A True Blackboard Jungle
I arrived in New York City January l957 after six years of teaching in a Japanese high school in Tokyo. I was thirty-one years old and had come back to the States to study music composition at the Mannes College of Music.
In need of tuition money for my courses, I asked myself what I could do. Teaching seemed to be the most sensible answer since I had a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Education from a college in my hometown of Tacoma, Washington, besides my teaching experience in Japan.
It was a Thursday when I went to the Board of Education in Brooklyn. To my surprise I was told there was a position open at Benjamin Franklin High School on the Upper East Side to be filled the very next day, Friday.
The old building with its high, narrow windows looked like a haunted castle and was quite intimidating at first sight. I had been instructed to see the head of the language department. A middle-aged male teacher greeted me affably and gave me what I learned was called a Delaney Book. This record book was to indicate the progress of students, test scores, etc. Since the narrow slots at the side of the page were blank, I assumed that I was to seat the students in alphabetic order and write their names in the slots accordingly. It was an assumption that proved immediately disastrous, not to mention ominous!
As we walked down a dim corridor, the head of the department handed me a key. "Be sure to lock yourself in your room," he said casually.
That should have caused my ears to prick up, but I passed the remark off as something New York schoolteachers did normally.
The teacher opened the door and we walked to the front of the room. It was a sophomore class, all boys, not a single girl. This being a public school, I found it rather strange. As the head of the department introduced me, I looked out over the class of about thirty students who gave me a stone-faced reception. Staring out of narrowed eyes, they seemed to be zeroing in on my person.
The teacher left, pointing significantly at the door and at the key still in my hand. I followed him to the door, dutifully locked it and returned to the front of the room.
I opened the Delaney Book and smiled out at the class. Dead, stone silence. I had a list of the students and picked up my pencil ready to write in the first name in the slot in the book.
"Albertson," I called out, looking from the list out over the class.
Silence, deep and profound as the surface of the moon.
"Albertson?" I repeated, and presently reasoned that the student must be absent.
"Barns?" I called out, expectantly scanning the motionless mass.
"Yeah," someone replied in the back.
"Please come up here and sit in the second seat," I said.
Soon, I was to learn that "please" was a word a teacher never used with a student in New York. Unfortunately, my brief experience in Benjamin Franklin High School was to teach me far more dreadful lessons.
"If Jack sits next to me, I'll sit up there," was the answer that came from the murky depth of the back of the room.
I tried to locate the voice. "What's Jack's last name?" I asked.
"Zimberly."
"Well, Z is hardly going to be a letter of somebody that's going to sit across from you," I said as pleasantly as I could.
"If Jack doesn't sit next to me, I don't move," was the response.
For the first time the silence was broken, a kind of snicker raced around the room. I was dealing here with situation I had never experienced before. Then, I made my first great error. I ignored it and went on.
"Charlston!" I called out.
"Yeah," came a surly answer.
"Come up here and sit in the third seat."
"Try and make me!" was the sneering reply.
I must have stared in disbelief because I immediately caught a glimmer of light, a flash in the otherwise deadpan eyes of the entire class. Was it amusement?
My second mistake was abandoning the whole process of seat arrangement. I picked up the English book the head of the department had given me with instructions to begin at a certain page. The very fact that I hadn’t read the book before did little to quell my growing sense of panic.
I turned to the blackboard directly behind me ready to write out the assignment for the next class. The head of the department had instructed me to do this first, for some reason I never understood.
With my back to the class and my hand reaching up with a piece of chalk, I heard a kind of unified swishing. Before I could turn around to investigate, something soft hit me on the back, which was immediately followed by a barrage. As it splattered on the blackboard beside me, I realized they were throwing pieces of sandwiches, lettuce covered with mayonnaise and bits of buttered bread and ham, all aimed with deadly accuracy at my back and head.
What I'm writing here happened so long ago that I cannot remember the exact sequence of events. Certainly this sandwich shower stands out as one of the unforgettable horrors of that first day. What I did, how I managed to clean myself up, I can’t recall. The only other clear memory I have of that first period class is the silence and the utter lack of emotion in the eyes of those boys, who looked like the living dead! However, I went on trying to get a response, but it was no use. When the bell rang I was relieved and went gladly to unlock the door, backing away as the boys moved out glaring silently at me.
The following class was just as disastrous; total silence, total non-participation, and total lack of any achievement on my part.
It was during third period, just before lunch, when the next shock occurred. Unlike the previous crowds, these students came bustling into the room, barely glanced at me and proceeded to chat with each other, shouting and gesturing violently. I tried my best to get their attention, but nobody paid the slightest attention to me. At some point I must have shouted because one of the bigger boys called out some remark that quieted the others, although a constant undercurrent of noise remained.
This boy, big and tough, looked at me and said: "Who the hell are you?" As though seeing me for the first time.
