Tell me in my ear, Teacher:
Alperin, Lee
TELL ME IN MY EAR, TEACHER TALES FROM AN INNER-CITY SCHOOL LEE ALPERIN I began teaching in New York City in the fall of 1962.I was assigned to Eli Whitney Vocational High School, now defunct....
...But no matter, the girls are already heading back for their desks...
...I stood blinking...
...I still feel pierced by the lives of the kids I knew long ago...
...Debra was a home-room pupil of mine during my first week of teaching...
...Perhaps it might have encouraged her, if only to let her know someone was on her side...
...He nodded...
...My parents don't have to be dead for it...
...Unfortunately, not all teachers are equipped to deal with pupils facing such problems...
...If her department chairman or principal dropped in, Miss R. would indicate that she had given the class its assignment...
...After all, she had been receiving satisfactory ratings for years...
...When Debra did not show up the next day, I assumed she had been sent to a home...
...They realize, of course, this is a come-on, but most of them have never won anything in their entire lives, and it would not hurt to see just what Mr...
...If my conscience were greater than my fear of the law (and of losing my job), I could have done something to help those kids...
...There was a pause...
...But she was sent to a foster home...
...You've won, you're going, and that's it...
...I could imagine him holding out at Whitney for about ten years, at the most...
...How then does he manage...
...This, when she eventually spoke, and it was said only to me...
...By the time she followed them in, they were already in their seats...
...That is, if they got to school...
...Fields has in mind now...
...Wait, your parents aren't dead...
...Under her watchful eye all marched into the room in silence...
...By now the next teacher has come in and waits with clenched jaw for the desk to be cleared...
...And her score was always a hundred...
...There is no time...
...But she certainly could spell them, and others like "incandescent," "rendezvous," "silhouette," or just about any words she put eyes to...
...Your mother says that if you go, some Frenchie will get you into trouble and then have you mopping floors there to support him...
...She never made any sound...
...Thus, Clarae was farmed out to relatives, her wardrobe scattered to the homes of four aunts...
...You're too young, too dumb, and too inexperienced to know how to take care of yourself...
...In order to be released without bail she was required to offer proof of her address...
...Her case had to be put off for another session of court...
...Pupils too shy to read aloud in my class he got to sing on the stage...
...Theirs was a hard life, too, and they felt no sympathy for Clarae...
...The girls still have not budged...
...She kept all her tests...
...Then suddenly the bell rings...
...Tell her why you can take care of yourself, why you're not a helpless child anymore, why no man is going to turn you into a slave as soon as you are out of her sight...
...No lesson of his is left in the classroom when his students go home...
...During the winter months some of these homeless would opt to keep warm by visiting their school...
...Dave has made everything clear, the battle lines are drawn, and no questions need to be asked...
...In the five years I was at Eli Whitney I was in the habit of finding notes in my desk, in my rollbook, even in my coat pockets (I had no separate facilities to hang my coat...
...She wants you to learn from hers and remain little Miss Pure...
...The pupils believed that if Miss Deane was teaching something, it should be learned...
...Only after two weeks would she change to another one...
...If you tried to, she would cut you dead...
...How does a teacher survive in the classroom...
...At times he walked the halls in a daze...
...He is forbidden the use of force, almost to the point of not being able to defend himself...
...the trip is yours...
...A proper lesson plan-complete with aim, motivation, development, and summaries-rested on the desk...
...Only in my ear...
...Debra was not discharged," I was told...
...Knowing this particular teacher, however, they are also waiting for the other shoe to drop...
...According to regulations I was required to submit the report cards of discharged pupils to the grade adviser...
...With a shrug of the shoulders I let Debra cry again the following day...
...One term I taught in a room next to hers...
...Sometimes she looked relatively neat, sometimes a bit disheveled, and, strange as it may seem, I never saw her in any clothes she had worn before...
...Once in class, though, Dave becomes transformed, someone fired by a mission...
...It almost seemed as though they demanded a struggle, requiring the teacher to put himself out before they did...
...Obviously I can't accept it...
...Tom Dolan had applied for and received a transfer to prestigious Stuyvesant High School...
...Debra, tell me what's wrong...
...She attempted to, perhaps, and failing that, would write on the board for the pupils to read pages 87 to 92 of the class text and answer all questions on page 92...
...Finally on his way, Dave trudges off as the late bell rings...
...He rushes about now grabbing the papers, some having to be pulled from students' hands...
...But, being Debra's official class teacher, I was familiar with her personal records...
