Quote #2

The clerical work is par for the course. 'Keep on file in numerical order' means throw in wastebasket. You'll soon learn the language. 'Let it be a challenge to you' means you're stuck with it; 'interpersonal relationships' is a fight between kids; 'ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline' means call the cops; 'Language Arts Dept.' is the English office; 'literature based on child's reading level and experiential background' means that's all they've got in the Book Room; 'non-academic-minded' is a delinquent; and 'It has come to my attention' means you're in trouble.

More from Bel Kaufman

  1. I don't allow anyone to talk to me like that. So you're lucky - you're a teacher.
  2. When I had asked why they were taking English, a boy said: 'To help us in real life.'
  3. The building itself is hostile: cracked plaster, broken windows, splintered doors and carved up desks, gloomy corridors and metal stairways…
  4. During what was presumably my lunch period, Admiral Ass (a Mr. McHabe, who signs himself Adm. Asst.) appeared in my room with Joe Ferone. '…
  5. The cardinal sin, strange as it may seem in an institution of learning, is talking. There are others, of course - sins, I mean, and I seem …
  6. Like most chairmen, he teaches only one class of Seniors; the most experienced teachers are frequently promoted right out of the classroom!
  7. Teachers try to make us feel lower than themselves, maybe because this is because they feel lower than outside people. One teacher told me …
  8. You teachers are all alike, dishing out crap and expecting us to swallow it and then give it back to you, nice and neat, with a place in it…

All Bel Kaufman quotes