Up the Down Staircase
Page 5
2. THE ABOVE IS ALSO TRUE OF ALL PASSES SIGNED BY THE TEACHER.
3. CHECK THE ROLL BOOK FOR NON-EXISTENT ADDRESSES AND NON-AUTHENTIC PARENT OR GUARDIAN, TO FACILITATE WORK OF TRUANT OFFICER.
4. IN MAKING ENTRIES ON RECORDS, DO NOT ERASE, SCRATCH OUT, OR USE INK ERADICATOR. CORRECTIONS ARE TO BE MADE ONLY WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE PRINCIPAL OR ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT WHO WILL APPROVE THE CORRECTION.
5. DURING FIRE, SHELTER AREA OR OTHER EMERGENCY DRILLS, INFORM STUDENTS TO BE PARTICULARLY CAREFUL ABOUT THEIR VALUABLES. BOOKS AND NOTE BOOKS ARE TO BE LEFT BEHIND, BUT POCKETBOOKS AND WALLETS ARE TO BE HELD ON TO. WE HAVE HAD AN EPIDEMIC OF UNFORTUNATE INCIDENTS.
WITH THESE PRECAUTIONS IN MIND, WE CAN HELP OUR STUDENTS ACHIEVE THE HIGH ETHICAL STANDARDS WE EXPECT OF THEM.
JAMES J. MCHABE
ADM. ASST.
* * *
I WISH TO TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO EXTEND A WARM WELCOME TO ALL FACULTY AND STAFF, AND THE SINCERE HOPE THAT YOU HAVE RETURNED FROM A HEALTHFUL AND FRUITFUL SUMMER VACATION WITH RENEWED VIM AND VIGOR, READY TO GIRD YOUR LOINS AND TACKLE THE MANY IMPORTANT AND VITAL TASKS THAT LIE AHEAD UNDAUNTED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP AND COOPERATION IN THE PAST AND FUTURE.
MAXWELL E. CLARKE
PRINCIPAL
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 508
TO: 304
Dear 304 – Just got your latest SOS. Don’t let them lead you by the nose. They’re testing you. Sit on them from the first moment to show you’re boss; they can find out later how nice you really are. There is no such thing as an Early Dismissal Monitor or a Permanent Pass to the Water Fountain.
Bea
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 508
TO: 304
Dear Syl – Serves you right! Never turn your back to the class when writing on the board–learn the overhead backhand. Never give a lesson on “lie and lay.” Never raise your voice; let them stop talking to hear you. Never give up. And to thine own self be true.
(There is no such thing as a Social Intercourse Period!)
Bea
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 304
TO: 508
Dear Bea–
What’s a PRC?
Syl
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 508
TO: 304
Dear Syl–
Sorry I couldn’t answer sooner; was busy disentangling a kid from a wrong program.
PRC is the Permanent Record Card; in it you will find the CC, or “Capsule Characterization”–a pregnant phrase composed about each student at the end of each term by his homeroom teacher. In the PRC is the PPP (It almost sings, doesn’t it?). That’s the “Pupil Personality Profile,” invented by Ella Friedenberg, Guidance Counselor. She thinks she’s Freud, but actually, she’s Peeping Tom. She has based her PPP’s on such interviews with kids as: “Why do you hate your parents?” “What is your sexual problem?” Avoid her. Also avoid McHabe–he’s in charge of Discipline and Supplies. He can’t bear to part with a paper clip; ask him for a red pencil and he blanches. Dr. Clarke will avoid you. He’s really a Mr. but prefers, for reasons of prestige, to be called Dr. Do so. He exists mainly as a signature on the circulars; sometimes he materializes in assembly and makes a speech on “Education For Life”; occasionally he conducts important visitors through the school. Most of the kids think Grayson is principal: he’s the distinguished gentleman with the white mane who is “The Custodial Staff.” If your ceiling should fall down, send a note to the basement. He’ll probably say he isn’t there, but at least you’ve tried.
Crumple this piece of paper into a small ball and swallow it!
Bea
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 304
TO: 508
Dear Bea – Paper swallowed. Who is Paul Barringer?
Syl
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 508
TO: 304
Glamor boy of Eng. Dept. Unpublished Writer. He drinks too much, such men are dangerous. He’ll woo you with rhymes. Now you’re on your own.
Bea
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 304
TO: 508
Dear Bea – Can we meet for a smoke in the Teachers’ Lounge between classes? I’ve got to talk to an adult!
Syl
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 508
TO: 304
Dear Innocent – So-called Teachers’ Lounge is Supply Room in basement. Has beat-up couch someone once donated; also sink and chair. But can’t be used because of steam pipes in ceiling. Besides, smoking there is against fire regulations. Only place to smoke is Women’s Toilet on third floor landing. Let’s meet there right after 6th period. Get key to toilet from Sadie Finch. We’ll have four whole minutes–if we’re lucky and traffic in halls is with us. Sorry I can’t come down now–trying to dissuade salvageable youngster from quitting school.
