THE CLASSROOMS OF MISS ELLEN FRANKFORT: Confessions of a Private School Teacher

How nice to have one of those real ups on that down staircase--Miss Frankfort's account of teaching in three New York private schools while inducing a certain amount of cultural shock is still a very funny and partly serious book. After spending a time in an all girls' Hasidic high school (where they were forbidden to read anything modern or even Junior Scholastic) she left feeling that they really didn't need any education at all since they would only go on to a life centering around their religion. (Not to mention the girl who on her Regents wrote a piece on Labor Problems Today dealing with her mother's last childbirth.) Next in a refined establishment in an elegant brownstone, she faced three waitresses (""just retired from Schrafft's"") along with younger madchen in uniform who were scheduled for one college if not another--""no private school wants its alumni just hanging about."" And finally she taught at a lower level in a small, co-educational progressive school where the only problem they couldn't ignore were the parents as the youngsters smoked pot and mouthed four-letter words. Miss Frankfort handles her material, as she did her charges, with just the right casual touch and you should watch the book. It could set an attendance record.