"I'm your English teacher," I said, falling into an obvious trap.
"He's our teacher, guys! Listen to how he talks!" He laughed.
The students got up laughing and started dancing around the room in a very mincing way, indicating what they thought of me as a teacher, that I was queerer than the proverbial English goose! It wasn't long before they were shouting at the top of their voice, saying things that meant absolutely nothing to me in that incomprehensible New York accent. The drawled "Yeaaaaahs" and "Screw yus!" started ringing around the room.
Yet, not all the insults were aimed exclusively at me. Soon, a full-fledged fight broke out amid the bedlam. The racket had reached such a pitch that suddenly there was a loud knock on the door. I hastened to unlock it and the head of the language department thundered into the room.
I naturally expected him to be angry with me, but no. To my utter surprise, he nodded understandingly and pulled me to the front of the room. Instantly, the students fell silent and they all sat down. There was even a modicum of fear in some of their eyes.
Later, I discovered that the head of the language department was also the basketball coach. Evidently, the entire team was in my class.
"Now, listen to me, you guys," the teacher began in a rather low, menacing voice that caused the boys in the first row to cringe. "Mr. Foreman is new here. I know that. You know that." And then even I backed away when, pointing a finger from one student to the other, he suddenly shouted, "Now, you fucking bastards! You obey Mr. Foreman. And if I have to come into this room again, you'll regret it! And you Keeney," he singled out the big guy who had asked who I was. "You keep your fucking mouth shut, do you understand me!"
Besides the unexpected profanity that came from this teacher, I was thunderstruck at the reaction of the students. They were crouched down in their seats, actually afraid.
"Mr. Foreman, step outside for a moment with me, will you?" His tone and sudden congenial attitude were entirely different from the threats he had hurled at the class only moments before.
Out in the hall, the most unusual conversation I have ever engaged in began.
"Mr. Foreman," the teacher said. "I think Keeney won't cause you any more trouble for a while. He thinks he's hot stuff because he's the champion wrestler of the school… lousy at basketball, though."
I listened, wondering what the point of all this was.
"Mr. Foreman, I'm telling you, the only way you can get Keeney's respect is to wrestle him. You can wrestle, can't you?"
I gaped in amazement at the outrageous proposition.
"You've got to wrestle that guy down to the ground!" The teacher said emphatically. "Or else you'll never get his respect."
I merely nodded in understanding of what he was saying, and went back into the class. The students were silent until the lunch bell rang. Still, nothing accomplished.
I don't remember lunch, only my growing reluctance and dread at going into yet another class. There where two periods in the afternoon. The first was similar to my debut in the morning: sullen and menacing silence. Nothing achieved. Nobody spoke a word.
The final period was awful again. There was nothing but shouting and screaming, fighting and swearing. I could only put down the difference in attitude to the fact that those that ignored me by shouting and carrying on wildly were older students, while the younger students ignored me by silence.
Again there was a pounding at the door. I unlocked it and this time in strode a huge, six-foot woman, big and tough as they make them.
"What's going on here, Mr. Foreman?" she demanded. "I'm the school counselor. Somebody reported to me that there was a racket going on in your room."
But before I could say anything, she turned her huge body squarely in front of the students and began a stream of profanity that would make a truck driver blush.
She singled out a couple of students. "Baker!" she bellowed. "You know fucking well what will happen if your dad gets a report from me. The razor strap for you, boy!"
I looked at Baker and saw him visibly blanch.
"Faller," she turned her glare upon a huge, black kid. "You've been doing pretty good!" she said in a false tone of appreciation, and then lashed out. "Let's not go down a couple of notches or your grandma's going to put a couple of notches in you."
Faller visibly cringed. Grandma? The unexpected relative as the seat of power in the Faller household struck me as funny. It was the only moment of humor I experienced at Benjamin Franklin High School.
The counselor went on swearing and cursing the students. Then, she turned, glared at me with profound disgust and thundered back out of the room.
That Friday evening I went home exhausted, horrified and ready to throw in the towel. However, as Sunday came and I regained some sense of fortitude -and not being a person who easily gives up- I decided to give it another try.
What happened during that first class Monday morning might possible be recorded somewhere in the annals of the New York School system. At least, it still haunts me, bringing up the rage I felt at the end of those two days of experiencing what passes as education in these United States of America.
That was in l957, not long after the movie called "The Blackboard Jungle" shocked the nation. What I experienced on that Monday morning in January l957 makes the antics of "The Blackboard Jungle" child's play. I barely escaped from Benjamin Franklin High School with my life. The clang of fire engines and the most god-awful tumult rang in my ears as I ran down 119th street away from Hell!
Key in hand, I stood at the door, sighed and opened it. It was the same first period class I had had on Friday. There they were, silent and with a belligerent look. This time, I didn't turn my back on them as I wrote the assignment on the blackboard, which was, anyway, a gesture of absolute futility. No one opened a book. No one attempted to write anything down.
