School

I wrote this essay decades ago, drawing upon my memories of public school in the 1950s Brooklyn of my childhood. Could it possibly have been this bleak? I’ve undoubtedly distorted details and forgotten things––there must have been some happy times––but this is what came back to me. Now, as summer draws to a close and I see local kids returning to school in this very different time and place, I find myself contemplating how much the world has changed. Just for fun, I dug this up and read it out loud to Monte. He grew up in California, but it all sounded very familiar to him; he laughed a lot and encouraged me to go ahead and post it. Yes, the teachers were strict, classrooms crowded, and our self-esteem was not a priority. But somehow we survived. We emerged literate, knew about history and civics, and understood the need to coexist. Maybe other Boomers will relate.

I knew from day one it was hopeless. I walked with my brothers to the brooding brick building, was escorted into an auditorium filled with waiting children, and had a room number tacked to my blouse. I could see there was no sense in crying, for this was clearly what they had in mind for us. I looked with mild disdain at the ones who clung to their mothers, sobbing and snotting and losing all dignity. I resigned myself to whatever might follow, wishing I could go outside into the sunshine and autonomy of the street.

The principal stood on the stage, and the room fell silent. His name was Mr. Gartenlaub, and he simply reeked with authority. Behind him were portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and the flag of the nation and New York State. I decided that Mr. Gartenlaub must be the George Washington of school, a stern and white-haired father, and not a person you’d want to have to meet face to face, not like Abe Lincoln, who had kind eyes.

We were organized into lines, and in a slow and sorry procession we walked up the stairs and into our designated classrooms. There was a conscious attempt at cheer in the kindergarten rooms, with their tiny tables and miniature oak chairs, big orange cut-outs of cardboard autumn leaves, wooden blocks, picture books, and clay pots of red geraniums on the window sills. The walls were pale yellow––they always would be––and to me it was a kind of yellow world, seen as through a lens which warmed and distorted everything. I tried to find comfort in the glow if its false fire, but I never could stop feeling strange and churned up inside. I would be seven years in this school, which seemed inconceivably long, and this was only the beginning.

My teacher was a small woman with short black hair who read us stories and assigned us chores. Her name was Mrs. Barmatz. We would vie for the privilege of bringing her smock or galoshes to her, or of clapping the erasers into big clouds of chalk dust. There were peculiar customs to get used to, such as lying still on a smelly mat for a very long time, pretending to nap. Or holding hands in circle games with boys whose skin felt like damp marshmallow. We learned songs about bluebirds and robins and London Bridge. Sometimes we could draw pictures, and this was the best, but such pleasures were parceled out in parsimonious packets. We were regulated by bells and limits that seemed painfully arbitrary. Just as you were losing yourself in the crayon-colored ruffles of your lady’s twirly skirt, it would be time for crackers and containers of milk. Just when you discovered a finger-paint technique for three-dimensional swirls, along would come recess.

“Bluebird, bluebird, through my window. Oh, Johnny, I am tired.”

I already had a best friend who lived a few doors down from my family’s apartment on Coney Island Avenue, but they had put her somewhere else, and so I was left to fend for myself. I watched the others for a very long time, forming opinions, considering the prospect of approaching one, maybe a shy one like myself. There was Ruth, with her impossibly long and perfectly brushed hair, and Amy, who kept throwing up. There was a boy named Steven, whom I secretly called Fox-face for his high cheekbones and narrow eyes. There was Norman, a kid who loved George Gershwin, who sat in our kindergarten class humming Rhapsody in Blue. There was always someone who peed his pants, someone else who could not sit still, and kids like Howard, who never got over the crying thing––he was still slobbering in November about being there, and he had to start all over every Monday until May. “Give it up,” I wanted to say. “Have you noticed it isn’t working? We’re stuck. This is it.”

I finally made friends with Elaine Nadel, a girl with rosy cheeks and curly brown hair. She was quiet, but quick, a good artist too, and she already knew her letters. One day I went to her house after school. Her father lit candles and said a prayer in Hebrew at the table. I believe both parents had the tattooed numbers on their arms––terrible things had happened, and World War II had ended not so very long ago, and the history was real. Elaine’s father walked me home in the evening. I felt very shy being alone with him, and we walked the whole way in silence, except when I told him that we needed to cross to the other side of Coney Island Avenue, and then, after several unfamiliar blocks, I had to tell him I had made a mistake, and we backtracked and crossed over again. Everything looked different in the evening, walking home with somebody else’s father, not knowing what to say. He must have thought I was a very stupid girl.

It was always hard for me to find my voice, even in my own defense. Being shy was a significant disadvantage in school. Even when I knew the answers, I would not raise my hand. And even when I yearned to say something friendly or clever, it stayed in my mouth like a piece of hard candy that I couldn’t spit out. It became clear to me early on that I was not going to be popular.

