A TEACHER’S WORLD

Jay Mathews’ review of Samuel G. Freedman’s “Small Victories: The Real World of a Teacher, Her Students & Their High School” (May 20) brought back memories of New York’s Lower East Side that haven’t surfaced, except for the faintest ripples, in more than 50 years.

How times have changed! The area was then predominantly Jewish, although there were also some Poles, Italians, Russians and other Middle-European immigrants who belonged to different religious groups. . . .

What they had in common was their awareness that they were all, in some way, part of an underclass and that the only way to improve their lot was through hard work and schooling. These were boys who came to school only after having delivered papers, opened their fathers’ small grocery stores or seen several younger members of the family off to school. The girls were surrogate mothers to large families, cooking, cleaning and sewing, and working after school when they could find jobs.

Like today’s students, they too required a great deal more of their teachers than often the teachers were equipped to give. I recall vividly the pain I felt when one girl in a civics class said she was ashamed that her father was a street cleaner. We spent most of that class hour trying to make her proud of the contribution he was making. Everyone got involved and there were a good many secrets revealed in class that day. . . .

I like to think that I may have helped a little. Somewhere I still have a poem by a young tomboy named Adele Kupchik, which, she told me, she had written to thank me for “making me see.” I wonder what happened to Adele. I hope she doesn’t live on Pitt Street any more.

ETHEL BOOTH

Los Angeles