Bel Kaufman Quotes

How can you wish on a turkey wishbone with a man who is capable of correcting a love letter?

Best marks go to cheaters and memorizers. Marks depend on memorizing and not on real knowledge. When you cram into your head for a test you may get a high mark but forget it the next day. That's not an education. I suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing. Frank Allen

What makes you think you’re so special? Just because you’re a teacher? What he was really saying was: You are so special. You are my teacher. Then teach me, help me, Hey, Teach, I’m lost—which way do I go? I’m tired of going up the down staircase.

Tm not a teach. I'm a teacher. And I have a name. How would you like it if I called you "Hey, pupe!"? "I'd like it fine." "Why?" "It shows you're with it.

To the outside world, of course, this job is a cinch: 9 to 3, five days a week, two months' summer vacation with pay, all legal holidays, prestige and respect. My mother, for example, has the pleasant notion that my day consists of nodding graciously to the rustle of starched curtsies and a chorus of respectful voices bidding me good morning.

After the prescribed length of time and number of meals consumed and digested in unison, they felt they had sufficient community of interests to marry.

To quote a noted Jewish humorist, Sholom Aleichem: “First comes health. You can always hang yourself later.” As

Without love, the art of love is mere acrobatics. Without love, the art of giving is mere etiquette.

And that’s it; that’s why I want to teach; that’s the one and only compensation: to make a permanent difference in the life of a child.

Bel Kaufman (1911–2014) was a writer, teacher, and lecturer best known for her classic, bestselling novel Up the Down Staircase (1965).

I have this colored friend Betty well, I never thought about it one way or the other until one day I went over her house for the first time and her father opened the door and I was surprized to see he was colored. Because, to me I was so used to her she always looked normal. Lazy Mary

Dear Bea— I've been wading through a pile of "Due before 3" mimeos—but now at last I know what to do with them: into the wastebasket! I'm also hep to the jargon. I know that "illustrative material" means magazine covers, "enriched curriculum" means teaching "who and whom," and that "All evaluation of students should be predicated upon initial goals and grade level expectations" means if a kid shows up, pass him. Right?

I am writing this during my lunch period, because I need to reach towards the outside world of sanity, because I am overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the clerical work still to be done, and because at this hour of the morning normal ladies are still sleeping.

The building itself is hostile: cracked plaster, broken windows, splintered doors and carved up desks, gloomy corridors, metal stairways, dingy cafeteria (they can eat sitting down only in 20 minute shifts) and an auditorium which has no windows. It does have murals, however, depicting mute, muscular harvesters, faded and immobilized under a mustard sun. That's where we had assembly this morning.

Extraordinary—that Willowdale Academy and Calvin Coolidge High School should both be institutions of learning! The contrast is stunning. I had a leisurely tea with the Chairman of the English Department. I saw several faculty members sitting around in offices and lounges, sipping tea, reading, smoking. Through the large casement windows bare trees rubbed cozy branches. (One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have "windows with trees in them"!) Old leather chairs, book-lined walls, air of cultivated casualness, sound of well-bred laughter.

I'm buried beneath an avalanche of papers, I don't understand the language of the country, and what do I do about a kid who calls me "Hi, teach!"? Syl INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION FROM: Room 508 TO: Room 304 Nothing. Maybe he calls you Hi, teach! because he likes you. Why not answer Hi, pupe? The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in waste-basket. 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.

There is a need for closeness, yet we can't get too close. The teacher-pupil relationship is a kind of tightrope to be walked. I know how carefully I must choose a word, a gesture. I understand the delicate balance between friendliness and familiarity, dignity and aloofness. I am especially aware of this in trying to reclaim Ferone. I don't know why it's so important to me. Perhaps because he, too, is a rebel. Perhaps because he's been so damaged. He's too bright and too troubled to be lost in the shuffle.

TO: ALL TEACHERS FROM: JAMES J. MCHABE, ADM. ASST. PLEASE PLOT AND HAND IN THE MEDIAN PERCENTILE CURVE BASED ON THE MIDTERM MARKS IN EACH OF YOUR CLASSES. IF A CLASS CURVE FALLS BELOW THE PERCENTILE OF FAILURES ALLOTTED TO IT, THE EFFICACY OF THE TEACHER MUST BE QUESTIONED. TEACHERS WITH THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF PASSING STUDENTS ARE TO BE COMMENDED. JJ McH

In August they had a bad fright. Her lawyer had suggested that—in view of the circumstances—they drop the divorce. This filled them both with profound dread; at the thought of staying married, of sinking back into the deadly boredom of their pre-divorce days, they felt nothing but horror. They realized more than ever that marriage for them was unthinkable.

