Class
Act: Billy Moss
by Dan Ewald
The hallways of
Brentwood High are roamed by pager- toting, Adidas-wearing, pants-sagging
cattle. The high schoolers move down the corridors of the Long Island
public school in herds — but not in yesterday’s categories like freaks
and geeks, jocks and nerds. In the 21st century, there are pimps, hos,
playas, playa-hatas and other descriptive labels.
Hip-hop culture has
fully taken over the educational farm known as public school. But in this
hallway at 7 a.m. stands a survivor — 25-year-old William “Billy”
Moss III, who corrals kids to their homeroom classes. He knows this
building well. Not long ago, he was a student here — that is, before
graduating from Harvard.
Yes, that Harvard. And
after turning down “better,” higher- paying offers, Moss decided to
return to his old stomping ground and inspire the next generation. After
five years of an Ivy League education, he moved back into the house of his
mother, Helen Moss, an NAACP activist, and father, William Moss II, a
former nurse.
“I thought it was
courageous,” says college friend Mary Naber of his decision to teach
high-school mathematics. “The university fosters a certain definition of
success that 99 percent of the student body buys into. It’s very unique
when someone can step outside the understood expectation of what it means
to make your Harvard education ‘worthwhile.’”
Another peer from
college had a different reaction. “I wasn’t surprised,” says Denise
Martinez. “[Billy] was very passionate about his community and … how
he would like to improve it. Whether he was going to go back immediately
or not, it was no question that he was going to go back.”
A little more than an
hour’s drive west of New York City, Brentwood High is comprised of
students of working-class families. More than half of the kids are on the
student lunch program, meaning they can’t afford to buy their own food.
Many are in special-ed classes for a variety of reasons. This is why Moss
returned to his school with a purpose. “I told my boss that I want to
teach the kids that nobody wants to teach.”
Many of those kids are
high-school sophomores, juniors and seniors who don’t know their
multiplication tables. Moss wants to inspire students and help them
overcome the notion that they can’t do math.
“A student I had
last year was a tremendous challenge,” he recalls. “She just didn’t
want to do any work — didn’t think she could do math. I push my
students and expect them to excel, which I think is new. The whole year I
was frustrated with her and she was frustrated with me. But this student
went to summer school, passed the state exam in algebra and she’s now
getting 90s in her math Sequential II class.”
The desire to see
others learn goes back to Moss’s youth. “I used to play school with
friends,” he says, laughing. “I was often the teacher. I’d use
carbon paper and make up dittos. I’d sit down and make my friends do
them.” At age 11, he was running his grandmother’s Vacation Bible
School program in her Catholic church. By the time he was in high school,
the direction was clear. Not only did he know what he wanted to do for a
living, he knew he would one day stand in a Brentwood High classroom as a
teacher. “I did some soul-searching as a junior [in college]. I felt I
had a natural inclination toward teaching. I looked back on my life and
saw how much I loved tutoring and helping people and seeing that light
bulb go on when people really learned something.”
Gregarious and
optimistic, Moss made the most of his high school years. He was class
president every year, a student’s rights activist involved in student
council at the state level, first-place winner at the Long Island Math
Fair and recipient of a $20,000 scholarship from Coca-Cola.
He also spent these
years on a spiritual search. Moss decided to believe in Jesus when he made
his confirmation at age 16 in his grandmother’s church. But he says that
was “more of a cognitive, ‘OK, I will believe in this guy.’” He
was confused, however, by the differences between his mother’s Catholic
background and that of his Father’s mother, who is a Pentecostal pastor.
“Basically, my father’s side of the family has a history of mental
illness,” Moss explains. “Sometimes it has been sparked by religious
zeal. I had seen people become fanatical. I saw them as mental illness
patients who had lost a part of their minds.”
This scared Moss from
diving into the Bible. He told himself not to search out religion until he
reached an age when he could logically think through the issues.
Meanwhile, he observed his father, a “freelance philosopher,” dabble
in other religions.
The younger Moss
answered his spiritual questions at Harvard, of all places. “I didn’t
give my life to Jesus until I was a college freshman. A lot of Christians
are like, ‘You became a Christian at Harvard? Does that happen?’” he
laughs.
“He already lived
his life [like a believer],” recalls Martinez. “He had ‘Christian
sensibilities,’ if that makes sense. It wasn’t like becoming a
Christian meant a radical departure from his personality. But he made a
commitment later in our freshman year.”
That commitment came
out of what he terms a divine appointment — when Moss moved one floor
above a girl who was a Christian. After expressing his desire to begin
reading the Bible, she invited him to a campus Bible study where Moss felt
God saying to him, “You need to come back to Me in a bigger way.”
He had seen
Christianity all his life. What changed? “She didn’t come across as
fanatical,” he says of his friend. “She came across as very
intelligent, obviously. I appreciated everyone in that Bible study because
it was a different approach to studying the Bible than I had seen before.
It was an intellectual — as well as emotional — delving into it.”
One year ahead of him,
Mary Naber met Moss on campus and was immediately drawn to his passion.
“One vision God gave both of us was for unity among the different
Christian fellowships on our campus,” she says. “We had InterVarsity,
Campus Crusade and an assortment of other church groups. The groups were
disparate. And Billy is someone who without reservation could engage and
be friends with people in all different groups. He always had a deep heart
for bringing [them] together in joint worship and prayer services.”
Adds Martinez, “He
raised a lot of questions about our fellowship in our sophomore year. Our
vision wasn’t clearly articulated. Some people were uncomfortable with
it. They wanted things to be status quo. He asked tough questions at a
time when a lot of people would have rather ignored them. As a fellowship,
it drew us a little closer.”
Simply being a
Christian at an Ivy League school was far from the norm. (See “Outside
the Status Quo.”) “Harvard is an anti-Christian school,” Moss says.
“It was a seminary originally, but a lot has happened to Harvard since
that time. One of the things is that Yale was started. Christians left
Harvard as a result of, I guess, differences in opinion and started Yale
in New Haven.”
Moss says the Harvard
environment looked down on Christianity as being “the stupid people’s
religion.” It didn’t help that people from nearby towns would visit
the campus, holding up ignorant or hateful signs in the name of
Christianity.
Yet Harvard was
preparation for the challenges Moss now faces as a teacher in a public
school where everyone sees the issue of separation of church and state.
The politics of the working environment nearly eliminate the discussion of
religion. “It’s to the point where you wonder if you should say ‘God
Bless You’ or ‘Merry Christmas’?” Moss says. “Seriously, its
nuts. I’ve found other Christian teachers but I’ve never prayed with
any of them. I think that’s sad. We should be able to feel comfortable
doing that.”
The restraints of
political correctness don’t keep him down. Friends describe Moss as
outgoing, open-minded, visionary, committed, and dependable — all
adjectives that describe a leader. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he did
something on a national level, like starting a charter school system or a
national scholarship program,” says Martinez. “He has big dreams. I
wouldn’t be surprised if he did something on a big scale.”
But Moss sees himself
differently. “Believe it or not, I usually become a leader by
default,” he says with a shrug. “I would much rather support a great
leader ... [but] I’m very passionate about things and when I don’t see
anybody leading, it’s like, ‘OK, somebody’s got to do this. Might as
well be me.’”
This article is courtesy
of Christian Single Magazine