DATE: Friday, June 6, 1997                  TAG: 9706050452

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Education 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   53 lines

MOONLIGHTING TEACHER KEEPS TROUBLED TEENS ON TRACK

Amnesia and amputations and angry bears - oh, my. It's Maryland K. Roberts' writing class.

The topic this night is ``cause and effect.'' Roberts gives each of the seven students in her class at the Night Alternative Program a slip of paper bearing a statement. It's up to them to match possible causes with possible effects, then collaborate on a narrative connecting the two.

``Do we have to write a little story?'' asks a tall boy in a Penn State jacket.

``Write me a little story,'' Roberts says with a smile. ``I love your little stories.''

There are sighs and groans. These teens are sent here in lieu of being expelled for misbehavior. They're attending a strictly regimented program, at night, in an almost empty John F. Kennedy Middle School, where the teachers line them up like kindergartners to walk silently to class or to the bathroom.

They are not your most-enthusiastic students.

``A couple of minutes long,'' Roberts soothes them. ``It doesn't have to be long. But make it believable.''

Talk of high standards and competing in the world economy aside, this is what much of education comes down to: teachers engaging students face-to-face, trying to get them to think, to stretch their minds.

By day, Roberts teaches math at Forest Glen Middle School. For about five years, she has joined other moonlighting teachers in helping these kids earn credits toward graduation, so they won't fall further behind their peers.

This night, they meet in a borrowed classroom with a clean-scrubbed chalkboard, yellow wildflowers in a vase on the windowsill and a sign on the back wall: ``Success Comes in Cans Not Cannots.''

``A dog is barking,'' reads a girl with chunky rings on most of her fingers, looking at the paper Roberts handed her.

``The young girl had amnesia,'' reads her partner, a boy in an oversized plaid shirt.

``Woof! Woof!'' barks a boy from the back of the classroom.

The Penn State fan, worrying aloud that he'll sound ``stupid,'' asks Roberts how to spell ``bear.'' A bored-looking girl looks up ``amputate'' in a tattered red dictionary. Ring Girl and Plaid Boy, hunkered over their paper, have maneuvered their amnesia victim into a jail cell after a chase by a pit bull.

Roberts strolls from group to group, arms folded, a smile on her face. Teaching classes like this gives her a chance to brush up on other subjects, she says. A chance to stretch.

Like her students. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by John H. Sheally

Maryland K. Roberts...

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