Bea
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 304
TO: 508
Dear Bea–
What am I supposed to do about the number of basketballs I need?
Syl
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 508
TO: 304
Nothing. Notice was put in your box by mistake.
Health Ed teacher is right under you.
Bea
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 304
TO: 508
Dear Bea – I am about to send in my registers to Bester: I’ve got unexcused students, unauthorized students, non-authenticated students, illegitimate students, loitering students and absent students–and still they add up to 223 in my subject classes, besides the 46 in my homeroom. Will someone drop out tomorrow? Will it be I?
Syl
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 508
TO: 304
Don’t you dare! We need you! This is just the first day; you’ll get used to it. The rewards will come later, from the kids themselves–and from the unlikeliest ones.
Bea
Sept. 7
Dear Ellen,
It’s a far cry from our dorm in Lyons Hall (Was it only four years ago?); a far cry from the sheltered Graduate School Library stacks; a far cry from Chaucer; and a far and desperate cry from Education 114 and Prof. Winters’ lectures on “The Psychology of the Adolescent.” I have met the Adolescent face to face; obviously, Prof. Winters had not.
You seem to have done better with your education than I: while you are strolling through your suburban supermarket with your baby in the cart, or taking a shower in the middle of the third period, I am automatically erasing “Fuck Teacher” from the blackboard.
What I really had in mind was to do a little teaching. “And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche”–like Chaucer’s Clerke of Oxenford, I had come eager to share all I know and feel; to imbue the young with a love for their language and literature; to instruct and to inspire. What happened in real life (when I had asked why they were taking English, a boy said: “To help us in real life”) was something else again, and even if I could describe it, you would think I am exaggerating.
But I’m not.
In homeroom (that’s the official class, where the kids report in the morning and in the afternoon for attendance and vital statistics) they went after me with all their ammunition: whistling, shouting, drumming on desks, clacking inkwell lids, playing catch with the board eraser, sprawling in their seats to trip each other in the aisles–all this with an air of vacant innocence, while I stood there, pleading for attention, wary as a lion-tamer, my eyes on all 46 at once.<
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By the time I got to my subject classes, I began to stagger under an inundation of papers–mimeos, directives, circulars, letters, notices, forms, blanks, records. The staggering was especially difficult because I am what’s known as a “floater”–I float from room to room.
There’s a whole glossary to be learned. My 3rd termers are “special-slows”; my 5th termers are “low-normal” and “average-normal.” So far, it’s hard to tell which is which, or who I am, for that matter.
I made one friend—Bea Schachter, and one enemy—Administrative Asst. who signs himself JJ McH. And I saw hate and contempt on the face of a boy—because I am a teacher.
The building itself is hostile: cracked plaster, broken windows, splintered doors and carved up desks, gloomy corridors, metal stairways, dingy cafeteria (they can eat sitting down only in 20 minute shifts) and an auditorium which has no windows. It does have murals, however, depicting mute, muscular harvesters, faded and immobilia under a mustard sun.
That’s where we had assembly this morning.
Picture it: the air heavy with hundreds of bodies, the principal’s blurred face poised like a pale balloon over the lectern, his microphone-voice crackling with sudden static:
“… a new leaf, for here at Calvin Coolidge we are all free and equal, with the same golden opportunity …”
The students are silent in their seats. The silence has nothing to do with attention; it’s a glazed silence, ready to be shattered at a moment. The girl next to me examines her teeth in her pocket mirror. I sit straight on the wooden seat, smoothed by the restless bottoms of how many children, grown now, or dead, or where? On the back of the seat directly in front of me, carefully chiseled with some sharp instrument, is the legend: Balls.
“… knocks but once, and your attitude …” Tude booms, unexpectedly amplified by the erratic microphone, “towards your work and your teachers, who so selflessly …”
The teachers dot the aisles: a hen-like little woman with a worried profile; a tall young man with amused eyebrows; a round lady with a pepper-and-salt pompadour–my colleagues, as yet unknown.
“… precious than rubies. Education means …”–he’s obviously winding up for a finish–“not only preparation for citizenship and life plus a sound academic foundation. Don’t forget to have your teachers sign your program cards, and if you have any problems, remember my door is always open.” Eloquent pause. “And so, with this thought in mind, I hope you will show the proper school spirit, one and all.”
Released at last, they burst, clang-banging the folding seats, as they spill out on a wave of forbidden voices, and I with them, into the hall.
“Wherezya pass?” says the elevator man gloomily. “Gotcher elevator pass?”
“I’m a teacher,” I say sheepishly, as if caught in a lie.
For only teachers, and students with proof of a serious disability, may ride in the elevators. Looking young has certain disadvantages here; if I were a man, I’d grow a mustache.
This morning, the students swarming on the street in front of the entrance parted to let me pass–the girls, their faces either pale or masked with makeup; the boys eyeing me exaggeratedly: “Hey eeah–howzabadis! Gedaloadadis–whee-uh!” the two-note whistle of insolent admiration following me inside.