...Finally she picked up her books and left...
...At the start of every class they tested the teacher...
...I also have the feeling that a certain warmth touched the boys when she stood back on her heels, her shoulders squared, and expected an effort from them...
...A girl who street sleeps will have things stuck in her hair, dirt spots and stains over her wrinkled clothes, and a stench of breath that one meal a day cannot quell...
...She came in, leaned her head down over her arms, and by the end of the period the entire desk top was dripping wet...
...no, absolutely not...
...Many do not give up their papers just yet...
...Perhaps he is wondering what sort of lesson to give his next class...
...I wondered how she could sever all connections-first from her pupils, later from her colleagues-and whether in time that might also happen to me...
...She did not have to utter a sound, and once inside, she did not have to raise her voice...
...Oh, really...
...Somehow he got away with it, with every thing...
...but your mother says...
...She wanted no one to like her...
...Evidently something just a bit more is required...
...A teacher's lessons are not an exact science, and even if effective, any accurate measure of their success remains elusive...
...Why have you been crying...
...Sometimes in waiting they got slightly careless, but as soon as Miss Deane was spied coming toward them from far down the corridor, they snapped to...
...I saw her take the pack out each time I returned a paper to her and insert it in order...
...By the third day I felt obligated to investigate...
...Once again he has that preoccupied, helpless look...
...He had a certain genius, the nature of which is not simple to pin down...
...She was always the first to complete the test...
...Ran away...
...Went to stay with some guy down the street...
...It is not easy to kindle such an effort five times a day...
...Dave stuffs the sheets into his briefcase...
...They were female and black, a combination according them little privilege...
...Dave was disorganized, often late for class, and awful at keeping records...
...I should know.hink this judge was the bravest man in the world...
...Other papers get dropped in a mess all over his desk as the girls dash out...
...She was gloriously black and the model of propriety...
...Howls of rage drown out Dave...
...You may question my motives for doing nothing to help Rosalyn before she disappeared...
...I did not give the matter much thought until report-card time a few weeks later...
...Then with everything in place she would sit back and flip through the papers with no change of expression over her dark, solemn face...
...The odds for success are not in his favor...
...Angry mutters abound, but Dave is approaching fever pitch and is not to be stopped, though he has to strain now for his voice to carry...
...Unfortunately, she did not teach...
...For them, going to school could be an escape from that part of their lives...
...pens are pulled out...
...Debra and her brother left home...
...Time races as the girls are caught in a frenzy of documenting the history of their discontent...
...But I think this judge was the bravest man in the world...
...At the time, Miss Deane had to come from a distant area of the building and could not reach her class until after the bell...
...She would come to me before the test and in a low, low voice request to see the list...
...It is not usually a matter for the police if a girl is beaten, violated, or turned out of her home...
...Meanwhile, students from the incoming class enter and stand around waiting for their seats...
...If I lived in a world in which I could have a second chance, I would shelter these children somehow...
...He inna hospital...
...It has been many years since I left Eli Whitney, but Whitney has never left me...
...Coming late, Dave finds the girls restless and milling about the room...
...I don't know...
...Some time after I left, I heard that Winifred Deane had retired...
...I still recall the way she would frown and mutter that it was terrible how "I can't pass one test inna whole school...
...I remember Tom Dolan, perhaps the finest English teacher I have ever seen...
...For these students in the ghettoes of New York City, the twentieth-century had not arrived...
...The sound of his voice clashes with the din...
...Don't make any plans for the summer...
...Well, what should I do with this...
...Debra should be middle-aged now...
...With so much seeming to go against him, it was amazing that Dave could teach at all, especially in so difficult a place as Eli Whitney...
...I stayed at Whitney five years...
...You have to write a letter now to persuade your mother to let you go...
...I assumed that being poor, she lived in a home with limited closet space, and bath...
...It is ironic that despite the dedication teachers put into their work, they can never be sure of how lasting their efforts turn out...
...She merely insisted on the proprieties of a well-run classroom...
...Tom would take pupils who I was convinced could not read, have them learn dozens of pages of a script and perform in the school show...
...So we gotta go to foster homes...
...Miss R. would then sit at her desk to stare or read, while her pupils pleased themselves...
...Miss Deane had her students trained to stand in the hall, double file...
...I suppose at about the time she dropped out of school...
...Clarae had been evicted by her mother, who did not want her around to distract the men who came over...
...The adviser regarded me and the report card I was holding...
...There ain't nobody takin' care of us...
