by Bel Kaufman
It doesn’t seem possible that you may not be here next term. What can we do to lure you? Give you lunch period at noon? Classes of no more than 35? All the red pencils you can use? Extra board erasers? Your broken window fixed? No patrol assignments? Honors classes? A non-floating program?
Or could you be seduced by the new building the Board has been promising us for the last seven years? According to plans carefully drawn up and dangled before us every couple of years we are supposed to be getting: a courtyard rimmed by classrooms, with “facilities for dining and study among shrubs,” a complete air-conditioning system, electronic devices that sound like hoot owls to signal the end of classes, two gymnasiums and an indoor swimming pool with underwater portholes for instructors to observe and instruct swimmers!
Teaching here isn’t so bad. Once you accept as one of the ineluctable laws of nature that kids will continue to say “Silas Mariner” and “Ancient Marner” and “between you and I” and “mischievious,” and that the administration will continue to use phrases like “egregious conduct” and “ethnic background” you can go on from there.
And you can go much farther with adolescents than with college people–especially you, with your gift of generating excitement and provoking thinking, whether in a slow and stumbling kid or a quick, bright one. You’ve seen them open their eyes and walk out, blinking, into day. You’ve heard that sudden intake of breath, like a sigh, when suddenly it becomes clear and they see, they see! This is what it means to teach–and you are one of the few who can.
Come back!
The new term will be shaping up very much like the old; there will be the usual number of sabbatical and maternity leaves in February, and more than the usual number of new kids. Mary has been asked to volunteer for additional duties as grade adviser. Loomis, who’s had an offer in industry at a much higher salary (and without kids), got cold feet and chose to remain in the safety of the school system. Paul has been sauntering into school in a faint vapor of alcohol. And Henrietta went and touched up her hair over the holidays: from salt and pepper to bright ginger.
I got carried away there a while back. But I feel it would be such a waste if someone like you were swept away from us.
Bea
* * *
Dear Miss Barrett,
Will you please enter final marks on the enclosed End Term Sheets for each of your students, so the substitute can transfer them to PRC’s.
Will you please send to me the CC’s, Service Credits, and number of times absent (excused and unexcused) and late (excused and unexcused) for each of your homeroom students.
Also, Book Blacklist of students who failed to return their books, and any moneys you have collected for the renewal of subscriptions to The Clarion and for the G.O. Field Trip.
I hope you feel better.
Sadie Finch
Chief Clerk
* * *
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE
CITY OF NEW YORK
DEAR SIR OR MADAM:
AFTER 35 YEARS OF ACCREDITED SERVICE, OR AFTER 30 YEARS OF SERVICE IF AT LEAST 55 YEARS OF AGE AND IF THE TEACHER HAS ELECTED 55–30 COVERAGE, OR IF THE TEACHER IS NOT AT LEAST 55 YEARS OF AGE OR DID NOT ELECT 55–30 COVERAGE, AFTER 30 YEARS OF SERVICE, BUT AT A CONSIDERABLY REDUCED PENSION, A TEACHER IS ELIGIBLE FOR RETIREMENT.
* * *
Dear Miss Barrett:
Due to an unavoidable and regrettable oversight, your letter asking for a letter to Willowdale Academy has been inadvertently mislaid. I shall be pleased and happy if you plan to leave us to write a recommendation with an S rating, but I hope and trust you will return to active duty here.
Sincerely yours,
MAXWELL E. CLARKE
PRINCIPAL
* * *
Dear Sylvia,
Delighted to hear you’re mending. Do you happen to have on you an extra key to the john? Can you mail it to me?
Henrietta
* * *
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE
CITY OF NEW YORK
DEAR SIR OR MADAM:
APPARENTLY YOU WERE SENT THE WRONG FORM. THE FORM YOU WERE SENT IS A RETIREMENT FORM. YOU NEED A RESIGNATION FORM.
