Bel Kaufman: Up The Down Staircase

(Frankly I would perfer a teacher freely telling me I'm no good in english then giving me dirty looks in the hall.)

Disgusted

Dribs & Drabs, McBeth one week Moby Dick next, a quotation mark, oral debates on Should Parents be Strict? Should Girls Wear Jeans? The mistakes I made in elementery school I still make. I hope to achieve correction.

Stander

I think after you learn to speak English in kindergarden the subject should be droped. Ha-ha! Grammer should be outlawed! Coma sentences should be bared from the language! Oral talks are to embarassing for those not gifted with "gab". Writen work causes many errors in gr. & sp! Reading books are to hard to answer questions on it! (I like English with no strain on my brain!) Also on the dislike side of English I can put the constant anoyance of certain students who horsed around. I can put myself in that category because I horsed around and I didn't benefit myself one bit and probly anoyed the class! However we must take the good with the bad and know our whole life will not be a bed of roses!

Lou Martin

Grammar & Shakes. — Phooey!

Essays — a lot of gossip.

Ivanho is for the Birds.

George Elliot stinks, even though he is a lady.

Why did you ask this question? To show that you can do the job better? You teachers are all alike, dishing out crap and expecting us to swallow it and then give it back to you, nice and neat, with a place in it for the mark to go in. But you're even phonier than the others because you put on this act—being a dame you know how— and you stand there pretending that you give a damn. Who you kidding?

We're dirt to you, just like you're dirt to the fatheads and whistle-blowers who run this jail, and they're dirt to the swindlers and horn-tooters who run the school system.

Except for one man in this whole school no one has even given a damn about me, and it's the same at home and in the street outside. You probably don't care for my language, so you can give me a zero in Vocabulary.

Anyhow I'm quitting at the end of this term and joining the dogs eating dogs eating other dogs in the great big lousy world you're all educating us for. I sure as hell got myself an education. Though it's not in any syllabus. But you're the one who's stuck here. Don't worry, you'll find plenty of others willing to play your game of baah, baah, little lost lambs, come back to school. But trot in step, double file. And you'll get your nice clean diplomas served on crap. Yummy. I trust this answers your question.

Joe Ferone

Joe — Though your vocabulary is colorful, certain words would be more effective if used sparingly. You express yourself vividly and well, and your metaphors—from dogs to lambs—are apt. I would tend to give you a considerably higher mark than you give yourself, and I am not speaking of English.

There is some truth in what you say, but you are far too intelligent to cling to a view as narrow as yours. As for your indictment of me—in this country one is innocent until proved guilty. Why not give me the chance any suspect gets? I think we should have a talk. Can you see me after school today?

S. Barrett

I don't understand them big words you use, and I'm busy after school. Every day. You'll have to prove yourself on your own time.

Joe

(P.S. I wish I could believe you.)

Dear Miss Barrett,

Here is a copy of the English Syllabus; let it be your Bible. It discusses various ways to provide enrichment, etc.

Samuel Bester

Chairman, Language Arts Dept.

A GUIDING PRINCIPLE TO BE CONSIDERED IN ALL CLASSROOM PROCEDURES IS THE PROVISION FOR INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND NEEDS OF PUPILS. THE TEACHER SHOULD DISCOVER EACH PUPIL'S ATTAINMENT IN SKILL AND KNOWLEDGE—REGARDLESS OF GRADE PLACEMENT—AND THEN LEAD HIM FORWARD FROM THAT POINT.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A READING HABIT BASED ON A LOVE OF READING MAY WELL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION THE SCHOOL CAN MAKE.

SPECIAL ATTENTION SHOULD BE GIVEN TO MAKING THE ENGLISH CLASSROOM AS ATTRACTIVE AS POSSIBLE. THERE SHOULD BE SHELVES AND TABLES FOR THE CARE AND DISPLAY OF A WIDE VARIETY OF BOOKS AND PERIODICALS. MOVABLE CHAIRS AND DESKS PROMOTE INFORMALITY AND FACILITATE GROUP WORK. PROVISION FOR THE USE OF A SCREEN AND A PROJECTOR, A TAPE-RECORDER, AND OTHER AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS IS DESIRABLE.

Mon., Oct. 5

Dear Ellen,

White brick sounds splendid for your fireplace, but I know nothing about flues except that they make me uneasy.

As a matter of fact, I'm also uneasy about teaching. Rumor has it that the ghost walks this week: Bester is on the prowl and is likely to observe my class. What will I do if he comes to see my Special-Slows?

Today, in connection with our study of Myths, I put on the board Edna Millay's "Prayer to Persephone." *Do you remember it?

At the sight of a poem, they groaned—it's the thing to do. Yet when I asked who was speaking (lover about a loved one? mother about a child?), Vivian Paine raised a timid hand: "Maybe a teacher?"

There is a need for closeness, yet we can't get too close. The teacher-pupil relationship is a kind of tightrope to be walked. I know how carefully I must choose a word, a gesture. I understand the delicate balance between friendliness and familiarity, dignity and aloofness. I am especially aware of this in trying to reclaim Ferone. I don't know why it's so important to me. Perhaps because he, too, is a rebel. Perhaps because he's been so damaged. He's too bright and too troubled to be lost in the shuffle.

I want to get to know him—all of them. One way is to help them say whatever is uniquely theirs in their own words, for words are all we have. I am eager to read their compositions, to empty the Suggestion Box, to listen.

You ask the silliest questions, darling! What do you mean, why must I float?—Because Mary Lewis uses my room for two of her classes. Why doesn't she use her own?—Because another floater uses hers. We share the bulletin board and blackboard 50-50. I'm always curious to see what she's got on her half. She says she prefers my room because it has movable chairs—the kind with an arm rest for writing surface. Her room still has the small desks attached to the floor, from the days when the building was an elementary school. There is the problem of where to fit the students' knees. You want to know about Paul. So do I. He's clever and quick and, of course, marvelous looking, with that eyebrow. But there's something about him that—eludes. He even hates to be touched by the kids; it's almost a phobia he has about being jostled in the halls. He always waits until the hall traffic subsides before he leaves his room.

He has a devastating effect on the girls. "What I like about him," one of my homeroom girls said, "is the way he always leans against his desk and sometimes he sits on top of it instead of behind."

That may be it.

You and Mother are my most faithful correspondents. She worries about my living alone in the big city, without a real kitchen. And she keeps sending me clippings from the Johnstown, Pa. papers: rape, assault, murder. With one stark warning scribbled in the margin: "Be careful!" Only in school, she feels, am I safe.