Читать книгу Stories I'd Tell My Children (But Maybe Not Until They're Adults) - Michael N Marcus - Страница 20

Our sixth-grade teacher at Davis Street School was Julia Quinn. I’m not sure what her political orientation was, but she unintentionally provided a perfect introductory course on the evils of bureaucracy and socialism.

She also thought that Jews worshipped Jesus.

Despite her abundant ignorance, Quinn viewed herself as a superstar, more of an executive than a mere instructor. She spent a lot of time in the principal’s office when she should have been teaching.

Quinn demanded that the parents of the kids in our class chip in to buy her an expensive Wollensak tape recorder that was seldom used in the classroom. Parents also felt obligated to give her much more lavish Christmas gifts than they gave to other teachers.

On the first day of school, Quinn was out of our classroom for about an hour. The kids were bored. The only book in the room was a dictionary, so kids started flipping pages, looking for dirty words. Someone found “stinkbug,” and started laughing.

The page was bookmarked and the book was passed around the room. When Quinn came back, she found about 30 kids giggling hysterically. No one would admit to discovering the bug, so we were all made to stand on the “baby line” for punishment before entering school in the morning.

The classroom was divided into groups of five children, each commanded by an 11-year-old future commissar.

In order to address our Most Exalted Comrade Teacher, we had to ask permission from our Highly Revered Group Leader.

If she or he wasn’t a friend, a kid could have wet pants before getting permission to ask Quinn for permission to go to the boys’ room or girls’ room to urinate.

Normal teachers gave spelling tests to encourage children to learn to spell. Quinn gave spelling tests to build group loyalty and destroy friendships.

She wasn’t satisfied with our learning to spell new words each week; we had to memorize them in alphabetical order. On quiz day, each group had to recite and spell the new words. The first child did the first word, the second child did the second word and so on.

But if anyone said a word out of order—even if it was spelled correctly—the whole group failed.

A child who goofed up in class was often beaten up after class.