My first twelve years of formal schooling were pretty much a bust. I blame my underachieving, unserious self. I was much more interested in punchball, the Dodgers, comic books, and radio serials than in the lessons, which were unchallenging and drab. At school I learned reading, writing and 'rithmetic, for which I'm grateful, and also a little Latin. I was an autodidact, not a student, right out of the gate. I liked to read and fortunately the Avenue J branch of the Brooklyn Public Library (though only a storefront) was within walking distance; so was the McDonald Avenue branch where, during high school, I worked for 75 cents an hour shelving books. I was an omnivorous reader and although I did not have a strong understanding or much of an imagination, I had an excellent memory. Reading saved me. Reading rescued me. "If it hadn't been for reading, we'd have been entirely at the mercy of sex."
I don't blame my teachers. A few had thrown in the towel, but most of them tried their best. They were overworked, underprepared, unsupported, and in occasional cases prodigiously ignorant even of the subjects they taught. The conditions under which they worked were not propitious. At P. S. 217 classrooms were designed (!!!) for 48 students (pupils, we were called in those days) but on high-attendance days, there were always a few unenthusiastic kids lolling in improvised seats by the window. In most classes, lessons were taught; but in others, especially at Erasmus Hall High School, there was only disorder and hubbub — and sometimes a tad of danger.
My first grade teacher, Mrs. Callery was a diminutive gloomy woman. I remember telling my mother, "Mrs. Callery doesn't like me." My mother said, "You must be kind to her. She lost four of her boys in the war" (it was 1944). I remember that I construed "lost" to mean "misplaced" and was therefore dumbfounded by Mrs. Callery's forgetfulness. White-haired Mrs. Sherwood, in third grade, left no impression except for her extreme old age (possibly 55), but Mrs. Cares (Sarah Cares!!, great name for a teacher) was quite kind. Mrs. Finsmith in fifth was a cipher, but Mrs. Donnelly, whose white hair was dyed a radiant blue, made it her business to make life as miserable as possible for me, and succeeded. My favorite teacher in those early years was extra-strict Mrs. McNulty, who insisted that we memorize fractions, decimals, and percentages, and taught us how to format a "friendly letter." In seventh grade, we went "departmental." I remember Mr. Harry Shapiro ('the bald headed hero") who spoke of "we scientists"; Mrs. Georgia Kieselbach, an aloof music teacher who had a trained operatic mezzo; Mr. Maxwell Proshan, a pathetic incompetent, and the twin (as I remember them) art teachers, Mrs. Nellis and Mrs. Ennis. At Erasmus Hall, I had good instruction in Latin from old Miss Beulah Withee and even older Mr. Gabriel Cussen (who I now realize must have been an ex-priest) but bad lazy non-teaching from Harry Wedeck, a pretentious fake. Miss Edna Goetschius, a biology teacher, complained to me more than once that I didn't know how to stipple. Mr. Lindlar, an ineffectual physics teacher, would mysteriously disappear between classes and return reeking of alcohol. My mathematics teachers were competent (Mr. Ebersman), angry as all shit (Mrs. Altschul), or suicidal (Mrs. Bonime). An English teacher who was well-read and competent, Mrs. Harriet Felder, was an "Oxfordian" caught up in the conspiracy theory that Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare. Walter Balletto, who whiled away our time teaching "Discussion English," was more interested in his own theatricality than in any instruction he might have rendered. I later learned that he lived with his mother and collected Kirsten Flagstad records, information which my 1950s self could not even begin to assimilate. I remember also an art teacher, Mrs. Schauben, who kept her protruding ears in check with a thin rubber band; perhaps we weren't supposed to notice, but I've never forgotten. The gym teachers were simple-minded jokesters, although I remember thinking even then that the martinet Mr. Eis would have been more at home in the SS than at EHHS.
It was, in retrospect, quite a zoo. But I know that some of my coevals, who were smart enough to choose their teachers wisely and take it all seriously, managed to get themselves a decent education. I didn't; my only success was to get out alive and then move on.
Here's a good picture of Erasmus Hall High School in the old days. A Gothic pile.
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