Teacher training neglects one of the fundamental areas of classroom knowledge, how to break a hammerlock. If you can't break a hammerlock at the start of the semester, they'll pin you all year long. Humor, of course, went a long way with my students, although eventually they got tired of laughing at me and we got down to business, group discussions of their parents' personal problems. (Turned out that's where a lot of them learned their hammerlocks.) My being Jewish was a source of wonder to many of them, since--at the time--I was not the balding owner of an appliance store. I still don't own an appliance store. Although openness was the watchword, I must admit the constant "values clarification" got on my nerves. Finally, when it came to deciding who would enter the fallout shelter in the event of a nuclear war, I remember recommending the priest, the scientist, and the historian all be left outside, and we just take the showgirl, a few ugly but good-natured guys, and a deck of cards.

I encouraged my students to call me Mike, whether they wanted to or not. Some begged to call me Mr. Feldman, but I felt we had to get tough if we were going to pull this Aquarian thing off. And discussions, lots of discussions. We had so many discussions we had discussion backlash ("This is supposed to be English class, not Discussion class." Needless to say we talked about it.) Each day we put all the desks in a circle, and each nights the custodian moved them back into rows. (The postulate of Eluclid really is "You can't sweep a circle." Nick Euclid, Custodian.) Although the administration wouldn't go for a classroom without walls (something about "Structural integrity"), they did let us paint Mayan borders around the ones we had. Once you have Mayan walls, it's a small step to remove the desks altogether, and let the students bring in beanbag chairs and sofas, which we did, the educational theory if you're going to sleep at your seat, why not be comfortable? (Desks, if you recall, hit you right here and cut off the circulation.)

My peers did not accept me with open arms, even when I tried to integrate myself into the lounge huddles of the social studies teachers/coaches, whose conversations were mostly audible called on the line. I always imagined these guys teaching the Nazi invasion of Poland as "First down for Hitler." Nary a one wanted to hear about Joyce Carol Oates, despite her deep love of boxing. The behavior in teachers' lounges, by the way, is just what you have always suspected: rowdy and boisterous, with spitballs and an occasional mock chicken leg flying, until a student knocks and timidly sticks his or her head in the door. Then they're perfect angels.

Having seen Blackboard Jungle I never brought in my priceless collection of 78s, although, in retrospect, I apologize for all the Simon and Garfunkel. Maybe he wasn't a poet. And making them blindfold one another and often as not be led into the opposite-sex lavatory, what was that? And Shakespeare? O.K., you were right, he was stupid.

Never read him anymore. If nothing else, teaching is the perfect antidote to graduate school. After a mere decade or so, my vocabulary is even beginning to grow back in. After the teachers' lounge I never thought it would. My own aside, I really never had many discipline problems. It's a cliche, I guess, but some of the toughest kids turned out to be some of the toughest, and some of the most likable turned out to be some of the most likable. Once they came to accept you, there was really nothing they wouldn't do for you, particularly if it involved parts from a Cutlass. It goes to show, book learning isn't everything.