Then, I heard a rumble at the door. The first thought that flashed across my mind, as alarms went off in my brain was: 'Oh, My God! I forgot to lock it!' Hardly had I realized my mistake when the door flew open and in stormed a group of students I had never seen before. They were seniors and every single one of them was huge and muscular.
With a shout they roared into the room and jumped up on the old wooden desks while my students remained in their seats and maintained an eerie silence. Before I could react, some of the boys jumped up onto the ledge of the long, rectangular windows and started imitating their idol, Elvis Presley, their hips gyrating in his characteristic manner.
Absolute chaos broke out. Some of the older students screamed out Presley's latest song while others danced and gyrated up and down the aisles. I could only stare is utter bewilderment. But what was ominous in that madness was the continued silence of the younger students, still sitting in their seats.
I will never forget the united swish of the coordinated movement and sound that next occurred as every one of those silent students suddenly stood up and clicked out and pointed a switchblade at me. They moved out into the aisle and began walking in my direction, their switchblades straight out before them. This only brought on more shouts and racket from the older students, who continued to run around the room in a mad frenzy.
I cringed back into a corner, staring at the knives slowly creeping toward me. But suddenly one of the older students snatched a switchblade from a younger boy, and what did he do but begin to whittle pieces off the top of one of the wooden desks! Seeming to forget me, my attackers imitated him. Before I knew it, the students, screaming and hollering, had amassed a pile of chips on one of the central desks. A huge guy crumpled up some paper, reached into his pocket for a lighter, set the paper on fire and stuck it under the pile. The dried wood roared up into a high flame. The screaming and utter chaotic reception this got was indescribable. Smoke started to fill the room. Those up on the window ledge jumped down, coughing and swearing.
Trying to find a way out of that hell, I started to ease myself slowly along the back wall. But I still had the side wall to traverse before I could get to the door. Halfway to the exit, the fire had consumed two desks and the smoke was becoming intolerable.
When I reached the door the students were streaming out. People were running up and down the halls and a bell was clanging insistently nearby. Smoke poured out of the door after me. Coughing and sneezing, I walked almost blindly toward the front doors. The next thing I remember is walking right down 119th street, struggling to keep my sanity.
The sound of fire engines came to my ears as I turned downtown on Lexington Avenue. In a state of shock I walked twenty blocks from l19th Street to my apartment on 79th Street. When I got home, I fell down on my bed and wept. That morning I cried as I have never done since. The anger that had welled up in me was hardly bearable.
I had just come from six years in Japan where only raising the pitch of the voice in reprimand caused immediate obedience. I couldn't believe how different things were in my country. And I still can’t believe it even to this day despite the knowledge that our public school system is in shatters. Present-day teachers may not have to contend with a fire set by switchblades, but their challenges are no less difficult.
The next day I received a telephone call from the principal of Benjamin Franklin High School, who said in a sarcastic voice: "Mr. Foreman, I understand there was a disturbance in your classroom and that you left the premises. If you do not come back and continue your courses, I am going to telephone the Board of Education and have your license revoked."
I could hardly give credit to my ears. "Come back?" I shouted into the receiver, "I wouldn't come back there if you paid me a million dollars! It's the most outrageous experience of my life. I can't believe this is America!"
"Well, Mr. Foreman, this isn't Japan," came the caustic reply.
I hung up on him. I don't know whether my license was ever revoked or not. To be sure, I never attempted to get a job in the New York Public School system again.
Seattle, Washington, July 2003.
Mr. Foreman's Tracy Barton and the Ninja Secret Formulas
Synopsis of Tracy Barton and the Ninja Secret Formulas
Fourteen-year old Tracy Barton, son of an American diplomat in Tokyo, is forced to parachute into the wilds of central Japan. In the forest, he is rescued and befriended by a group of teenage Ninja.
On the way to their village, there’s an attack on the American boy by the archenemy of the Ninja clan, the terrible and mysterious Akuma. Tracy and his Ninja friends must face Akuma’s powerful magic spells before they finally reach the village.
Why Akuma wants to destroy Tracy is gradually revealed
as the American boy's true identity is unraveled. In a series of suspenseful
adventures, Tracy and his friends search for the long lost Ninja secret formulas.
The lore and culture of Japan are interwoven into this story as Tracy struggles
with Akuma, masters the art of Ninja tactics, and slowly grows in understanding
of Japanese traditions and his own place in the Ninja community.
Mr. Foreman is also a prolific composer of many songs including Pablo Neruda
Lead Me To Heirin Temple
Selection 1 Soprano with Orchestral Accompaniment Fumiko Noda
(Tachibana)
Selection 2 Soprano with Orchestral
Accompaniment Fumiko Noda (Tachibana)
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