by Bel Kaufman
Disregard Bells.
Sadie Finch
Chief Clerk
* * *
FROM: JAMES J. MCHABE, ADM. ASST.
TO: ALL TEACHERS
THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL AND NO OTHER IS TO BE PLACED IN THE CENTER DRAWER OF YOUR DESK IN THE ROOM WHERE YOUR OFFICIAL CLASS MEETS AND LOCKED UP WITH KEY PROVIDED FOR THE PURPOSE. THIS MATERIAL IS TO BE KEPT LOCKED UP AT ALL TIMES EXCEPT WHEN IN USE BY TEACHER OR OTHER AUTHORIZED AGENT: ROLL BOOK, ATTENDANCE PADS, ABSENTEE POSTAL CARDS, SEATING PLAN, EMERGENCY SLIPS, EXCUSE SLIPS, TRANSCRIPT SHEETS, PROGRAM CARDS (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER), CONSENT SLIPS, TRUANT SLIPS (BLUE), PARENT LETTERS #1 (YELLOW), PARENT LETTERS #2 (PINK), EXTRACURRICULAR CREDIT CARDS, AND LUNCH PERMITS.
JJ MCH
* * *
Dear Mr. McHabe–
My problem is: I’ve got the material all right, and the key, but no center drawer. As a matter of fact, two whole drawers are missing from my desk. Please advise.
S. Barrett
* * *
ADDENDUM TO CIRCULAR # 108 ON SHELTER AREA DRILLS:
AT SIGNAL (THREE BELLS REPEATED THREE TIMES) FOLLOW EXITS AND CONVERGE INTO CENTER AREA BETWEEN PARALLEL BARS IN BASEMENT GYM. TO INSURE MAXIMUM SAFETY, ABSOLUTE SILENCE IS TO BE MAINTAINED AT ALL TIMES DURING THIS IMPORTANT DRILL. DO NOT LEAN ON HORSES.
JAMES J. MCHABE
ADM. ASST.
* * *
FROM: S. Barrett, 304
TO: Mr. Grayson, Custodian, Basement
Dear Mr. Grayson,
I need 11 additional chairs for 304, and someone to repair broken window and clean up scattered glass–health hazard!
S. Barrett
No one down here.
* * *
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 304
TO: 508
Dear Bea–
What a curious place this is, where bells are rung to be ignored, where children are safe from atomic annihilation if they do not lean on gym horses, where a cry in the wilderness remains unheard. Is there “no one down there,” ever?
Syl
* * *
COPY TO: Dr. Clarke
Dr. Bester
Mrs. Egan
Dear Miss Barrett,
It has come to my attention that you have neglected to fill out a Form B221 Accident Report of a fall from a chair incurred by a student in your official class. Such negligence may result in serious consequences. The safety of the students in our charge is paramount at all times. Before leaving the building today, you will please make out this report in triplicate, signed by the witnesses who witnessed the above accident.
JAMES J. MCHABE
ADM. ASST.
(No purpose is served in blaming defective equipment for failure to comply with instructions on locking up confidential records.)
JJ McH
* * *
Miss Barrett,
The theft of a valuable wallet from a student’s unlocked locker on or about the 5th period today has just been reported to me. One of your students was observed loitering in the vicinity without a pass and is a strong suspect.
See me at the end of the afternoon homeroom.
JJ McH
Adm. Asst.
* * *
TO: ALL TEACHERS
Please ascertain and send to me before three o’clock today the number of students in your homeroom who have not had a hot breakfast this morning. POOR NUTRITION IS FREQUENTLY THE CAUSE OF POOR MARKS.
Frances Egan
School Nurse
Sept. 7
Dear Ellen,
I had begun a letter to you this morning but was interrupted, and now I can’t find it in the flood of papers in which I am drowning.
Perhaps it’s just as well; I couldn’t possibly succeed in describing this place to you: the homeroom, the Assembly, the chaos of clerical work, the kids–whom I had come to guide and “gladly teche.”