(Or better still–a beard.)
It seems to me kids were different when I was in high school. But the smell in the lobby was the same unmistakable school smell–chalk dust? paper filings? musty metal? rotting wood?
I joined the other teachers on line at the time clock, and gratefully found my card. I was expected: Someone had put my number on it–#91. I punched the time on my card and stuck it into the IN rack. I was in.
But when I had written my name on the blackboard in my room, for a moment I had the strange feeling that it wasn’t spelled right. It looked unfamiliar–white and drowning in that hard black sea ….
I am writing this during my lunch period, because I need to reach towards the outside world of sanity, because I am overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the clerical work still to be done, and because at this hour of the morning normal ladies are still sleeping.
We have to punch– –
FROM: JAMES J. MCHABE, ADM. ASST.
TO: MISS BARRETT, 304
Why do you need so many paper-clips? Supplies are running low. All out of desk blotters. All out of rubber bands. All out of board erasers. No red pencils–only blue. Can let you have half envelope of chalk–all out of boxes. Chalk is not to be wasted. No unauthorized students are to use it.
JJ MCH
* * *
TO: ALL TEACHERS
Please ignore the bells.
Sadie Finch
Chief Clerk
* * *
FROM: SYLVIA BARRETT
TO: DR. SAMUEL BESTER
Dear Dr. Bester,
Enclosed are my registers in my five English classes. I find that my teaching-load is 223 students per day and that my average is not 33 but 443⁄5 students per class.
39
46
46
51
41
5 / 223
443⁄5
Also, the Book Room has no Mill on the Floss–only Julius Caesar, and only enough for three-fourths of the class.
S. Barrett
* * *
FROM: DR. SAMUEL BESTER
CHAIRMAN, LANGUAGE ARTS DEPT.
TO: MISS BARRETT
Dear Miss Barrett,
Let it be a challenge to you.
S. Bester
* * *
ADDENDUM TO ETHICAL STANDARDS:
TRANSPORTATION CARDS ARE NOT TO BE SIGNED UNLESS STUDENTS ARE ENTITLED TO TRANSPORTATION. WE HAVE HAD AN EPIDEMIC OF MISREPRESENTATION ON TRANSPORTATION CARDS.
INSTILL IN YOUR STUDENTS PROPER BEHAVIOR ON PUBLIC VEHICLES TO AND FROM SCHOOL. INFRACTIONS OF COMMON COURTESY IN OR AROUND THE VICINITY OF THE SCHOOL REFLECT ON CALVIN COOLIDGE AND DISTORT OUR PUBLIC IMAGE.
NO WRITTEN PASSES ARE TO BE ISSUED TO LAVATORIES, SINCE THEY ARE EASILY DUPLICATED BY THE STUDENTS. ONLY WOODEN LAVATORY PASSES ARE TO BE HONORED.
JAMES J. MCHABE, ADM. ASST.
* * *
Miss Barrett–
Joseph Ferone disrupted my 5th period math class through the door. He belonged in your English class that period but left your room without a pass.
Edward Williams of your homeroom talked in Assembly this morning.
Please take appropriate measures.
Frederick Loomis
* * *
Dear Mrs. Barnet, He said to apoligize in writing but I didn’t even talk in assembly today, teachers have it in for me because I am color. Loomis flunked me in math last term, it’s not fair because I was in class a lot. He flunked me in hist. too even though it’s not his subject. Teachers give the subject a bad name. He said he’ll report me because he’s prejudice.
Edward Williams, Esq.
* * *
FROM: JAMES J. MCHABE, ADM. ASST.
TO: ALL TEACHERS
AT THE END OF THE HOMEROOM PERIOD, PLEASE SEND TO ME THOSE STUDENTS WHO HAVE FAILED TO REPORT FOR CHECK-OUT BECAUSE THEY HAVE LEFT THE BUILDING.
JJ MCH
Bea–As for above–I’d like to oblige him, but how do I send him kids who aren’t there?
Puzzled
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 508
TO: 304
Dear Puzzled–
Let it be a challenge to you.
Bea
* * *
FROM: JAMES J. MCHABE, ADM. ASST.
TO: ALL TEACHERS
DUE BEFORE THREE
Please fill out and send to 211 before 3 today the enclosed report on Physical Condition of Room. This is done monthly to insure the safety of all students. Check defects, if any, and name specifically any deviations or hazards.
JJ MCH
* * *
ROOM: 304<
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TEACHER: S. BARRETT SEPTEMBER 9
Door off hinge & banging–hazard!
Sliding wardrobe panel doesn’t close; side blackboard is on it and cannot be used. Deviation.
Book case in back of room missing ½ its door; can’t be closed. Also, shelf splintered. Deviation and hazard.
Teacher’s desk missing two drawers. Deviation.
Window in back of room broken; scattered glass–hazard.
S. Barrett
* * *
TO: ALL TEACHERS