted-student list does not erase his frustration with reading, just as his successful quizzes do not guarantee honesty under pressure. Danza repeatedly treats Howard’s statements as reasons to adjust his teaching: he models annotation, connects practice to sport and music, changes the reading material, and builds activities around the novel. Howard, in turn, gives Danza evidence that different forms of participation can reveal learning that an initial complaint would obscure.

The relationship’s progress is therefore measured in moments rather than a clean transformation: a book he can follow, a team victory, a passed test, and, later, a phone used to exchange answers. Encouragement does not prevent misconduct, and misconduct does not erase the earlier signs of learning. By bringing the same student from candid difficulty to demonstrated understanding and then to a consequential breach of trust, the narrative presents teaching as continued judgment and response—not as a promise that care will produce a simple, uniformly successful outcome.