![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0060973617\")
<\/a> by Bel Kaufman.<\/p>\n![\"200px-BelKaufman_UpTheDownStaircase.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/200px-BelKaufman_UpTheDownStaircase.jpg\")
I read this laugh-out-loud funny book about a woman who goes to teach in an inner city school when I was a kid. I read it because my cousin Susan, who was a year older than myself, and basically the coolest and most admirable person alive to me was reading it (and yes, if she had jumped off a bridge, I would have too) – her guffaws of laughter made me intrigued. She had to be about 13, so I was 12. I remember reading it and there was one section, in particular, which made me laugh so hard that I still remember it, years later, almost word for word. The book is not written with a narrative. There are series of conversations with her students, where she tries to get them under control (no small feat) – they refer to her as ‘teach’, they speak many languages, none of them very well, they are ghetto kids, and full of mischief and bullshit. The book also shows, beautifully, the overwhelming bureaucracy of high schools – all of the inter-office memos are printed (some of them are hilarious) – and the notes passed back and forth between teachers – Sylvia Barrett (our lead character’s name) trying to get her sea legs in this new environment, which feels more like a correctional facility than a high school. We get to know the students through their compositions that they write for her (and one of these was the thing that made me laugh so loud I had to stop reading the book, just to give myself a break). There’s a side plot where a young girl student falls in love with a male teacher – and writes him a passionate badly-spelled illiterate love letter. He doesn’t know what to do, so he gives it back to her – with all of her mistakes corrected, as though it’s just a regular paper. She responds by throwing herself out the window. She doesn’t die, but much brou-haha ensues. I love the structure of the book – it almost feels like you are rifling through a teacher’s desk drawers, at the end of a school year. Baffled notes go out by Sylvia … who is trying to learn the system, as well as teach these kids (and you just fall in love with these kids, even the criminals-in-the-making – they’re just all awesome) … and you watch (through these “found objects”) how Sylvia, over the course of the year, with much hard work, gains the kids’ respect … and figures out how to teach them.<\/p>\n
An awesome book – if you haven’t read it, all I can say is – do yourself a favor. It’s got it all. Oh, and if you’re a teacher – you REALLY have to read it!! You seriously will snort with laughter, and there are moments that are so poignant (I love teacher stories anyway) where you feel like you might cry. The breakthroughs are small … it’s not like Sylvia discovers a Dominican Einstein in her rowdy class … but she does figure out how not just to talk to them on their level, but to raise them up as well. To hear their responses to, say, Huck Finn<\/i>, in their essays – seriously, you have to read it. You will CRY with laughter.<\/p>\n
Wonderful book.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the students essays, from early on in the year. She has an anonymous drop-box in her room … and she will assign the kids a question to be answered … sometimes it’s general, like, “How do you like my teaching? What can I do to improve?” to more specific, like the following excerpt. I chose this excerpt because I think it’s a nice segue from all of the Ulysses<\/i> posts I’ve been doing. (And the comment involving “the round person” makes me laugh out loud)<\/p>\n