What’s worse, I learned in school, is that when you make no noise, people still hear something. They decide who you are, in order to include you, or ignore you or abuse you. As for me, I tended to generate peaceful indifference, at least until fourth grade, where I met my nemesis, Doreen Smolen. Why she hated me so, I never knew, but her malice toward me was constant and aggressive. She mocked me for the swollen leather briefcase I dutifully carried to and from school, for the rubber bands I used to keep my knee socks from sagging sadly around my ankles. She teased me about my dirty hair, my knobby knees, and my favorite plaid dress, the dress with a hundred rainbow window panes, a dress I loved too well and wore too often. If I got a gold star on the chart for sitting up straight with my hands folded while Mrs. Olinger talked to another teacher, Doreen sneered. If I got an A on my Arbor Day composition, she mocked my simple-hearted diligence.

“Ignore her,” said my brother Eddie. “Don’t let her see that it gets to you.”

But the more I ignored her, the pushier she got.

“Did you cram enough books in that suitcase?” she called out to me, in her sarcastic tone. I ignored her, as Eddie had advised. We were in the schoolyard, just after dismissal. There were colorful knots of children here and there. Some had put down their books and were playing jump rope and clapping games or just running around. I could hear a ball bouncing, a nifty pink Spaulding, and a girl was singing, “A my name is Alice and my husband’s name is Al; we come from Alabama to sell you…apples…”

Suddenly, Doreen shoved me from behind. The weight of my briefcase threw me off balance, and I stumbled.  She looked down on me with nothing but meanness in her eyes.

For the first time ever, I really studied her. She was tall and plain, almost ugly. From my vantage point on the ground, I could see her big chunky toes peering from brown leather sandals. Her feet were enough to make me hate her. And hate her I did, although perhaps I had not fully known until that moment. My anger was at least unleashed, and I could hear the horses thundering in my head. Doreen Smolen didn’t know about the rage in me. I jumped to my feet, swinging and jabbing and aiming to hurt.

We were fighting like two wild boys now, rolling on the ground, pulling hair, punching hard, and pinching. She tried to pull away, but I would not stop. I thrashed her with my bony knuckles. I hit her with her notebook. A small crowd had gathered and encircled us. There were cheers and shouts of “Fight!” and “Get her!” I knew I could get in trouble for fighting, but Doreen had pushed too far, and this felt good. I was undiluted fury.

Doreen somehow loosed herself from the web of my wrath and ran away toward home. Fortunately, no teacher had observed us, and I was to escape with impunity. Most amazing, there was applause. Michael Palanka, a boy who had never even noticed me, came up and shook my hand. “Congratulations to the victor,” he said, with a tone of respect. For a moment, I was popular, but it seemed odd that my violence, the very thing which caused me shame, had been the ticket. I walked away with a deliberately light step, defying my secret confusion. I felt bruised and tainted, exhilarated and proud, all in the same moment. My popularity did not last, but Doreen Smolen never bothered me again.

Time passed and I learned many things. The object of school was to please the teachers, and I worked hard at this. They always preferred a quiet child, so having few friends could actually work to one’s advantage. Neatness was important too. They liked if you volunteered for things, but you mustn’t seem too eager or they would pick somebody else. And you could get a lot of points just for sitting up straight in your seat and directing your eyes toward the teacher. You might be wondering my she did that weird thing to her hair, or if she knew about the lipstick on her teeth, but the overall impression was that you were being attentive. Watching the clock was always a temptation to avoid. Sometimes I would challenge myself not to look at it for a full fifteen minutes, but usually I broke too soon and was always disappointed at how little time had elapsed.

In the winter, we would wait for the morning bell in a green-tiled basement area which we used for indoor recess. We would stamp the slush from our galoshes, walk across the damp floor, and stand in line with our class. At a certain moment, a sixth grade student who served as head monitor, an honor to which I once aspired, would ring a bell and say, “Silence, please. All talking is to be stopped immediately.” Noise would cease, and bodies seemed to stiffen. A few minutes later, she would ring the bell again and say, “First line forward.”  And we would silently move up the stairs.

The rooms all smelled of radiator steam and wet sweaters, and everyone was sick. On one such day, I had to stand in front of the class and give an oral book report. My noise was running uncontrollably, and I had lost my handkerchief and couldn’t blow it. In desperation, I wiped a bubble of snot on my sleeve.

“Disgusting, filthy child!” said Miss Kennedy. “Leave this room and do not return until you have washed your hands and properly wiped your nose and thought about hygiene.” Hygiene was a big topic, from fingernail inspections to head lice checks.

