Bernie Schein: If Holden Caulfield were in my Classroom
Book Club Discussion

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

Your classroom is inspiring, plain and simple. Do you feel that it is always so with every group of kids? It seemed to me that even in the years of "corruption," as in Freddie Cox and Co., you still managed to turn your classroom around into a caring, community-like atmosphere. How, and do, you do this every year?

Yes, I do feel all my classrooms inspired me, though presently I'm retired from full-time teaching. I do teach creative writing classes here and there and do workshops. After 40 years of teaching though, I do miss the kids terribly. I'm mostly writing, speaking and promoting my book which I hope inspires parents and educators (as thankfully it did you) to remember their own childhoods so they can more easily understand those of their kids and students.

All the classes were inspiring to me because all the kids were, each in their own way. The Freddie Cox year of Corruption, though one of the more stubbornly resistant ones, was also one of the most rewarding ones: the greater the resistance, remember, the more powerful the story, the action taken, the drama, the learning, i.e., the change. More courage is required of the kids as well as me. Remember, they may think they're fighting me, but they're really, they discover, fighting themselves. So it's important to them (though they may not realize it at the time) that their truer, better selves win. And they do realize it, doing everything but throwing themselves a parade when it happens.

And yes, I did work on establishing a strong healthy classroom community every year, because the kids are human and subject to corruption every year. Freddie and Co., though fairly extreme, nevertheless was emblematic of every classroom. All had struggles which resulted from a fear of intimacy--all had been hurt in one way or another long before middle school--thus the need for invincibility, the social terrorism inherent in their clamor for social power, i. e., "popularity," a pseudonym for "social cloning," "social prostitution," to which no kid is immune. Getting them to be true to themselves, their real thoughts and feelings, interests and aspirations and passions, and witnessing their incredible courage and desire to be "good" and "strong" and to trust with discernment (which is wisdom) is an inspiring drama.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

Non-teachers reading this book may be shocked. Several times I stopped to read my husband situations, his favorite being when you "leapt across the table, wrestled Freddie to the floor (my husband laughed out loud – hard when "he was stricken with terror" and you asked "how do you feel about rules now?") to make a point that rules were, indeed, necessary. Do parents ever complain? And because your teaching methods require freedom, how do you combat the cries, if there are any, of "inappropriateness?"

Over 40 years teaching, most of the parents of the kids I taught trusted me, and I trusted them to have a sense of humor, which they did. I made it a point to explain, even show, them what I was doing and why I was doing it. Often at parent meetings the kids would tell them or explain. If a parent did complain, it was usually because the kid had come home complaining, hiding his own sloth or misbehavior and blaming it on me. So I'd have a conference and get the kid to tell the truth, after which he also felt more relieved, a bit more liberated, which in turn gratified the parents. When they all see how much I care and how hard I work they're grateful.

Plus, you have to keep your eye on the ball and remind them: what's the goal? To make the kids smart as hell in every possible way: socially, morally, artistically, intellectually. Once they see the quality of the kid's writing, which is about him, them, and all this stuff we're talking about, and how inspired and elevated it is BECAUSE it's inspired, they love my butt, at least most of the time. Once they know you really love and care about their kids, you develop a closeness and bond with them. Or if they know the kids feels that way, even if they're annoyed they usually don't worry too much about it.

No parent likes to get news that, say, their kid isn't working hard, etc. and sometimes they might try to blame that on me, but if its undeserved it's important for a teacher to put it right back on them; again, only if it's undeserved. You have a few nuts every year that have driven most of their kid's teachers crazy, and against those you have to stand up for yourself every once in awhile. You can't expect your administrator to do it for you. They're spineless. In fact, you may have to stand up to them. I say, "Keep your bags packed." You can always find somewhere to teach. The money's so bad it allows you at least the freedom to tell jerks where to get off. And you feel better doing it than stuffing it. Which is what the kids learn in the classroom: stand up for yourself.

My problem was mostly with some parents in the community whose kids I DIDN'T teach. Scared of Truth, of genuine emotion, for which you can't blame anyone, and probably jealous of what kids in my classroom were getting, sometimes they'd lash out. Certainly there were a few plots and conspiracies to get rid of me, but mostly from people I didn't even know.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

As a teacher, this book touched me deeply. What do you wish for parents who read your story to take away, to learn about their own children? From the store of your methods, of which they are many engaging and enlightening classroom techniques, what is the one thing you think that any school or teacher could, and should, put into practice?