I’ve been here less than a day, and already I’m in hot water. A boy had “incurred a fall” in class, and I failed to report it on the proper form. Another left the room without a pass and is suspected of stealing a wallet from a locker which wasn’t locked because I had neglected to inspect it. This was Joe Ferone, the problem-boy of Calvin Coolidge, who earlier, in homeroom, had been flagrantly rude to me, and insolent, and contemptuous.
While I was writing you the other letter (Where can it be? Among the Circulars? Directives? Faculty Mimeos? Department Notices? In the right-hand desk drawer? Left-hand? In my wastebasket, perhaps?), during what was presumably my lunch period, Admiral Ass (a Mr. McHabe, who signs himself Adm. Asst.) appeared in my room with Joe Ferone.
“This boy is on probation,” he said. “Did he show up in homeroom this morning?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Any trouble?” the Admiral asked.
There we stood, the three of us, taking each other’s measure. Ferone was watching me through narrowed eyes.
“No. No trouble,” I said.
I am writing this during my free … oops! unassigned period, at the end of my first day of teaching. So far, I have taught nothing–but I have learned a great deal. To wit:
We have to punch a time clock and abide by the Rules.
We must make sure our students likewise abide, and that they sign the time sheet whenever they leave or reenter a room.
We have keys but no locks (except in lavatories), blackboards but no chalk, students but no seats, teachers but no time to teach.
The library is closed to the students.
Yet I’m told that Calvin Coolidge is not unique; it’s as average as a large metropolitan high school can be. There are many schools worse than this (the official phrase is “problem-area schools on the lower socio-economic levels”) and a few better ones. Kids with an aptitude in a trade can go to vocational high schools; kids with outstanding talents in math, science, drama, dance, music, or art can attend special high schools which require entrance tests or auditions; kids with emotional problems or difficulties in learning are sent to the “600 schools.” But the great majority, the ordinary kids, find themselves in Calvin Coolidge or its reasonable facsimile. And so do the teachers.
Do you remember Rhoda, who left Lyons Hall before graduation? She is now writing advertising copy for a cosmetics firm at three times my salary. I often think of her. And of Mattie, who was in graduate school with me, and who is teaching at Willowdale Academy, holding seminars on James Joyce under the philosophic maples. And I think of you, in a far away town, walking serene in daylight from Monday to Friday, and I think I must be crazy to stay on here. And yet–there is a certain phrase we have, a kind of in-joke: “Let it be a challenge.”
There goes the bell. Or is it only the warning signal? The bells have gone berserk. I now go to check the PM attendance in my homeroom–Admiral Ass says it prevents escapes.
Love,
Syl
P. S. Did you know that according to the Board of Education’s estimate it would cost the city $8 million to reduce the size of classes “by a single child” throughout the city?
Calvin Coolidge
CLARION
September
INTERESTING INTERVIEWS:
Miss Sylvia Barrett, the new English teacher, is not only everybody’s choice “Audrey Hepburn” of Calvin Coolidge but is also a very attractive young woman of whom we are so very proud. The interview found her to be 5 feet 4 inches in her stocking feet, with brown hair and blue-gray eyes and very pleasant to talk to. She received her B.A. degree with Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude (It’s Greek to us!) and her M.A. (Miss America?) with highest honors. (Boy! What a record!)
Listed among her favorites are Chaucer the poet (That’s Greek to us too!) and reading books. She is also partial to painting in her spare time (Don’t go up and pose for her, boys!) and bicycling (built for two?), whipped cream (Oh, those calories!) and swimming (Yummm!); and she likes to visit different places like everyone el
se. She visited some places in Mexico last summer (Habla Espanol?). She feels that teaching here will be a real challenge to her.
Glad to have you at Coolidge, Miss “Audrey” Barrett, and hope you stay awhile.
