5. And Gladly Teche # 1

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

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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.

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 terms 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 — Adm. 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 immobilized 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

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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 teacher 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

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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—

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