You’re not God. Nothing is your fault, except, perhaps, poor teaching.

This is just the first day; you’ll get used to it. The rewards will come later, from the kids themselves–and from the unlikeliest ones.

Please admit bearer to class— Detained by me for going Up the Down staircase and subsequent insolence. JJ McH

St. Peter:  “Who is knocking at my gate?” Voice: “It is I.” St. Peter: “Go away, we don’t need any more school teachers here!

hopeless optimism.

Appreciation is appreciated.

The Bible says, “A soft answer turneth away wrath.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the eighteenth-century letter writer and biographer wrote: “Civility costs nothing and buys everything.

Funny, how once you touched off a memory, it was like pulling out a stitch—all the others kept unraveling

And if this wasn’t the happiness she had once so fiercely demanded, at least she had come to terms with life. That was probably as close to happiness as you could get.

(P.S. I wish I could believe you.)

Recently at a party I saw a man rise from his seat each time a woman entered the room. I smiled my encouragement: “You were well brought up,” I said. “No,” he replied, “I learned by myself.

This is from Payroll Division: I wasn’t even teaching in June, and I certainly don’t have $2.75. Apparently they don’t know I’m file # 443-817 and have got me confused with another–possibly # 443-818?

Mr. Philpotts, did you enjoy your life?” “Why, no, I wouldn’t say—” “How then,” asked the chief, “do you expect to enjoy your afterlife? What do you know of happiness? What experience have you had in that line?

I don’t lose time playing verbal games, trying to remember what I forgot. “I don’t remember your name,” says one octogenarian to another. “Tell me what it is.” The second one pauses: “How soon do you have to know?” he asks.

The books we are required to teach frequently have nothing to do with anything except the fact that they have always been taught, or that there is an oversupply of them, or that some committee or other was asked to come up with some titles.

She hasn't been back since, and we have a young per diem substitute who had taught shoes in a vocational high school on her last job. Though her license is English, she had been called to the Shoe Department, where she traced the history of shoes from Cinderella and Puss in Boots through Galsworthy and modern advertising. "Best shoe lesson they ever had," she told me cheerfully. "Until a cop came in, dangling handcuffs: 'Lady, that kid I gotta have.'" To her, Calvin Coolidge is Paradise.

I am writing this during my free . . . oops! un-assigned period, at the end of my first day of teaching. So far, I have taught nothing — but I have learned a great deal. To wit: We have to punch a time clock and abide by the Rules. We must make sure our students likewise abide, and that they sign the time sheet whenever they leave or reenter a room. We have keys but no locks (except in lavatories), blackboards but no chalk, students but no seats, teachers but no time to teach. The library is closed to the students.

There is a need for closeness, yet we can’t get too close. The teacher-pupil relationship is a kind of tightrope to be walked. I know how carefully I must choose a word, a gesture. I understand the delicate balance between friendliness and familiarity, dignity and aloofness.

Lady stand on line before me, speak English so good, like genius, in America only four years, I ashamed tell twenty-two years; I tell twenty!” To class she went only once. “I don’t go back,” she said emphatically. “Too foolish book, Dick and Jane.” She shrugged disdainfully. “Not Tolstoi!

There is a premium on conformity, and on silence. Enthusiasm is frowned upon, since it is likely to be noisy. The Admiral had caught a few kids who came to school before class, eager to practice on the typewriters. He issued a manifesto forbidding any students in the building before 8:20 or after 3:00—outside of school hours, students are "unauthorized." They are not allowed to remain in a classroom unsupervised by a teacher. They are not allowed to linger in the corridors. They are not allowed to speak without raising a hand. They are not allowed to feel too strongly or to laugh too loudly. Yesterday, for example, we were discussing "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars/ But in ourselves that we are underlings." I had been trying to relate Julius Caesar to their own experiences. Is this true? I asked. Are we really masters of our fate? Is there such a thing as luck? A small boy in the first row, waving his hand frantically: "Oh, call on me, please, please call on me!" was propelled by the momentum of his exuberant arm smack out of his seat and fell on the floor. Wild laughter. Enter McHabe. That afternoon, in my letter-box, it had come to his attention that my "control of the class lacked control.

