Bel Kaufman - Up The Down Staircase

Anonimus

Is it possible to change my seat to next to Linda Rosen because of my eyesight?

Frank Allen

What makes you think you're something? You're only a female and I can't stand females. I got enough trouble at home I don't need school.

Rusty

You're a good teacher except for the rotten books you have to teach like the Oddissy. I wouldn't give it to a dog to read.

Disgusted

I suggest you and other teachers get a raise in salary so they can live right. I'm sorry I talk out of turn during your teaching, I admit it.

Loudmouth

Parents are too pushy.

Doodlebug

I want to thank you for giving me your time after school, for encouraging me to write, for trying. But with 40 others in the class, whose problems are so different, I realize how little you can do, and I feel we are both wasted.

Elizabeth Ellis

Teach more interesting stories that are hopeful. How in Pygmalian and Galatea the statue got human for the marriage.

Yours for Happy Endings

I am not a good penman but I must tell some one. I put this in the Suggestion Box for the record. Today is my birthday. Happy Birthday!

Me

INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION

FROM: 508

TO: 304

Dear Syl—

I'm returning window-pole. Thanks.

Just now, a former student dropped in to see me. "You still teaching?" he asked. Turns out he's making more money than you and I together, playing saxophone in a band. Flunked English, I think. His PPP wasn't so hot, either. Why didn't they give me piano lessons? Why did I ever learn to read?

It must be Indian summer that's making me so droopy—or the quiz on Hamlet I've been marking. Sample: "Mr. Hamlet, Sr. appears to Mr. Hamlet, Jr. as a dead ghost and bids him revenge."

Bea

INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION

FROM: 304

TO: 508

Dear Bea— I've been wading through a pile of "Due before 3" mimeos—but now at last I know what to do with them: into the wastebasket! I'm also hep to the jargon. I know that "illustrative material" means magazine covers, "enriched curriculum" means teaching "who and whom," and that "All evaluation of students should be predicated upon initial goals and grade level expectations" means if a kid shows up, pass him. Right?

I'm a bit nervous about Bester's visit. He tells me he plans to "drop in" again, and suggests that this time I do not give "a written lesson on friendship" (!)

Would you let me know what you think of the enclosed lesson plan on book reports? I wish I'd had real training instead of a few Fed courses and six months of pupil-teaching. I feel so inadequate!

Are there any compensations?

Syl

INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION

FROM: 508

TO: 304

Of course there are! I invite you to visit my Honors class in Shakespeare, or my Creative Writing class—you wouldn't believe you were in the same school. Actually these kids would do well on their own. To me there are greater compensations when a slow student glimpses an idea, when an apathetic or hostile kid raises a faltering hand.

Don't underestimate Bester. Behind the pedagese language is a man who knows all about teaching; you would do well to attend to what he says when he comes to observe you.

Your lesson plan is excellent—except for the Emily Dickinson line: "There is no frigate like a book." The sentiment is lovely, the quotation is apt—only trouble is the word "frigate." Just try to say it in class—and your lesson is over.

Bea

INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION

FROM: 304

TO: 508

Dear Bea— Thanks for the tip on frigate. How about: "There is no steamship like a book"? I myself have already vetoed Channing's: "It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds."

In the meantime, I've been filling out follow-up slips on my Joe Ferone: Truant Officer reports there's no such address as the one he has given. Ella Freud says he never showed up for interview. Subject teachers claim he's been cutting classes. Nurse says he's on Dental Blacklist. And McHabe floods me with warnings.

But I'm not discouraged. I think the problem is not unreachable kids but unteachable teachers.

The Board of Ed has been Sir-or-Madaming me with the enclosed:

ELIGIBILITY TO QUALIFY FOR SALARY INCREMENT IN STEPS Cl, C2 AND C6 DEPENDS ON SUCH IN-SERVICE ALERTNESS COURSES AS MAY BE REQUIRED TO QUALIFY.

Please translate.

Syl

INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION

FROM: 508

TO: 304

Dear Syl—

Looking alert won't help. If you want a raise, take a course. No coursie, no money. A First Aid course will do. You don't even have to take it — just ask the nurse to give you a paper saying you know how to apply tourniquet. Do you? Because you may need to!

As far as kids are concerned, you're on right track, but don't misjudge teachers—they're not so much unteachable as unrewarded. And even McHabe has his uses—before he came to Coolidge there was Chaos. He's trying to create order the only way he knows how. His pupil-load is 3,000 kids!

Bea

(Henrietta is looking high and low for Paul; dying to be in Faculty Show; wants him to write some lyrics for her. Do you know where he is? He looked a bit fuzzy again yesterday.)

B.

INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION

FROM: 304

TO: 508

Dear Bea—

I don't know where he is; he has an unassigned 1st period, but he never appears until the 2nd. Someone punches him in—right under Sadie Finch's nose. Hope she doesn't find out.

I'm treasuring her latest: "Teachers must not punch each other out."

Just saw Grayson scuttling through the main floor; so he does exist! Ferone was with him. What goes on?

Syl

INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION

FROM: 508

TO: 304

124

Dear Syl—

Ferone is not the only boy in Grayson's stable. I know several who make periodic visits to the basement. What goes on could be anything: Hashish—Racing forms—Orgies. They don't appear to be any the worse for it.

Bea

INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION

FROM: 304

TO: 508

Dear Bea—

Letters from the Board becoming more pressing. Now they want money from me. This is from Payroll Division:

DEAR SIR OR MADAM:

AN EXAMINATION OF THE PAYROLL RECORDS SHOWS THAT

YOU RECEIVED A SALARY OVERPAYMENT IN THE AMOUNT

OF $2.75 FOR LAST JUNE.

I wasn't even teaching in June, and I certainly don't have $2.75. Apparently they don't know I'm file # 443-817 and have got me confused with another—possibly # 443-818?

Syl

INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION

FROM: Mrs. B. Schachter, Lobby

TO: 304

Dear #443—

The Board moves in a mysterious way. Always did. In my day—the Depression Years—they failed a brilliant girl who would have made a great teacher—on the oral exam, for something they called “lateral emission”! They almost got me on the "sibilant S" (that was the year they were after the S's): My Waterloo was: "He still insists he sees the ghosts."