BUREAU OF APPOINTMENTS AND RECORDS
* * *
Dear Sylvia,
The Teachers’ Interest Com. (they’ve stuck me with that too!) want to know if and when you are leaving, so that we can start collecting money for your going away gift and farewell tea.
I’ve been meaning to visit you, but the work has been piling up so high I have to take it home every day to get it in on time. I wish I could just lie down someplace like you!
Mary
* * *
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE
CITY OF NEW YORK
DEAR SIR OR MADAM:
IN ANSWER TO YOUR REQUEST FOR A RETIREMENT FORM, YOU WERE SENT THE OLD RETIREMENT FORM INSTEAD OF THE NEW RETIREMENT FORM.
BUREAU OF APPOINTMENTS AND RECORDS
* * *
Dear Miss Barrett,
Due before 3: All items on the enclosed Circular #134 are to be checked off. See also Addenda to the Circular.
I’m sorry you’ve been getting the wrong forms from the Board. You must apply for the correct form to the Division of Appointments and Records.
Sadie Finch
Chief Clerk
* * *
Dear Miss Barrett,
I recall a lesson on “The Road Not Taken,” and a fruitful discussion on choices. I hope you’ve made the right one; though whichever it is, as you yourself pointed out, it is bound to be charged with regret.
With best wishes for a speedy recovery–
Samuel Bester
* * *
Dear Miss Barrett,
No matter how I add up my marks my average is still 61%! Well, well! Here’s hoping that one more Extra Credit will pick me up to 65%! I have no more books I read but will try to read some more if I pass!
Odyssus
Odyssus left Troy after killing a couple of million people and with his men were going home. But these giants at an island they stoped at smashed Odyssus men to pieces! After that they went to the Cyclopes who ate them gradually, but Odyssus stuck something in his eye blinding the Cyclope and which resulted in the Cyclope not being able to see. After that they went to Circe who changed the men into pigs but Odyssus changed them back! Finally they went to the island of the sun and ate up all the sun’s cattle. But Zeus killed all the men except Odyssus since he was the hero. By now all the men are dead! Odyssus lands in Ogygia and stays there for 7 years. Finally he comes home.
Even if I don’t pass I hope you come back! Because you know you can’t get along without us, Ha-ha!
(I laugh a lot but mostly I don’t mean it)
Lou Martin
Is this 304?
Hey, she’s back!
You out of the hospital?
Hurray, we got Barrett!
How’s your foot?
Let’s give her a round of clap!
Thank you for the applause, but that’s enough. That’s enough, thank you. I’m glad to see you again too. And now, please fill out these Delaney cards while I call the roll– –
What’s the date?
February first, you moron!
There’s not enough seats!
Hey, we got a lot of new kids here!
I’m not late–the bell is early.
You gonna be our English too?
Is Lou Martin here? Oh, there you are.
Who, me? I didn’t do it! Honest–cross my– –
Stop clowning, Lou. I just want you to know you were right. You were absolutely right.
You got a cold?
Who’s got a pen to loan me?
You want my Kleenex?
Quit pushing!
I don’t need a Delaney, I’m dropping out.
See me after school, and we’ll talk about it.
Can I have a pass? I’ve
got to leave the room–I’ve got a doctor’s note to prove it!
Hey, the window’s broke!
Pipe down, you guys, you know she means business!
Acevedo, Fiore?
Here.
Adamson, Ruth?
Here.
Please come to order. I can’t hear you when you– – Put that chair down! Amdur, Janet?
Here.
Good morning, Rusty. Why are you late?
I’m not late–I had my English changed. I wanted you.
I’m glad. Well–find a place to stand. Axelrod, Leon?– – No, don’t bother me with these circulars until I’m through with attendance. Axelrod, Leon? Is he absent?
Him? He’s always absent!
You’re lucky he’s not here!
Boy, will he give you trouble!
Hey, I’m too crowded!
My desk is full of holes!
Is this the right room?
Hi, teach!
Hi, pupe! … Belgado, Ramos?
