Bel Kaufman

UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE

In focus

Phonetics:

Grammar: The Gerund

Vocabulary: The classroom and learning, synonyms premium, award, reward, recompense

Stylistics & Text Interpretation:

Formatting:

Speaking: Is creativity possible at school?

Listening & Reading: Up the Down Staircase by B. Kaufman

lead-in

1. Which has been the most important learning in your life – those from your non-school education or from your schooling?

2. What are the main functions of school (intellectual, political and civic, social, economic, etc)?

3. What are the characteristics of an ‘effective school’ (a school in which learning for all students maximized; one in which teachers are able to get students engaged in academic tasks; a school with high ‘can-do’ expectations; high degree of colleagueship, etc).

4. How important is it to you to know what other people will think about you as a teacher?

5. There are a lot of definitions of ‘creativity’. What is ‘creativity’ in the school context? Are schools and creativity contradictory terms? Why do we need to incorporate creativity into our educational system?

UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE

by Bel Kaufman

The extracts given bellow are from Bel Kaufman’s semi-biographical novel "Up the Down Staircase". The book shows the American educational system from the inside. It is ‘a cry from the teacher’s heart’, as the writer puts it. The novel is about an idealistic young honors college graduate who becomes an English teacher, hoping to share her love of classic literature and writing with her students. However, her idealism is quickly snuffed out by the gritty realities of her colleagues and students who populate the novel's fictional inner-city high school. She writes letters to Ellen, her college friends, about her teaching experience.

Those Who Can’t

Dear Ellen,

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. Better say 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.

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.

I have let it be a challenge to me: I've been trying to teach without books. [….]

There are a few good, hard-working, patient people like Bea—a childless widow – "Mother Schachter and her cherubs," as the kids say, who manage to teach against insuperable odds; a few brilliantly endowed teachers who – unknown and unsung – work their magic in the classroom; a few who truly love young people.

The rest, it seems to me, have either given up, or are taking it out on the kids. "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Like most sayings, this is only half true. Those who can, teach; those who can't – the bitter, the misguided, the failures from other fields – find in the school system an excuse or a refuge.

   

    Love, Syl

P. S. Did you know that in New York City high school teachers devote approximately 100 hours a year to homeroom chores? This makes a grand total of over 500,000 hours that they spend on clerical work. That's official school time only; the number of extracurricular hours spent on lesson plans, records, marking papers, and so on is not estimated.

Pupil-Load

Dear Ellen,

[…] I keep looking for clues in whatever the kids say or write. I've even installed a Suggestion Box in my room, in the hope that they will communicate their feelings freely and eventually will learn to trust me.

So far, most of them are still a field of faces, rippling with every wind, but a few are beginning to emerge.

There is Lou Martin, the class comedian, whose forte is facial expressions. No one can look more crest-fallen over unprepared homework: hand clasped to brow, knees buckling, shoulders sagging with remorse, he is a penitent to end all penitents.

No one can look more thirsty when asking for a pass: tongue hanging out, eyes rolling, a death-rattle in the throat, he can barely make it to the water fountain. No one can look more horrified at a wrong answer issuing from his own traitor lips; or more humble; or more bewildered; or more indignant. I know it's not in the syllabus, but I'm afraid I encourage him by laughing. I'm beginning to learn some of their names and to help them – if they would let me. But I am still the Alien and the Foe; I have not passed the test, whatever it is.