Page 108 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
• You really should not consistently get Cs in “conduct” in the younger grades of P.S. 193; neither, when the grading system is later modern- ized to spare the delicate feelings of modern students, should you get an NI (needs improvement) or a U (unsatisfactory) in “deport- ment.” Nor should you receive the comment “Harvey is capable of being a good student, but he too often disrupts the class, speaking out of turn and making light of serious subject matter,” or something akin to it, no matter what the grading system is. Your parents will pay more attention to those grades than they will to an E (excellent) or an OS (outstanding) that you earn in the academic portion of the report card, which they are obliged to sign. Your parents will pay the most attention when they are invited to visit the teacher after school hours to discuss the problem of dealing with you, a problem with which they have a great deal of familiarity.
• Making a lot of jokes is a good way to become popular with the kids in the class but not with your teachers, especially Mrs. Chirkus, the substitute who was a patient of your dad’s.
• When your parents take you out of school for a whole day so that you can go to nearby Brooklyn College to meet a nice man who will be very friendly and wants to talk to you (and who will also ask you to tell him stories about uncaptioned cartoons that he shows to you; to do the same with ten funny cards decorated with what look like a bat or butterfly, two people, two faces, and some other pairs of stuff; to tell him the first word that you think of when he reads a list of words to you; to play number and word games with him; and, last, to tell him what your parents are like and what problems you have with them), contrary to what your parents told you, the purpose of the visit is not so that the man will later act as an arbitrator and settle disputes between you and your folks.
• When a pupil from another class, who has won the sixth-grade com- petition for best review of a play, is invited to stand in front of your
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