Kaufman learned English only after her arrival in New York City. At twelve years of age, she was enrolled in the first grade of public school because of her lack of knowledge of English. With the help of a sympathetic teacher, she soon caught up and flourished. After a year at New York University, Kaufman was admitted to Hunter College in New York City and graduated magna cum laude three and a half years later. She then obtained a master’s degree in literature from Columbia University, graduating with high honors.

As soon as you enter,” he said, “I know. Tout de suite I know. You are tigresse.” She smiled her slow smile. This was better; the man had something after all.

To the young ones she would say bravely that her husband did not love her (how piquant an unloved wife, if she is beautiful), but that she could never, never hurt him.

It was only after her marriage that she had learned to create the illusion of beauty, which is, perhaps, more difficult to achieve than beauty itself.

That sense of power was all she craved.

He was taking off his tie, the dreadful tie with the green mermaid on it. “It’s your tie, Sam—I hate it! Why must you always . . .” I’m not saying it right, she thought, not any of it.

Why are we quarreling about a tie? flashed through her mind; at the same time, as if propelled by a force outside of herself, she tore it from his hand and flung it furiously into the wastebasket.

Sam had a child’s faith in the healing power of the morning, she thought later, as she lay sleepless at his side; he believed that a good night’s sleep could iron out all the accumulated wrinkles of the day. She resented his ability to fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow while she tossed restlessly in bed; his even breathing was an affront to her wakefulness.

And you fixed it?” “I think so. I had a long talk with her this morning. But you see, my approach had to be oblique. She would have ignored my platitudes and resented my advice. There was only one way to show her how happy she really is—and that was to make her feel sorry for me.

Dear Bea—Can’t make it today—sorry. Parent arriving lunch per. to ask why son got 35% on Midterm. Must answer him. How? Sylvia Dear Syl—Don’t try. There’s no communication; no one really listens. Every man is an island. Give him a container of coffee instead. Bea

Reading between the lines, I got the impression of dull domesticity that had settled upon them like fine dust.

She touched his sleeve, drawing her hand away at once, as if burned by the contact, but with practiced subtlety.

Like a child, too, he was warm, unaffected, and selfish. He had the combination, irresistible to women, of ruthlessness and tenderness.

To meet this expense, he sold his violin. Besides, Charlotte did not care for music.

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT MEETING AT 3 PM IN SCIENCE LAB 409 ON: THE TOTAL EXPERIENCE OF THE PUPIL: SHOULD MACBETH BE TAUGHT IN THE 6th TERM INSTEAD OF THE 5th?

there was only this one life to live; the unpardonable sin was to waste it.

She tucked a vial of perfume into her purse, to apply when she was outside the apartment

That was what marriage was: the ultimate knowledge of each other, with no need to preen or to pretend. Even its irritations came from closeness.

Stripped of her calculated clothes and the careful camouflage of her make-up she was tired, unalluring, middle-aged. And that was something she would never admit to herself, for most of the illusion of beauty is the conviction of beauty.

The long procession of men flickered before her like faces on cards quickly riffled—blurred, two-dimensional. Only their desire for her mattered.

Now, long before it came to the final reckoning, to payment of promise implied, she began to set the stage for the great renunciation. “Let’s not spoil it,” she would say, caressing the man’s lapels with long silken fingers. “Let’s not spoil what we have . . .

She luxuriated in these disembodied telephone conversations. “Darling, I can almost see you, almost touch you now.” It was intimate yet distant; thrilling yet safe.

Almost through force of habit, she found her lips saying the words she had so often said before: “Let’s not spoil it . . . You will write to me, my dear, my dear . . .” His face was impassive. “I never write,” he said.

had set out to tell you exactly what happened. But since I am the one writing this, how do I know what in my telling I am selecting, omitting, emphasizing; what unconscious editing I am doing?

О сливках заботиться нет нужды. Они всегда будут сверху.

Учитель должен быть одновременно актером, полицейским, ученым, тюремщиком, родителем, инспектором, рефери, другом, психиатром, учетчиком, руководителем и воспитателем, судьей и присяжным, властителем дум и составителем отчетов, а также великим магистром Классного журнала.

А вы можете угадать по моему почерку, белый я или нет?