A Biography of Bel Kaufman
Bel Kaufman (b. 1911) is a writer, teacher, and lecturer best known for her classic, bestselling novel Up the Down Staircase (1965).
Kaufman was born to Russian parents in Berlin, Germany, because her father was in medical school there. When he completed his studies, the Kaufmans moved to Odessa, Russia. This was during the Russian revolution. Kaufman was three years of age and spent her childhood in Odessa. Her parents encouraged her to write from a very young age, and her earliest supporter was her grandfather, Sholom Aleichem, a beloved writer and humorist whose Yiddish tales of Tevye the Milkman later inspired the 1960s musical Fiddler on the Roof. Kaufman’s mother, Lyalya, was also an accomplished short story writer. In Odessa, the revolution created many problems. Deteriorating conditions throughout Russia and the Ukraine ultimately drove the Kaufmans to Moscow, to get permission to immigrate to the United States.
Kaufman learned English only after her arrival in New York City. At twelve years of age, she was enrolled in the first grade of public school because of her lack of knowledge of English. With the help of a sympathetic teacher, she soon caught up and flourished. After a year at New York University, Kaufman was admitted to Hunter College in New York City and graduated magna cum laude three and a half years later. She then obtained a master’s degree in literature from Columbia University, graduating with high honors.
Kaufman’s ambition to teach in public high schools was met with a series of obstacles. Her efforts to earn teaching accreditation were thwarted first by the school board, with objections to her slight Russian accent, and then by an examiner who disagreed with her interpretation of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Determined to prove the examiner wrong, Kaufman wrote to Millay explaining the situation, and the poet’s positive response was most gratifying. Kaufman’s early battles with school bureaucracy would become one of the hallmark subjects of her later writing.
In 1934, she married Sydney Goldstine, a young medical student. The couple had two children, Jonathan and Thea, whom Kaufman raised while she was teaching, a job she held for more than thirty years. During the 1940s and ’50s, Kaufman also wrote short stories in magazines, a pursuit that became increasingly important to her after her children left home and her marriage to Goldstine ended.
In 1962, Kaufman submitted a three-page collage of school memos, student notes, and various papers of public school life in the Saturday Review of Literature. An editor at Prentice Hall saw it and asked Kaufman to develop that short piece into a full-sized novel. Kaufman did, and the book, Up the Down Staircase, was published in 1965, winning immediate acclaim and spending sixty-four weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The book’s success led to Kaufman’s second career as a popular speaker at teacher conferences and other events around the country. In 1967, Up the Down Staircase was made into a movie starring Sandy Dennis.
In addition to writing and lecturing on education and many other topics, Kaufman continued to write. Her novel Love, Etc. (1979) is about a woman who finds solace after her divorce by rendering the difficult experience as fiction.
Now a centenarian, Kaufman continues to live in New York, where she recently taught a class on Jewish humor at her alma mater, Hunter College. She is married to Sidney Gluck, head of the Sholom Aleichem Memorial Foundation, and continues to write.
Kaufman with her grandfather, Sholom Aleichem, in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1912.
Kaufman in 1933, sailing from New York to Europe, the first time she traveled alone since arriving in America as a child.
Kaufman, age twenty-two, visiting Bermuda on her honeymoon in 1933.
Kaufman with her children, Thea and Jonathan Goldstine, on Fire Island in 1949.
Kaufman teaching at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, in 1954.
Kaufman in her classroom at the High School of Performing Arts, in 1956.
A headshot of Kaufman in her fifties, soon after she wrote her breakout novel, Up the Down Staircase.
A caricature of Kaufman by her friend Al Hirschfeld. (Courtesy of the Estate of Al Hirschfeld © 2012.)
Kaufman and her husband Sidney when she was about sixty-five. They were on a cruise around the Pacific Islands.
Kaufman dancing at her weekly dancing club in 2005.
Kaufman in 2009, photographed by Gay Block.
BOOKS BY BEL KAUFMAN
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