THE WAY IT SPOZED TO BE

by James Herndon ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1968

With a great deal, of freeswinging commentary, this is a record of a year spent teaching in a West Coast Junior Highschool--98% Negro, well up the down staircase, and for that matter quite unenlightened. There. in a system of classification both arbitrary and meaningless, the youngsters were divided into sections from A to H roughly translating from acceptable to hopeless. He taught four--namely two B groups and then, one 9D and. one 7H. The 7H section was made up of behavior problems who couldn't read; in 9D) about the best he could do was to let them chew the fat along with the gum, or really roll them into action by having them write the Top 40 (rock'n'roll) on the board. ... In between all of this, he has a lot to say about the kind of group behavior which is governed by the ""ugly stick"" (i.e. relative degree of blackness)--about trying to reach youngsters like this-and about some of his co-teachers. Take Mrs. Z. who'd been there for years and never spoke to any of the kids in one of her classes since she only talked to ladies and gentlemen....At one point Herndon uses the phrase ""in a brief suspension of chronology"" which applies to most of the book which is random but also just as lively as it is disorderly. And sad and funny and concerned.

Pub Date: March 1, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1968

Categories: NONFICTION