Clergyman's

The ceiling fell? The ink ran dry? A student dared to smile?
Of every new disaster
I prove myself the master
By sending out more circulars, more circulars to file!
A missing kid? A kissing kid? A paper on the floor?
For every major crisis
One remedy suffices:
More circulars, more circulars, to put into a drawer!
A crowded cafeteria?
A substitute's hysteria?
A visitor from Syria?
A missing Book Receipt?
I merely send out circulars
To add to other circulars
To add to other circulars
Numerical and neat!
- Bel Kaufman

The building itself is hostile: cracked plaster, broken windows, splintered doors and carved up desks, gloomy corridors and metal stairways, dingy cafeteria and an auditorium which has no windows. It does have murals, however, depicting mute, muscular harvesters, faded and immobile under a mustard sun.
- Bel Kaufman

During what was presumably my lunch period, Admiral Ass appeared in my room with Joe Ferone.
""This boy is on probation,"" he said. ""Did he show up in homeroom this morning?""
""Yes,"" I said.
""Any trouble?"" the Admiral asked.
There we stood, the three of us, taking each other's measure. Ferone was watching through narrowed eyes.
""No. No trouble,"" I said.
- Bel Kaufman

The cardinal sin, strange as it may seem in an institution of learning, is talking. There are others, of course — sins, I mean, and I seem to have committed a good number. Yesterday I was playing my record of Gielgud reading Shakespeare. I had brought my own phonograph to school and I had succeeded, I thought, in establishing a mood. I mean, I got them to be quiet, when — enter Admiral Ass, in full regalia, epaulettes quivering with indignation. He snapped his fingers for me to stop the phonograph, waited for the turntable to stop turning, and pronounced:
""There will be a series of three bells rung three times indicating Emergency Shelter Drill. Playing records does not encourage the orderly evacuation of the class.
- Bel Kaufman

The cardinal sin, strange as it may seem in an institution of learning, is talking. There are others, of course — sins, I mean, and I seem to have committed a good number. Yesterday I was playing my record of Gielgud reading Shakespeare. I had brought my own phonograph to school and I had succeeded, I thought, in establishing a mood. I mean, I got them to be quiet, when — enter Admiral Ass, in full regalia, epaulettes quivering with indignation. He snapped his fingers for me to stop the phonograph, waited for the turntable to stop turning, and pronounced:
""There will be a series of three bells rung three times indicating Emergency Shelter Drill. Playing records does not encourage the orderly evacuation of the class.
- Bel Kaufman

When I had asked why they were taking English, a boy said: ""To help us in real life.
- Bel Kaufman

When I had asked why they were taking English, a boy said: ""To help us in real life.
- Bel Kaufman

When I had asked why they were taking English, a boy said: ""To help us in real life.
- Bel Kaufman

When I had asked why they were taking English, a boy said: ""To help us in real life.
- Bel Kaufman

Paul asks how I would have handled a love letter from a student. I don't know — by talking, maybe, by listening. I don't know.
How sad that we don't hear each other — any of us.
Major issues are submerged by minor ones; catastrophes by absurdities.
- Bel Kaufman