Up the Down Staircase, Finally

I’ve read Bel Kaufman’s “Up the Down Staircase” a number of times, and this time, this finally hit me:

And Ferone – where is he and what is to become of him?

I wonder how he himself will tell it, or recall it. “I had this teacher, see, and once, on a winter afternoon . . .”

I keep remembering what he had said to me. “What makes you think you’re so special? Just because you’re a teacher?” What he was really saying was: You are so special. You are my teacher. Then teach me, help me. Hey, teach, I’m lost – which way do I go? I’m tired of going up the down staircase.

So am I.

This comes near the end of the novel, where student Joseph Ferone, reprobate, deadbeat student, but intellectually on par with the best, tries to kiss his English teacher.

Was he looking for love?

In a confused way, confused by the image of love brought on by pop culture, even then a dire influence, moreso now, yes. Yes he was looking for love, and asked for it in the way he’d been taught how.

Yet again, going up the down staircase.

Much earlier in the novel, a student is disciplined for just that – the physical act of going up a staircase that was designated only for students going down – a crowd control measure. But Kaufman uses the phrase and concept as a metaphor to see how helpless – and possibly not helpless – she and her fellow teachers could be to help those students caught going the wrong direction.

Romanticized? Probably. But Kaufman is no fool. There is no happy ending here. Joseph Ferone disappears, likely never to return, going up the same down staircase he tried to escape in his confusion.

So what does this mean for me? I teach, both at home with my kids, at Scouts with others, and at the college level in English. Have I done anything in the past several years to help anyone going up the down staircase?

Maybe.

And this doesn’t mean blind conformity – it means finding positive direction in their lives, whether they conform to what I think is positive or not. There are many up or down staircases that arrive at many different locations. That they are making progress in the right direction is the thing.

And again, this is why I re-read books. You never know how long it’s going to take before the main point smacks you in the head with its delicate little hammer.