Preface to a Work-in-Progress

Here is the preface to a book I'm writing about being a public high school teacher in Indiana from 1969-2004.  I hope that it will entertain as well as inform.  Those years were among the best of my life and taught me as much as I ever taught my students.  Though the world continues to change at an alarming rate, there are some universals that remain, no matter how much technology we may have in schools.  To some, the world of a public school may seem like something extraterrestrial, but the human dynamic is very strong there, providing both pathos and humor.  I expect the final manuscript not to be finished until the fall of 2012, but I believe it will be worth the wait to anyone who has ever been a teacher or a student in any high school in America.  From time to time I may share chapters here on my blog.  JB

         COME SEPTEMBER,  The Journey of a High School Teacher

                                                                             PREFACE

     The fall of 1969 I met Bel Kaufman, author of UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE (released in 1964 and later made into a film starring Sandy Dennis).  Ms. Kaufman was the feature speaker at the Hammond Civic Center that year for Teachers’ Institute, the two-day series of meetings and workshops attended by all public school teachers in Hammond, Indiana in late October in those years. As someone who admired her, I wanted very much to speak with her, even if briefly.  By winding my way after the program through two security guards and crowds of other school teachers, I came upon the stalwart lady, whose hair was swept back on one side as though she had just come inside after an encounter with a strong wind.  She was wearing a smart tweed suit and a sumptuously patterned silk scarf. 

     She looked at me as I approached her before the next person could accost her.  Ms. Kaufman was even more gracious and charming than I had hoped, and what I remember still from our brief exchange of words is her telling me that as a first-year teacher I had ahead of me a journey filled with more wondrous things than I could at that time imagine.  She was right.  No one, despite his having completed practice teaching for his B.A., could have conjured up images of the cast of eccentric characters to be encountered, those awful faculty meetings, open house for parents, PTA meetings, cafeteria duty, club sponsoring, planning lessons, grading mountains of homework papers and tests, or even standing before that first group of staring freshmen in my own classroom.

     Looking back, I can see now that for the first couple of years I was a pretty terrible teacher, dependent upon soul-shrinking teachers’ manuals, standardized tests, and the empty conviction that one size fits all.  Methods classes I had taken in college proved of little use in what gradually revealed itself to be the “real world” of public education, which over time would become my world, the center of my life, and the corps of my identity for thirty-five years, years upon which I look back with affection and with a sincere hope that now in a time of turmoil and financial stress, public education in America will find its way again through the dedication of other teachers, parents, and students themselves.  I want this book to reflect the love and respect I have for the teaching profession, but I want also to show the light side of the years I spent instructing kids in English and French classes and helping them to discover who they were and of what they were capable.

     One confession I must share with the reader is that COME SEPTEMBER was not my first choice for a title.  The first one came from an experience I had teaching English in summer school during the 1980’s, when one morning during ten o’clock break, I stood in the hallway outside my classroom to help maintain a sense of order while students congregated around locker bay C.  Unintentionally, I found myself eavesdropping on a conversation between Eric, one of my students, and another kid whose voice I didn’t recognize.  The sentences I heard Eric speak, which will remain forever in my memory, were,  ”No, man, you don’t understand.  Skeletons ain’t got no tits.”  The two boys were obviously unaware that I was listening, and I was so stunned by Eric’s words, that I was immobilized until the bell rang for classes to resume.  I never asked him about what I had heard him say to his buddy.  During the years that have elapsed since that summer morning, I have regretted over and over again not asking Eric what the hell he was talking about.  Now, I suppose it will remain one of those mysteries that stay on one of the back shelves of my mind, with my question forever unanswered, unless Eric reads this book and manages to contact me so that I may some day go peacefully to my grave through the simple resolution of what he meant that day.  More than one of my friends has told me that SKELETONS AIN’T GOT NO TITS may get people’s attention but may not necessarily sell books.  I have, therefore, opted for the more docile title of COME SEPTEMBER, even though the book promises to share many equally irreverent anecdotes about my years in the classroom.

     Bel Kaufman celebrated her 100th birthday in May of 2011.  This is just another reason for me to feel inspired by someone who taught high school and survived.  It gives me the hope that I may celebrate my 100th too, only my celebration will not occur until March of 2046.

John Bolinger