...The pupils, remember, always remain fourteen to eighteen while the teacher keeps growing older...
...The woman said she had nowhere to live...
...Miss R. was another colleague of mine, a woman then in middle age, who gave the impression of looking older than she LEE ALPERIN was for twenty-seven years a teacher in the New York City public school system...
...In that struggle for supremacy behind the door of his classroom, the teacher is allowed nothing else...
...Miss R. remained...
...But not only did he teach, he got his students so involved in his class that almost every lesson became a vital experience...
...This time he has stepped too far...
...Each morning of every school day a number of my students had to fly down the stairs of their tenement buildings to avoid being snatched...
...I still wonder whether it would have made any difference to Clarae if I had passed her on one test...
...She ended her school day dead tired...
...The tales I am going to tell now are not of my best or worst pupils, but of the ones who slipped through the cracks...
...When...
...He could arrive to discover an empty classroom or, perhaps, part of a class, the rest of which he would have to chase through the halls...
...Those who succeed in this struggle often triumph where family, clergy, and law enforcement have not...
...But that would be misleading...
...He has one thing: his authority...
...I want you to tell me in my ear, teacher...
...How does that help her...
...She also says she doesn't want you making the same mistakes she made...
...Some of them might have been written by Clarae or Rosalyn or even Debra...
...Miss Deane would then unlock the door...
...For them, comforts such as basic meals, privacy (even in the bathroom), or a night's sleep uninterrupted by drunks in the house, might not exist...
...She would look the boys over, trying to read from their faces whether any irregularities might have occurred...
...The pupils were a tough group...
...And that, I suppose, is his genius...
...It would appear that they pay him no mind...
...There are children in this city whom no one stands up for, not even to advise them that being victimized is not a part of normal growing up...
...How does he take control...
...I am able to say from personal knowledge that the role Miss Deane took on had its costs...
...All right, girls...
...When the stress these youngsters face eventually forces them from school, everyone with whom the child has contact-parents, teachers, peers-seems to share in the conspiracy...
...One answered that Debra had "hay fever...
...Debra waited, curious perhaps about what I would have to say...
...After giving the group a nod, she paused while someone came up to take her books, another her briefcase...
...No one could possibly stand in greater contrast to Winifred Deane or Tom Dolan than Dave, except that Dave, too, was not ordinary...
...It was only after Clarae has been discharged for persistent absence (she was nineteen) that her classmates regaled themselves in telling me about her...
...That's two years from now...
...She lived with one for two weeks, then moved on to the next, using the only piece of clothing allowed her in each overcrowded household...
...I took no particular notice of her until she began crying in class...
...Miss R. had her tenure...
...Whitney was, in the parlance of the time, a "ghetto school...
...One Friday she did not show up for class, and I never saw her again...
...The judge gave the court his address and brought her home so she could have someplace to stay, and for this his Honor was soundly criticized...
...How can the story they want to tell be crammed into one period...
...She thinks that without her around any guy could take advantage of you...
...Notebooks are opened...
...Actually, his last words are just croaked, for his voice is about gone now...
...You're flying to Paris because you've won a contest...
...Pop, he got beaten real bad...
...She only ran away, so officially she's still in your class...
...sent to foster homes...
...Coming late to class at Whitney could be an unfortunate thing for a teacher...
...Back in my room I slipped the card under some papers in a desk drawer...
...It is a war every girl in class knows how to wage...
...Curious, I asked her once if she would read some of the words to me...
...There was Miss Winifred Deane...
...She covered her eyes with her fists...
...She stumbled through them...
...What key did this woman hold to be able to elicit a respect that eluded many bigger, stronger, even louder teachers...
...Manner stern, stride purposeful, she would approach with an implacable air of determination...
...None of the other kids ever saw her outside or knew a thing about her...
...If all of these were not mysterious enough, Rosalyn attended my class only on Fridays, which was when I gave a spelling test...
...Ethics, you know...
...My brother and me are going to be separated...
...She never wanted anyone to know how poor her grades were, and so rather than have her test paper returned with those of the rest of the class, she would ask me for the mark privately...
...Dave himself has another class to go to...
...But in this business one cannot be a tough guy one day and a softy the next, and Tom's teaching technique, though natural-seeming to outsiders, required constant application...
...Of course, you could tell your mother she is right and that you'll stay home with her...
...I was to realize this was done to curb or ignore the smirking and whispering from other girls...