A MESSAGE FROM OUR PRINCIPAL:
Your education has been planned and geared to arm and prepare you to function as mature and thinking citizens capable of shouldering the burdens and responsibilities which a thriving democracy imposes. It is through you and others like you that the forward march of democracy, spurred and fortified by a thorough and well-rounded education, will move on to greater triumphs and victories. We have no doubt that our aims and efforts in this direction will bear fruit and achieve the goals and objectives set forth, for in the miniature democracy of our school you are proving yourselves worthy and deserving of our trust and expectations.
Very sincerely yours,
Maxwell E. Clarke, Principal
COMPLIMENTS OF VANITY CORSET CO.
THE CORNER COFFEE SHOPPE:
“WHERE FRIEND MEETS FRIEND”
HOW TO AVOID FRESHMAN FOLLY– – –
SOPHOMORE SLUMP– – –
JUNIOR JITTERS– – –
SENIOR SORROWS:
JOIN YOUR G.O.! ! ! GET YOUR G.O. BUTTONS WHILE THEY LAST ! ! ! GO, GO, G.O.!
SCHOOL SPIRIT, ANYONE?
COME AND ROOT FOR YOUR TEAM!
SCHEDULED BASKETBALL GAMES:
SEPT. CALVIN COOLIDGE VS. MANHATTAN MUNICIPAL
OCT. CALVIN COOLIDGE VS. (?) UNSCHEDULED
NOV. CALVIN COOLIDGE VS. (?) UNSCHEDULED
DEC. (?)
FACULTY FLASHES
The teacher the girls would like to be on a desert island most with: MR. PAUL (“POET”) BARRINGER
The teacher readiest with unselfish helps: MRS. BEATRICE (“MOM”) SCHACHTER
The teacher who makes lessons most like games: MISS HENRIETTA (“PAL”) PASTORFIELD
Most absentminded teacher: MR. MARCUS (“H2O”) MANHEIM
Most glamorous teacher: MISS SYLVIA BARRETT
THE CALVIN COOLIDGE CLARION is “The Voice of Your School.” Please subscribe and solicit ads to keep it “talking”!
We wish to express our gratitude to Miss Mary Lewis, Faculty Advisor to The Clarion, who so unstintingly gave of herself to us.
Sept. 25
Dear Ellen,
It’s FTG (Friday Thank God), which means I need not set the alarm for 6:30 tomorrow morning; I can wash a blouse, think a thought, write a letter.
Congratulations on the baby’s new tooth. Soon there is bound to be another tooth and another and another, and before you know it, little Suzie will start going to school, and her troubles will just begin. Though I hope that by the time she gets into the public high school system, things will be different. At least, they keep promising that things will be different. I’m told that since the recent strike threats, negotiations with the United Federation of Teachers, and greater public interest, we are enjoying “improved conditions.” But in the two weeks that I’ve been here, conditions seem greatly unimproved.
You ask what I am teaching. Hard to say. Professor Winters advised teaching “not the subject but the whole child.” The English Syllabus urges “individualization and enrichment”–which means giving individual attention to each student to bring out the best in him and enlarge his scope beyond the prescribed work. Bester says to “motivate and distribute” books–that is, to get students ready and eager to read. All this is easier said than done. In fact, all this is plain impossible.
Many of our kids–though physically mature–can’t read beyond 4th or 5th grade level. Their background consists of the simplest comics and thrillers. They’ve been exposed to some ten years of schooling, yet they don’t know what a sentence is.
The books we are required to teach frequently have nothing to do with anything except the fact that they have always been taught, or that there is an oversupply of them, or that some committee or other was asked to come up with some titles.
For example: I’ve distributed Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to my 5th term class of “slow non-readers.” (Question: How would “fast non-readers” read?) This is in lieu of The Mill on the Floss. I am supposed to teach Romeo and Juliet OR A Tale of Two Cities (strange bedfellows!) to my “low-normal” class, and Essays Old and New to my “special-slows.” So far, however, I’ve been unable to give out any books because of problems having to do with Purloined Book Receipts, Book Labels without Glue, Inaccurate Inventory of Book Room, and Traffic Conditions on the Stairs.