Как их исправлять и что исправлять - правописание, пунктуацию или одиночество, сквозящее между строк?

Как сказал Бернард Шоу, кто умеет, делает сам, кто не умеет, учит других. Как и большинство поговорок, это лишь полуправда. На самом деле кто умеет, тот учит, а кто не умеет, тот, провалившись в другом месте, ищет в школьной системе только выход из положения или прибежище.

Чтение делает человека знающим, беседа - находчивым, а привычка записывать - точным. (Фрэнсис Бэкон)

Развитие привычки к чтению, основаной на любви к книге, - лучший вклад, который может сделать школа.

Отношения учителя с учеником - это что-то вроде хождения по канату. Знаю, как осторожно должна выбирать слова и жесты. Понимаю, как трудно балансировать между дружелюбием и фамильярностью, достоинством и отчужденностью.

Учителям нужно зеркало в глубине класса, чтобы они видели, какими мы их видим.

Мне так хотелось через комедию богов донести до них людскую трагедию…

Но как ломать дужку с человеком, способным исправлять ошибки в любовном письме?

Но больше всего времени у меня отнимает вовсе не преподавание. Известна ли тебе хоть одна профессия, где бы высококвалифицированные специалисты раскладывали карточки по алфавиту, разносили извещения, сторожили столовую?

As a former student put it: “In a liberry it’s hard to avoid reading.” When

In one of Chekhov’s short stories, a little boy is drawing a picture. His father asks him why the man in the picture is taller than the house. “If he were smaller,” says the child reasonably, “you couldn’t see his eyes.” ENTRY:

In one story, he describes a man who is blind in one eye, myopic in the other, too poor to buy eyeglasses, who wears only the frames, with no lenses. When asked why he replies: “It’s better than nothing.” As

Each country has its own manner of telephoning. The Russians, at least, are honest. They say, “It is Ivan Ivanovich who is bothering you.” The

Never mind the cream, it will rise to the top. It's the skim milk that needs good teachers.

When her mother saw Andrea, she took her hand in hers and sobbed: “We’re orphans now!” It struck Andrea as false, somehow—the tear-stained face, the trite words.

She hesitated, searching in her scant vocabulary of taken for granted health the precise word to convey the inchoate distress, the alien sense of something gone wrong.

Happy? It was a word she had been fond of using when she was young. But it meant one thing at eighteen, another at thirty-two. Its only test was contrast with unhappiness.

I’ve been a good mother,” she said. It was a plea rather than an affirmation.

The past still had its future.

Many of us, her mind repeated, walking with vague symptoms, breathing fear. So many of us who, through love, have a stake in life.

She hoped the examination would not take too long because she had to take Patty to her art class, shop for tonight’s dinner, and fix the hem of Patty’s new dress for her sixth birthday party next week.

Shortly after my arrival, I discovered that Nancy-Anastasia and poor Walter were also living in the house, in a ground floor room, in order to save money for their divorce. “They’re living together?” I asked. “Is Okay. Is Rrawshian saying: ‘Not everybody who snore is sleeping.

As for Walter—he was a man constantly beset by tiny pinpricks of fate.

Why you don’t cut whiskers? Is Rrawshian saying: ‘The beard is honor, but whiskers even a cat has!’ ” “Oh, mother,” Nancy-Anastasia would shrug helplessly.

She wore no make-up, and her small, tense face looked chronically embarrassed, as if it got attached by mistake to the wrong person.

A man couldn’t jump higher than himself, she pointed out to me. And he couldn’t help it if he was a “zoodnik”; one so annoying, he made you itch.

A life to live is not a field to cross; yet, somehow, in her chaotic way, Varya was able to keep the house going.

and off she’d go—in search of a bargain: a lamp disguised as a nude figure, a rhinestone tiara, or a hand-painted parasol, for the “rainy season.

Her disappointment was minor compared to her astonishment. “Again I didn’t win? But last year I didn’t win also!

That I was a writer was further proof of God’s far-sightedness; she was convinced that by some magic of propinquity she would acquire a mastery of the English language.

Is Rrawssian saying: ‘Better small fish than big cockroach.’ Some hawsband drrunk, some hawsband play all time cards, some hawsband fleert with woman. . . . Rrogov make only with brread.

Your fingers smell of incense—a lover sings to the corpse of his dead sweetheart.

Do not weep, do not weep, my little wife: song of hope and encouragement in marriage.