Bel Kaufman - Up The Down Staircase

"If they're restless," Henrietta said, "I kid them out of it. It doesn't matter how much they learn as long as they enjoy coming to school; at least, they're exposed to learning. And they know they're free to discuss anything with me—sex, anything. The kids feel I'm one of them; I'm pretty hep for an old maid."

"It's nothing to joke about," said Mary. "We make everything too easy for them. They're so used to sugar-coating, they come to me with no idea about how to study or what a sentence is. How can they learn a foreign language if they don't even know their own?"

"The ones that want to, learn," Henrietta said. "Take Bob—the best English student in the school. Writes like a dream—won the interscholastic essay contest—handsome, polite, a joy in the classroom. I don't have to teach him to parse sentences."

"Because I did," said Mary.

It's your kind of newfangled pussy-footing and side-stepping that makes them illiterates. With me they get a solid foundation, the disciplines of learning. In my class they don't get away with hot air discussions and exchanging their opinions and describing their experiences. What opinions can they have? What have they experienced? What do they know? That's an affront! They learn what I know!"

"Trouble is," Paul smiled his most charming smile, "a teacher has to be so many things at the same time: actor, policeman, scholar, jailer, parent, inspector, referee, friend, psychiatrist, accountant, judge and jury, guide and mentor, wielder of minds, keeper of records, and grand master of the Delaney Book."

"Perhaps you have a rhyme for this?" Mary inquired politely.

"Certainly," said Paul, striking a pose. "Listen:

"Very amusing," said Mary. "This kind of thing must keep you busy; no wonder you're never here the 1st period. Who punches you in—Gilbert and Sullivan?"

But he had made his point, and when the bell rang, they were smiling.

Poor Evelyn Lazar—unwept, unsung, and lost in the bickering. Her death haunts me; I keep thinking—if only I'd been able to hear her cry for help! But we may not touch wounds—

Evelyn is only one girl I happen to know about because she happened to be in my homeroom and because she happened to be traced and found. What of the countless others who drop out, disappear, or wrestle alone in the dark? Paul says that I make too much of it; that what she probably wanted to talk to me about was a change of locker or an extra-credit slip. But that isn't the point—that isn't the point at all.

Are we paid only to teach sentence structure, keep order and assign those books that are available in the Book Room?

Yet here is Henrietta, smacking her lips with spinsterish lasciviousness over her star pupil, Bob; and here is Paul, mocking the technicolor daydreams of little Alice; and here am I, jousting with McHabe for the soul of Ferone. I am still determined to reach him. He has been as insolent and wary as ever, refusing to see me after school, sauntering into class, toothpick in mouth, hands in pockets, daring me to —what? Prove something. Finally he did agree to have a talk with me. "You sure that's what you want? OK, you call the shots!" But before we could meet, he was suspended from school for two weeks for carrying a switch-blade knife. Suspension, you see, is a form of punishment that puts a kid out of our control for a specified period, to roam the streets and join the gangs.

When I tried to tell McHabe that it would have been more valuable to let Ferone keep his appointment with me than to kick him out, he let me have it:

"When you're in the system as long as I" (They all say that!) "you'll realize it isn't understanding they need. I understand them all right—they're no good. It's discipline they need. They sure don't get it at home. We've got to show them who's boss. We've got to teach them by punishing them, each time, a hundred times, so they know we mean business. If not for us, they'll get it in the neck sooner or later —from a cop or a judge or their boss, if they're lucky enough to land a job. They don't know right from wrong, they don't know their ass from—I beg your pardon. You're young and pretty and they flatter you and you swallow it, playing phonograph records, encouraging them to gripe in your suggestion box, having heart to heart talks. A lot of good it does. Sure, we've got to win their respect, but through fear. That's all they understand. They've got to toe the line, or they'll make mincemeat out of us. You ever seen their homes, some of them? You ever been in juvenile court? Hear them talk about us amongst themselves? These kids are bad. They've got to be taught law and order, and we're the ones to teach them. We're stuck with them, and they've got to stick out their time, and they better behave themselves or else. All you people who shoot off ideas—you just try to run this school your way for one day, you'll have a riot in every room. I'm telling you this for your own good, you've got a lot to learn."

I probably do.

I'm going to be observed by Bester this week. He was nice enough to warn me. I plan to teach an adverbial clause or a poem by Frost.

I didn't mean for this letter to be so long—but I am confused and troubled, and you are interested enough to listen. There are times when I feel I don't belong here. Perhaps I should be teaching at Willowdale. Perhaps I should give up teaching altogether. Or perhaps I should find myself a nice young man, one who talks in prose, and settle down, as the saying goes. You seem to have found the answer.

But I don't want to give up without trying. I think the kids deserve a better deal than they're getting. So do the teachers.

I might be able to reach them through their parents; we're having Open School Day in a couple of weeks. Wish me luck—and give Jim and the baby an extra kiss today.

Love,

Syl

P.S. Did you know that the State Department has started a course in elementary composition for its officers, who cannot understand each other's memoranda?

S.

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

TO: Miss S. Barrett

Calvin Coolidge High School

New York, N.Y.

DEAR SIR OR MADAM:

IN REPLY TO YOUR REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION OF YOUR STATUS, PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT ALL MEMBERS OF THE TEACHING STAFF SHALL BE APPOINTED BY THE BOARD OF SUPERINTENDENTS FOR A PROBATIONARY PERIOD OF THREE YEARS, EXCEPT THAT A TEACHER WHO RENDERS ONE YEAR OF SATISFACTORY (S) SERVICE MAY OFFER, IN LIEU OF THE OTHER TWO YEARS OF PROBATIONARY SERVICE REQUIRED BY THIS SECTION, A TOTAL OF TWO YEARS OF SATISFACTORY SERVICE EITHER AS A REGULAR APPOINTEE OR AS A REGULAR SUBSTITUTE IN THE SAME RANK, SUBJECT, AND LEVEL OF TEACHING AS THE PERMANENT APPOINTMENT APPLIED FOR. FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS SECTION NO PERIOD OF SUBSTITUTE SERVICE SHALL BE COUNTED AS EQUIVALENT TO PROBATIONARY SERVICE UNLESS IT CONSISTS OF NO LESS THAN 80 SCHOOL DAYS OF SERVICE IN ANY 90 CONSECUTIVE SCHOOL DAYS IN THE SAME SCHOOL; AND A CREDIT OF ONE YEAR SHALL BE BASED ON NOT FEWER THAN 160 DAYS OF ACTUAL SERVICE EXTENDING OVER A PERIOD OF ONE YEAR. THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO UNSATISFACTORY (U) SERVICE.

I HOPE THIS HAS ANSWERED YOUR REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION OF YOUR STATUS.

DIVISION OF APPOINTMENTS & RECORDS

Dear Teacher, prefibly Dear Friend,

All your doings are fair. I never found anyone like you anywheres at home or in school. (I lost 2 more lps)