But I have not let it discourage me. I’ve been trying to teach without books. There was one heady moment when I was able to excite the class by an idea: I had put on the blackboard Browning’s “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” and we got involved in a spirited discussion of aspiration vs. reality. Is it wise, I asked, to aim higher than one’s capacity? Does it not doom one to failure? No, no, some said, that’s ambition and progress! No, no, others cried, that’s frustration and defeat! What about hope? What about despair?–You’ve got to be practical!–You’ve got to have a dream! They said this in their own words, you understand, startled into discovery. To the young, clichés seem freshly minted. Hitch your wagon to a star! Shoemaker, stick to your last! And when the dismissal bell rang, they paid me the highest compliment: they groaned! They crowded in the doorway, chirping like agitated sparrows, pecking at the seeds I had strewn–when who should materialize but Admiral Ass.
“What is the meaning of this noise?”
“It’s the sound of thinking, Mr. McHabe,” I said.
In my letter-box that afternoon was a note from him, with copies to my principal and chairman (and–who knows?–perhaps a sealed indictment dispatched to the Board?) which read (sic):
“I have observed that in your class the class entering your room is held up because the pupils exiting from your room are exiting in a disorganized fashion, blocking the doorway unnecessarily and talking. An orderly flow of traffic is the responsibility of the teacher whose class is exiting from the room.”
The cardinal sin, strange as it may seem in an institution of learning, is talking. There are others, of course–sins, I mean, and I seem to have committed a good number. Yesterday I was playing my record of Gielgud reading Shakespeare. I had brought my own phonograph to school (no one could find the Requisition Forms for “Audio-Visual Aids”–that’s the name for the school record player) and I had succeeded, I thought, in establishing a mood. I mean, I got them to be quiet, when–enter Admiral Ass, in full regalia, epaulettes quivering with indignation. He snapped his fingers for me to stop the phonograph, waited for the turntable to stop turning, and pronounced:
“There will be a series of three bells rung three times indicating Emergency Shelter Drill. Playing records does not encourage the orderly evacuation of the class.”
I mention McHabe because he has crystallized into The Enemy.
But there are other difficulties. There are floaters floating in during class (these are peripatetic, or unanchored teachers) to rummage through my desk drawers for a forgotten Delaney Book. (I have no idea why it’s called that. Perhaps because it was invented by a Mr. Delaney. It’s a seating-plan book, with cards with kids’ names stuck into slots.)
There are questionnaires to be filled out in the middle of a lesson, such as: “Are there any defective electrical outlets in your home?”
There is money to be collected for publications, organizations, milk, G.O. (the General Organization), basketball tickets, and “Voluntary Contributions to the Custodial Staff.” The latter is some kind of tacit appeasement of Mr. Grayson, who lives in the basement, if he exists at all; he is the mystery man of Calvin Coolidge.
There is the drilling on the street below that makes the windows vibrate; the Orchestra tuning up down the hall; the campaigners (this is the election season) bursting into the room to blazon on my sole blackboard in curlicued yellow chalk:
IF YOU WILL HIM FOR PRES. ELECT!
and
GLORIA EHRLICH IS PRETTY AND NICE
VOTE FOR GLORIA FOR VICE!
And the shelter area drills, which usually come at the most interesting point in the lesson. Bells clanging frantically, we all spill out into the gym, where we stand silent and safe between parallel bars, careful not to lean on horses, excused, for the moment, from destruction.
Sometimes the lesson is interrupted by life: the girl who, during grammar drill, rushed out of the room to look for her lost $8.70 for the gas and electric bill, crying: “My mother will kill me, for sure!” And for sure, she might. The boy who apologized for not doing his homework because he had to go to get married. “I got this girl into trouble all right, and we’re Catholics, but the thing is, I don’t like her.”
Chaos, waste, cries for help–strident, yet unheard. Or am I romanticizing? That’s what Paul says; he only shrugs and makes up funny verses about everyone. That’s Paul Barringer–a writer who teaches English on one foot, as it were, just waiting to be published. He’s very attractive: a tan crew cut; a white smile with lots of teeth; one eyebrow higher than the other. All the girls are in love with him.