Most of the Seventh Grade Will Be at the Commitment Ceremony

March 24, 2009

New York Times
March 23, 2009
In Harlem a week ago, a 32-year-old math teacher handed out slips of paper inviting the entire seventh grade of Columbia Secondary School to his upcoming ceremony, where, the names on the invitation made clear, he’d be celebrating his commitment to another man. The teacher, Chance Nalley, rarely wastes an instructional opportunity but said that, in this particular instance, he wasn’t trying to make an educational statement. “They kept asking if they were invited,” he said of his students at Columbia, a selective public school that specializes in math, science and engineering.