The day grew dark and dismal by three o’clock dismissal, and then there would be the prospect of snowball attacks all the way home. I hated the snowballs with sharp edges, the lazy ones that were just grimy broken slabs of icy street slush, sometimes suspiciously yellow. Life was a state of siege, and I was always dodging and ducking, and I could never retaliate because I simply couldn’t throw, and I was always losing my gloves and didn’t want my hands to get any colder, already my fingers were stinging, my knee socks had rolled down into my wet boots, and of course my nose was running, and me without a handkerchief.

I looked forward to reaching Ocean Parkway, where I would see Jeannette, the crossing guard. She wore a thick wool coat of navy blue and spoke with a French accent. I admired her natty policeman’s cap, and the smart white band she wore across her chest. She would ask me what I did in school that day, and sometimes I would show her my work. She marveled at my penmanship, said she never saw so many hundreds in spelling, and thought I was a genius for including even knee caps on the people I drew. Jeanette knew my name and was happy to see me. She made it fun to cross the parkway. The biggest thrill for me was to skip a few lights and just talk to her.

During the course of one such chat, Jeannette asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Without hesitation, I replied, “A crossing guard.”

“Oh, honey,” said Jeanette. “You have to dream bigger than that. You have to dream a whole lot bigger.”

My best dreams had to do with school closings. I would lie still on a snowy morning, listening to the radio, waiting hopefully to hear that P.S. 179 was among those closed due to weather. I would yearn for every Saturday and count the days until vacation. All I knew was that school was programmed and predictable and therefore held no promise. Occasionally, our rigid routines were broken, like when we lined up at the nurse’s office for polio shots, or when we watched a tiny white rocket launch on a TV set in the auditorium, or took a break to practice crouching under our desks so we’d know what to do when the atom bomb came.

One day, as the portly Mrs. Olinger teetered before us on her very high heels, a monitor arrived with a note from the office. A hurricane was coming––Hurricane Donna! Parents had been called to come to school and retrieve their children immediately. Already, an ominous wind was gusting outside, taking dried leaves and candy wrappers on spiral journeys through the air, and rattling the windowpanes of our classroom. I sat next do Mitchell, a boy who was to drown that very summer, and nervously watched the door, resenting all whose parents showed up promptly. How long would I be trapped in here? There was the map of New York State, all green and brown and blue. There were the loopy cursive letters that marched above the blackboards, our Pan American essays, the familiar face of the sluggish clock…but alas, no Daddy at the door. Mrs. Olinger grew fretful and impatient. It occurred to me that she, too, would like to leave, although she was most suited to this room. At last, I was taken to the auditorium to sit and wait with a handful of other apparently forgotten children, among them my own brothers and sister. Our embarrassment was greater than our fear, and it was not the hurricane that worried me so much as the terrible possibility of being stuck in school way past the bell, maybe for days.

Daddy arrived in his paint-speckled coveralls and paint-freckled shoes. A glossy strand of his straight black hair fell across his forehead, and his smile was tired. He shepherded the four of us into the Rambler that was parked illegally at the curb just outside the entrance to the school A pounding rainfall had begun, and weather whipped against the windshield. The wind howled in the trees, and broke off branches which tumbled in the streets. There would be no school tomorrow, and after the storm, I could explore the neighborhood in its new face and new light. I could be captain on the deck of wet sidewalks, and set popsicle sticks sailing to the sewer in the oily gutter currents. I was safe at home.

Near the end of sixth grade, I got a vinyl autograph book that you could zipper closed. It had pastel-colored pages for people to sign. They wrote things like:

When you are married and your husband gets cross,

Take the broom and show who’s boss.

Yours ‘til the U.S. drinks Canada Dry.

Audrey F.

Or…

When you’re old and drinking tea,

Burn your tongue and think of me.

Yours until the U.S. gets Hungary and dips Turkey in Greece.

Linda H.

(dated til pin curls get seasick from permanent waves)

At the front of the album, there was a page where you could choose the “class leaders”. I wrote in the name of the “wittiest”: Janet Fechner—maybe she wasn’t that witty, but she did have a thick yellow braid and a grandma from Norway who told he she had once gone waltzing on the fjords. There was the “most cheerful”, and for that I chose Ellen Myer, who lived in a house across the street from the school playground; she would smile and wave to us from her window on the days she was absent, which were frequent, so she could afford to be cheerful. “Most popular” was Esther Frieden, “best-looking”, Perri Bein. For “smartest” I left a question mark. Perhaps I was thinking of myself. I had figured out the mysteries of school right at the beginning, watched the whole shabby show, gone through all the motions, and never let on how much I loathed it. I had fooled everyone, but modesty did not permit me to write my own name.