Parents and teachers will hopefully "read" themselves as they read about my students and remember with greater honesty their own childhoods. Just as with kids, you have to remember who you were to know who you are, which better enables you to understand your own kids and students. Your own humility—talk of when you were slower, for example, in school instead of smarter—will allow your own kids to open up to you. The stronger that bond, the more successful your kids will probably be.

As for techniques, the strongest one I recommend is this: as you read my book, feel what registers inside you. Ask yourself why, and memory will probably turn up something that affected you, positively or negatively or both, in your childhood. Then: Who, intentionally or otherwise, hurt you in your early childhood? (A cruel taunt or put-down, the intrusion of the new baby "stealing" your attention, loneliness, feelings of inadequacy, etc.). Then: Who did you hurt as a result? Was your mode of attack generally aggressive or passive-aggressive? What is it now, when you're at your worst, threatened or angry? Then: welcome to the human race, of which you are now, if you weren't before, fully a part.

Look at yourself first, then your kid or student. It's possible too that what frustrates you most in him is what frustrates you the most in yourself.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

I know what you will say, but I still have to ask. Is there a particular group of students that you hold closest to your heart? I don't mean to say a group that you liked better, but one that perhaps taught you the most or changed the direction of your teaching?

Really I see them in my mind more individually than in groups, but they're inspiring both ways because they're all challenges in one way or another. They all have such profound strengths and weaknesses. The straight A student with impeccable poise and charm may well be the most uncreative kid in the class. The one who "appears" the most caring may well just be the most sanctimonious, i. e., the meanest, and for good reason. The one most passionate in her art or writing or political speeches may be the most passionless socially and in conversation. The incredible complexity of them all, and their desire to be good kids and to learn, once uncovered and out there, can't help but inspire.

You can't really "dislike" them at this age. They're too crazy, too real and unreal, too unformed. They're not fully "people" yet, which I love telling them because they hate hearing it. See?

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

Middle school teachers can often spend more time teaching socialization and managing their classroom than teaching content, as their students are little people just starting to figure out their way in the world. This can create a very volatile atmosphere, one that many new teachers don't survive. Do you ever have behavioral issues in your classroom? If so, how do you handle it? Through the class court system?

Of course. I welcome them. Otherwise, there's little opportunity for learning. And yes, the court system handles a lot of them, and for the little stuff I handle a lot of that fairly traditionally (yelling, screaming, coaxing, whining, giving them calisthenics, keeping them in for lunch, the usual). But as you go thru my book, you'll see that in almost every situation somebody misbehaved big time: they stole or harassed or bullied or taunted or put someone down or beat up somebody or made sexist or racial or homophobic slurs or acted out in school or never did their work or were promiscuous or cut themselves, etc.. Each of those situations, as you're aware, were converted into fodder for learning, for growth and change, and ultimately not only inspired greater relationships and self-esteem and confidence but greater intelligence, insight, and SCHOOLWORK, i.e,, writing, reading, class discussion, etc.. So if they weren't screwed up —and to some degree all are—they wouldn't have anything to learn and I would've been jobless, and therefore homeless, for 40 years.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein

Do you plan to write another book (or books) about your experiences?

Yes, my agent just got my new manuscript: POPULARITY: Fighting Social Cruelty in our Homes, Schools and Neighborhoods.

It shows how social power-grabbing—the clamor for "popularity"-- in our schools reduces all kids, to one degree or another, to bullies, victims, and sycophants. It not only inhibits real friendships--intimate enjoyable ones—but also family relationships, academic intelligence, and creativity. It makes kids censor themselves, undermining their natural tendencies to read and write and speak clearly, openly and honestly (instead of on Negative Alert). The result is superficiality, bad taste, and the present best-seller list. Adults are not immune: the kid's brand name sneaker or tee shirt is the adult's Mercedes or House In The Right Neighborhood. "Popularity" in Kidworld, fame and status in Adultworld, It's all a threat to democracy, and the only God it worships is Fear, the result of which is nothing less than social terrorism in our schools, homes, and neighborhoods.

Liberally fortified with examples, anecdotes and case studies not only from my middle school classroom at the Paideia School in Atlanta but also from classrooms in which I've supervised teachers, POPULARITY: A Guide for Fighting Social Cruelty in our Homes, Schools and Neighborhoods is a tried-and-true antidote to the problem of social prostitution among our kids. It is a how-to book and workshop, intended to inspire, replete with philosophy, specific step-by-step instructions and activities, potential practices and pitfalls, designed for parents, teachers, coaches, counselors---anyone who has or works with kids---to help kids become true to who they really are, to their real thoughts, feelings, interests and aspirations, to what they really need and want: respect, intimacy and the freedom to grow and learn.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Bernie Schein