7:33 A.M. The Auto Shop

By Andrew Goldstein

Senior Joe Brussel, with his purple Burton backpack slung over his right shoulder, cell phone clipped to his tan cargo shorts, strolls into Frank Mandernach's advanced auto-mechanics class--late but relaxed. The rest of the class is already in the lab room, watching a student take apart a 1987 truck engine. Joe makes eye contact with Mandernach, settles into a chair out of sight of most of his classmates and pulls out a notebook. "Sometimes Mandernach just lets us get organized," he says. For the rest of the period, Joe stays to himself, his mind far away from cars and engines. Mandernach keeps an eye on Joe, but today he's decided to give the boy some space.

The auto shop at Webster Groves, once seen as the dumping ground for bottom-end students, is more popular than ever, and most students taking shop today aren't interested in becoming mechanics or engineers. Students of all abilities--mostly boys but a growing number of girls too--flock to this faraway corner of the school in search of less structure and more responsibility, a place where they get to move around and use their hands. "In a lot of classes, it's 'Do this' or 'Do that,'" says Joe, "but in auto shop you know what you need to do when you come in here, so you get it done yourself."

Three large garage doors lead into the shop, which even when empty, looks like a fully functioning engine and detail center. Just inside, propped on cement blocks, is a rusted, formerly red 1979 Jeep Cherokee, used to teach bodywork. In the back of the shop, huge wooden slabs, stained by oil and grease, lie on top of old gym lockers, creating the lab space where students learn engine anatomy. All sorts of auto parts fill the shelves and remaining floor space. "All this stuff is just tools," says Mandernach, looking around his shop, "tools to motivate kids."

Three years ago, Mandernach, as Joe's freshman-year academic lab instructor, saw Joe the way his other teachers did--angry, ready to fight even at the slightest challenge, and irresponsible. "He had a small-man problem," says Mandernach. Joe weighed only 80 lbs. in his freshman year, and even now, with short brown hair, smooth face and dimples, he looks more like a freshman than a senior. "Joey's such a sweet kid," says his mother Debbie Deimeke, who divorced Joe's father when Joe was six, "but inside he's got all this pent-up anger."

It took a year of fighting on a near daily basis, but Joe finally found in Mandernach a man he could trust. He took Mandernach's power technology class in his sophomore year and thrived. Junior year he arranged his schedule to be with Mandernach for a remarkable three hours a day: in auto lab, auto mechanics and as a student assistant. His academic teachers began to see less antagonism. Joe was finally getting his high school life under control.

Then, on July 25, 1998, Joe's 18-year-old sister Erica was killed by a drunk driver.

During the first school day after his sister's death, Joe came to the auto shop. Mandernach, unprompted, said, "If you need somebody to just listen, I'm always here." Joe wasn't talking much to anybody, but sometimes he came in and told Mandernach that he needed some time. Joe would sit in his car, and Mandernach, if he could get class coverage, would slip out and check on him.

Joe spent his time in the shop working on his grandmother's busted boat engine. But the grief was taking a toll. After a few months, Joe started to miss school regularly, and he fell far behind in his classes. A top player on Webster's red-hot hockey team, he started fighting with his teammates. He was absent so many times he didn't get the 2.5 credits he needed to be eligible to play hockey this year.

The start of this year, though, was different. "Last year I didn't want to be here," says Joe. "But this year is not so bad. I like it. I've changed." His grades are up, he's doing his homework, and he's been absent only once. He's been coming to hockey practice, hoping that an appeal to the eligibility board will let him rejoin the team. Faye Walker, the Suspension Lady, who saw Joe as a "terror" his freshman year, sees real growth: "Now he knows where he wants to go and who he wants to be." It's Joe's last year in auto shop, and Mandernach doesn't mind letting him tune out every now and then. He, more than anyone, knows how far Joe has come.

--By Andrew Goldstein