...Dave sounds an alarm for them to take a stand in settling their own destinies, enforcing the notion that even if from the worst of family situations these girls are able to have a voice...
...I faltered instead, and they discovered that the good of this world can have a frightened heart...
...Tell her what the trip means to you...
...Still, she did not teach...
...She believed in them and made no concessions...
...You're flying to Paris this summer, do you hear...
...She clocked in and out each day, showed up for her classes, kept exemplary records, attended meetings, and received satisfactory ratings from the principal...
...I used to wonder how he could function at either job...
...An effort is in order here to gain their attention...
...If I could not manage to be the equal of Tom Dolan, I certainly had to discover a way to survive better than Miss R. Fortunately, there were other examples of classroom management...
...I asked Debra to remain after class...
...His or her energy, effort, and concern all flag in an atmosphere not congenial to aging gracefully...
...he announces, pounding his desk...
...She sat in my class with a hostile stare and for the first few days said nothing to anyone, including me...
...You're going to Paris...
...That was thirty years ago...
...I never did...
...Tom made rough, disruptive kids feel the concern he had for them...
...Though no higher than five feet, Miss Deane stood taller than any of her students, and most other teachers...
...It was my impression that Rosalyn was homeless for at least part of the time I knew her, but she was also something of a mystery...
...Dave, of course, never prepares lesson plans...
...When she's seventeen we can discharge her," he said...
...She could afford to...
...On occasion, though, there comes a teacher whose work contains an immediacy precluding guesswork...
...You see, I too was trying to survive...
...Clarae, you see, came to school wearing the same dress every day...
...After school he goes off to another job as editor for a publishing house...
...About half a minute was what it took her to glance over the twenty words...
...If you've got the guts, you have to fight back...
...If advised to be more professional, he looked at you as if you did not speak his language...
...Much to my surprise he would not accept the card...
...I should know...
...My mother left us last month...
...They would learn, if one made them...
...The students become still, some with mouths hanging open in midsentence...
...I recall a news story of some years back, of a woman being tried for prostitution...
...He raises his arms for attention...
...These notes, never signed, had the same message: Take me home...
...But despite his daily confusion, his inability to keep proper records or to get anywhere on time, Dave always comes each day with something new, an idea to excite the students and help them get a grip on things...
...Intellectually, Miss R. was as smart as they come...
...That is the way I would get to meet them...
...Last Saturday," Debra continued, "she came with that guy to beat up on my pop...
...If this seems like an exaggeration, I would like you to know about Debra...
...Here is the way one of those lessons might go...
...If she did nothing else with her life she taught me a lesson: don't play problem-solver unless you are prepared to act...
...Anyway, her classmates would have found out about it soon enough...
...My defense is one that only another teacher might understand...
...O.K...
...The others quickly concurred...
...A gasp goes up...
...It was amazing that Clarae concerned herself with school...
...What should be the importance of a school grade to such pupils...
...I see," I mumbled...
...Yet, in my heart, I realize that such an excuse can't really separate the harried teacher from the misery around him...
...Miss R. greeted but few of her colleagues, and among those none was her friend...
...No one knows where...
...I asked some students about this...
...The stamina for it has to be supported by an inner force, a discipline that does not come with the territory but derives from sheer will...
...The news for her ear was never too good...
...He is one against thirty or forty, and once he shuts the classroom door, he is without immediate means of assistance...
...It is simply their way, since no self-respecting group of pupils would want a teacher to walk in complacent...
...After all these years, I wonder whether Rosalyn with her photographic memory still remembers me...
...She never needed time to check her work or change anything...
...Is there something I can do...
...They would have none for me if I had weakened to give her a break...
...For one test I could have fudged on the mark, as a gesture of good will...
...Here was teaching authority at its purest, a display of nerve and assurance before the toughest possible audience: kids grown up to respect only street law...
...He looked at the card with a smile...
...Such a teacher was Dave Fields (name changed...
...At least Clarae was not among those who had to sleep in hallways or abandoned cars and drag themselves to school for a free lunch...
...Here, for example, is the effect the process can have on someone who stayed too long...
...Why must you and your brother go to foster homes...
...Still in my class," I muttered...
...In the classroom he came across as a teacher who could inspire, a teacher whose pupils would not dare to let him down...
...nothing could be done...
...I had my doubts until I met Clarae...
...If she taught literature, grammar, essay writing, or whatever, she made the stakes for learning seem important...
...He has no gun or nightstick, not even a uniform...
Vol. 122 • April 1995 • No. 8
