Up The Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman

Author:Bel Kaufman [Kaufman, Bel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: prose

"Very amusing," said Mary. "This kind of thing must keep you busy; no wonder you're never here the 1st period. Who punches you in—Gilbert and Sullivan?"

But he had made his point, and when the bell rang, they were smiling.

Poor Evelyn Lazar—unwept, unsung, and lost in the bickering. Her death haunts me; I keep thinking—if only I'd been able to hear her cry for help! But we may not touch wounds—

Evelyn is only one girl I happen to know about because she happened to be in my homeroom and because she happened to be traced and found. What of the countless others who drop out, disappear, or wrestle alone in the dark? Paul says that I make too much of it; that what she probably wanted to talk to me about was a change of locker or an extra-credit slip. But that isn't the point—that isn't the point at all.

Are we paid only to teach sentence structure, keep order and assign those books that are available in the Book Room?

Yet here is Henrietta, smacking her lips with spinsterish lasciviousness over her star pupil, Bob; and here is Paul, mocking the technicolor daydreams of little Alice; and here am I, jousting with McHabe for the soul of Ferone. I am still determined to reach him. He has been as insolent and wary as ever, refusing to see me after school, sauntering into class, toothpick in mouth, hands in pockets, daring me to —what? Prove something. Finally he did agree to have a talk with me. "You sure that's what you want? OK, you call the shots!" But before we could meet, he was suspended from school for two weeks for carrying a switch-blade knife. Suspension, you see, is a form of punishment that puts a kid out of our control for a specified period, to roam the streets and join the gangs.

When I tried to tell McHabe that it would have been more valuable to let Ferone keep his appointment with me than to kick him out, he let me have it:

"When you're in the system as long as I" (They all say that!) "you'll realize it isn't understanding they need. I understand them all right—they're no good. It's discipline they need. They sure don't get it at home. We've got to show them who's boss. We've got to teach them by punishing them, each time, a hundred times, so they know we mean business. If not for us, they'll get it in the neck sooner or later —from a cop or a judge or their boss, if they're lucky enough to land a job. They don't know right from wrong, they don't know their ass from—I beg your pardon. You're young and pretty and they flatter you and you swallow it, playing phonograph records, encouraging them to gripe in your suggestion box, having heart to heart talks. A lot of good it does. Sure, we've got to win their respect, but through fear. That's all they understand. They've got to toe the line, or they'll make mincemeat out of us.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.