.. 4 9t{ ,olt •{ ll i<>" - B,, ']. t� I Ji c /, {lef (J{l, .,_/i11e• · 81 / / Jeartfte (]raief Clinton St. Quarterly t he \ l I !J nlroduclion • (_A-) HOWARD NEMEROV: Flaubert wanted to write a novel About nothing. It was to have no subject And be sustained upon style alone, Like the Holy Ghost cruising above The abyss... KENT MAK, AGE 12: Teachers I hate: all of them. Teachers I like: none ... In this article, I will write about substitute teaching in San Francisco middle schools (6th-8th grade) during December, January, and February - I have read a million books writteh by teachers and scholars. I have spent hours and hours within the classrooms, prodding the students to speak out their guts. I have questioned colleagues eagerly in the lunchrooms, listening to their responses in a leaning-forward position. I have reread my papers from college. I even skimmed all my notes on educational theory. I read Piaget. I read Aristotle. I read Rousseau. I went to a SEMINAR on disciplinary methods for the modern substitute, and NOT ONLY took home all the handouts, BUT ALSO read them. But The theme?? The all-encompassing basic tenet from which the total experience springs? That it expresses? That it confirms? I CANNOT FIND IT. Every single day out there has been completely different in every way than the one before it. I have never acted the same, and neither have the students. There seems to be no way, without the help of five or six clinical research teams, consulting statisticians, and the TIME it would take for them to find their conclusions, to separate the factors iovolved. And determine the reasons for the varying tones of each day. It could all just be random. So I have decided that this demands my falling way back to the basics - to THE LAST RESORT THEME-which always seems to work in a clutch. THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL SUBSTITUTE TEACHING IS THE SAME AS THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL HUMAN INTERACTION: It all comes down to a matter of love. ! J nlroduclion ( /J} JULIE, AGE 13: The teachers I don't like are my science teacher because he's fat and ugly . . . he'll yell at anybody for any reason.He never knows what he's talking about either. Also I dislike my typing teacher because... he picks his nose with his fingers and his pencil lead and eraser. ARISTOTLE on the master/ disciple relationship: It is a moral type of friendship, which is not on fixed terms: it makes a gift, or does whatever it does, as to a friend. • 1J 1,
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