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Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity: One Season in a Progressive School

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

Elizabeth Gold's book made me laugh so hard with intense recognition of my own experience on every page. I couldn't put it down for two days (very rare for me).
I was a similar overeducated idealistic substitute teacher, who in the middle of the year, was placed in charge of an urban Oakland CA eighth grade ESL classroom (the previous teacher had had a nervous breakdown in the middle of class and left abruptly, leaving her students wondering where she had gone). Ms. Gold's description of the difficulty of managing such a classroom with no classroom management skills, no consequences for the student misbehavior, no support from senior administration, insufficient books/materials for her students, no curriculum, etc, etc were painfully similar and accurate to my experience. The teacher I had replaced was a "Teach for America" teacher, the best and brightest of college grads who have been placed in urban schools with 6 weeks of teacher training.
Teaching in an urban school is one of the hardest jobs there is, and it takes professional, emotional, and material support to make it happen successfully. I've gone on to get my teaching credential and to realize how many more years it is going to take to become a master teacher. Elizabeth Gold is a brilliant writer and observer of urban education and its shortcomings and contradictions, and her insights of her four months teaching more than make up for her four months of inadequate "teaching" (which includes managing her classroom which she obviously couldn't manage at all).

I love a great memoir and I have been combing the shelves for one for months: devils wearing Prada, people climbing Everest, etc etc and I can say for sure they've got NOTHING on Elizabeth Gold. My hat is off to her, not only because she did what many of us underemployed New Yorkers have thought we SHOULD do, that is, teaching in the NYC public school system: she took the experience and wrote a HEARTBREAKING and HILARIOUS memoir about it. One of my favorite passages is when she's lost total control of the class (VERY early on) and she thinks she's seen it all, until 2 students are about to begin necking ARDENTLY, right before her very eyes, (page 43):

"Please, please, I pray, don't let them kiss, I don't want to tell them to unglue those lips, and Tongues, Buster, Are Not For Sharing, but the other part of me is thinking, why not kiss? Who am I to interfere with young love, if that's what it is? Why don't I push a couple of desks together in the back and throw a sheet over them, light some mood candles (though they really don't need mood candles), toss over a pack of cigarettes for after, why don't I make myself useful?"

I was doubled over laughing and when I wiped my eyes I thought "wait a minute: these are my fellow New Yorkers in these schools. These are supposed to be the Leaders of Tomorrow! Boy, are we in trouble".

Gold leaves us forewarned: what's going on in the inner city schools is terrifying. It seems like the problem is far too complex for quick-fix solutions. These kids are angry (as Elizabeth hilariously testifies), and they have good reason to be. They have nothing to say but "I Hate Elizabeth" when she tries to teach them Romeo and Juliet, but ask them about Amadou Diallo and they have plenty of opinions. The book is funny, but it leaves you thinking about racism and inequities in education.

This memoir of one writer's experience teaching in Queens, NY is not, as the book is marketed, about education. Instead, it is about a new teacher's experience within the New York City education system, and about her students and fellow teachers. As that, it works. With wit and candor, the memoir details the writer's encounters with a system on the verge of spiraling out of control.

A friend of mine gave me this book, knowing that I was always on the look out for something really smart,really funny,and most of all, really well-written. "You'll love this," she said, pressing it into my eager little hands, and she was right.

Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity is the story of the author's four-month stint teaching English at a "progressive" New York City high school, but before you read another word, you should know this is neither a corny idealistic-teacher-whips-kids-into-noble-shape book or a sociological expose about what's-wrong-with-schools-today. Instead, Brief Intervals is a black comedy about the difference between idealism and reality and life inside an institution---in this case, an institution that should feel both weird and recognizable to us all---high school.

In case you've ever forgotten what it feels like to be really young---say fourteen---this book will remind you.Gold, a poet, has a brilliant ear and brilliant eye, and almost nothing escapes her. Her portraits of the high school bully, the popular kids, the class clown and the class victim, are unforgettable. So are the sympathetic portrayals of the teachers, a multi-cultural bunch who really are trying their best. But it is Gold herself, with her failures, her doubts, her longings, and her flashbacks to her own schooldays, that makes this book a provocative and original delight.

"Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity" caught my eye when I walked into a bookstore and saw its bright yellow cover with an old-fashioned schoolgirl-turned-sideways, almost staring out at me. And then I read the title. My son is a student in one of New York's many "magnet schools" that have long and fancy names, names that are ultimately meaningless. When I read the dust jacket and discovered that it's a first-person account of one particular teacher's experience in such a school, I sat down at a table and began reading it. I'm not usually one to buy hardcovers, but I made an exception, this time.

It became my subway reading, after I took my son to school, and then when coming home in the evening from work. I smiled to myself with every page, tickled at the author's excellent humor, directed more at herself and at her reactions to her situation of being a soul lost in the chaos of an urban middle school, than at any of the students placed in her charge. Even so, I felt close to her and to her students, and even to some of the author's fellow teachers. It's not mean-spirited, but it does show some bitterness and longing for something much, much better.

The author's preface is the only weakness of the book, at least from my perspective. It reads awkwardly and seems rather forced, as if her editor might have suggested too strongly that one was needed, and it's really something best skimmed over or ignored, altogether.

This book is not a scholarly study, nor does Gold present it as one. Instead, it's a personal narrative of a woman who had taught thousands of adult students in urban community colleges, but had her socks knocked off by the very different milieu of hormone-rich adolescents who have no choice but to be in school from morning until mid-afternoon. The author does not wear kid gloves in talking about herself, nor does she wear them in talking about her students, other teachers, or the school's hapless principal.

"Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity: One Season in a Progressive School" is not going to inspire anyone to teach in New York City's public schools, but that's clearly not why it was written, nor why it was published. It does not offer solutions, because that's doubtlessly not its reason for being, either. But if you want a good, heartfelt story of a smart human being, describing their experience of feeling like a duck out of water, very much like a reader might encounter in the bittersweet (sometimes just plain bitter) stories of David Sedaris, this book is for you.

I've noticed that another online bookseller categorizes "Brief Intervals" as an education title, and that's unfortunate because doing so might lead to expectations that aren't valid. Lest it disappoint anyone looking for a scholarly tome on the problems of public education, let me forewarn potential readers that Gold's book is good for a look into her own soul, but not into databases or cited sources.

I was a student at this school, and taught by Elizabeth Gold. I was in the 9th grade class that she was thrown into mid-year after a handful of teachers who (mostly) failed after only a few days.

Sadly, this book is based more in truth than many would even imagine, the scenarios that are described in this book are purely factual aside from the obvious name changes. Being such, this book was "banned" in the school, students caught talking about it, or having the book in their possession would find themselves in some hot water.

Being a teacher is hard, yes. Elizabeth's tale was a nightmare, truthfully. I do feel bad, because I did watch her descent over the course of the year, but please do not review too harshly, this book may not be enjoyable in the way most books are, but thats because it is truth, and factual, and harsh, and real.

"Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity" provides a few hours of sweet and funny insight into the life of someone at loose ends while trying carry out a very tough job. The author doesn't pretend to be a hero or a know-it-all. She admits to failing in her gig as a long-term substitute teacher to a few dozen difficult teenagers at a school that labels itself as "progressive." Gold is wizardly in her use of words, offering extended and compelling accounts of what's going on inside her head--at school, at home, and even on the subway. She writes not only as a teacher, but also as a woman, as an American struggling to make a living in the early 21st century, and as an intellectual artist who's striving to find a comfortable, rewarding place for herself in this world. I urge you to pick up this book and read it, not for answers but for entertainment and as a window into the life of one particular human being, at a particular place in time in America.

I'm a teacher and I love my job, but I've felt it, too: that sickening swoop you feel in your stomach when you're suddenly out of your depth, your class is veering out of control, and you don't know what to do about it.
This book is not about teaching. If you're looking for an inspiring story about making a difference in the classroom, try Educating Esme or Among Schoolchildren. If you want a book about classroom management, you can't go wrong with Harry Wong's First Days of School.
No, Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity about NOT teaching. It's about what happens when things go horribly, horribly wrong. The author is trying to survive, trying to salvage some meaning from the four months she works in a progressive New York City high school. She's a poet. She's untrained. She's working without a curriculum or a vision. Her textbook is incomprehensible, her materials lacking. The discipline in her school is a joke. In almost every way, she's been set up to fail. Yet somehow, some way, she's expected to get these children to pass freshman English.
Sound familiar?
I loved this book, if for no other reason than simply because she gets it. The author is no saint. She doesn't beam unconditional love onto all of her students. She spends her Teacher Development Day waxing poetic over the silence. She wears her candy necklace to school so that she can feel like a real person, with a real life, instead of a foil for teenage ennui. She has felt the sickening swoop. And she's a great writer, so she can write about all of it much more eloquently than I can. So read it. It will make you smile in spite of yourself.

We all know the stories of teachers who, armed with lofty dreams and unconventional ways, manage to inspire and bring out the best in their students. Those teachers do exist. On the flipside lies teachers like Elizabeth Gold.

In "Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity," (hereafter, BIHS)we get the story of a teacher who comes in to her first 9th grade class with those same lofty goals. Lucky for her, or so she thinks, her new employer, the School for the New Millenium, shares those lofty goals.

But unlike Dead Poet's Society and Dangerous Minds, this is a story of how lofty goals can quickly be deflated in the classroom. BIHS is the story of how Elizabeth Gold's dreams of inspiring her 9th graders to love english (or at least do their work mindfully) dissipate into frustration and dispair.

Thus, BIHS is in many ways the flipside of Dead Poet's Society. For this reason, many teachers and general readers will have strong reactions against this book. After all, books on teaching are SUPPOSED to be inspiring tales of teachers helping students overcome obstacles, right? Instead, we get a tale of students BECOMING an obstacle for the teacher!

Elizabeth Gold writes of feelings that teachers can relate to (albeit ones that teacchers woulid rarely admit to in public). She writes of students who don't want to do work of any kind. She writes of students who obstinately refuse not to learn or have to think. She writes of students who don't want to be reached.

One can argue with much justification that Elizabeth Gold's recounting focuses only on one side of the picture. But the value of BIHS lies in the fact that while it is one sided, it is articulating a legitimate aspect of teaching that is hardly ever broached: the one showing not only that teaching is hard, but that it doesn't always have a happy ending!

I give Gold three stars for her iconoclastic honesty, for her ability to tell a story that all teachers can relate to, but to which few would ever admit. The other two stars are taken away because of the book's lack of clarity. The author jumps around from one scene to another frequently enough that the story becomes jumpy, chock full of stops and starts. The author, a professional poet, also becomes so "poetic" at times, that her tale often lacks that journalistic quality necessary for an autobiographical account.

Overall, though, I think the book is one worthy of being read by teachers if for no other reason than to provide a good counterweight to those "feel good" accounts of teaching. There are (at very least) two sides to every story. BIHS offers us that oft ignored second side.

OK, I can see how this offends some of the reviewers. They have an idea about how things "should" work, have read "Stand by Me" etc., and this shakes up their world view. Reality is so uncomfortable.

This is a totally honest look in the mirror by an untalented teacher, but talented writer. I know I could not have written it, been that honest. And yes, it is obvious that she is more of a poet than prose writer. Part of who she is.