Libraries and Donuts on Chicago’s South Side

 

 

When I first started substitute teaching, I found out that the city of Chicago pays more money if I go to high need schools, in the most dangerous neighborhoods.  It pays a LOT more money to go to these Places: think Englewood, Austin, O-block, Garfield Park, Little Village.  Lots of carjackings, muggings and shootings.

I was scared, but I like money.

 

And surprise, surprise: these neighborhoods are mostly on the South Side of Chicago, where there is a lot more nature, and the buildings date from the 1920’s, and there are huge urban parks and ancient trees, and old fashioned donut shops that have long since vanished from the posh north side.

 

Trust me- I went to sub for a school in Rosedale- one of the most gang-ridden areas of the city, but right next to the school was the aforementioned “Old Fashioned Donuts” and I swear on all that is holy I have NEVER in my life had such wonderful donuts or fritters.  Also, the store has kept all the features it had when it first opened in the nineteen-seventies- a huge heavy cash register, old curtains, big wooden door.

I think I need to accept another substitute assignment in the far South Side…

 

One thing that surprised and saddened me about my substitute teaching work, is the fact that none of these schools have libraries.  I’ve visited thirty schools, and not one of them has had a school librarian or a library.  I made inquiries, and I discovered that the school system fired all their school librarians in 2015, and then they tossed out all the books.  The rationale is that everything is online now, so we don’t need books anymore.  They call it the new literacy.

For thousands of years, books have represented knowledge.  Our Guru taught us to never touch paper with our feet, because paper embodies the Goddess of knowledge, Saraswati.  Symbols matter.  Books symbolize knowledge, wisdom.  You can’t deprive children of books and then say that you really care about their education.  I don’t care how much is on-line.  Screens don’t have the quality that paper has- the subtle quality that has to do with the sacredness of knowledge.

Recently, I subbed for a school that actually did have a library.  It’s called “Goethe Elementary”.  In the office there is a portrait of Goethe painted by an unknown artist.  It’s hung in the office for a hundred years:

 

 

 

It’s common to find beautiful works of art in these old schools, and no one knows who painted them, or when.  In this painting you can see Goethe’s broad humanity and sensitivity.

 

Anyway, the school, Goethe Elementary, was one of the only schools which actually has a library and a librarian.  And I saw some of the kids in my classroom had checked out books from the school library and I recognized some of them from my own middle school days.

In other words, the kids were reading for fun.  Give kids books, and they will read them.  It’s really that simple, but apparently somewhat beyond the grasp of the public school administration.

Anyway, I saw one boy had a copy of “Under Sea, Over Stone” by Susan Cooper, the first book in her marvelous “The Dark Is Rising” series, and I stopped in my tracks, closed my eyes, and recited from memory the poem that prefaces all the books in the series:

 

“When the Dark comes rising six shall turn it back;

Three from the circle, three from the track;

Wood, bronze, iron; Water, fire, stone;

Five will return and one go alone.

 

Iron for the birthday; bronze carried long;

Wood from the burning; stone out of song;

Fire in the candle ring; water from the thaw;

Six signs the circle and the grail gone before.

 

Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold

Played to wake the sleepers, oldest of old.

Power from the Green Witch, lost beneath the sea.

All shall find the Light at last, silver on the tree.”

― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising Sequence

 

I read those books when I was in the seventh grade, the same age as these students, and I never forgot that poem.  It has stayed with me.

 

When I finished there was a long silence in the classroom and then one boy spoke up, “Mr. Klein, I can tell you really like that poem!”

I had a co-teacher in the classroom that day, and he asked me if I could recite some poems, so I recited “Tyger, Tyger” by William Blake and “The Stolen Child” by W.B. Yeats.  Both of these poems marry sound with meaning, and have lots of interesting and evocative images.  He told me he was very impressed.  Later, some of the students approached me in the hallway and told me they liked the poems.

 

I don’t often have that experience- where the co teachers or administrators try to make use of my talents as part of the curriculum.  I’m happy when that does happen.  It makes sense that I would have that kind of experience in a school named for Goethe.

It’s funny- I often sit in on fifth grade or eighth grade classes, and I end up learning a lot!  For example, I sat in on a Seventh grade Spanish class, and I learned that in Spanish, they don’t really use the phrase “to give birth”.  Instead, they say, “Brought to light”- “Dar me a luz”- “Mi mama me dio a luz”- my mother brought me to the light.  I really like that a lot- my mother gave me to light, brought me to the light.  I think Guru would have liked this, too.

 

Once I accepted an assignment for an “alternative” school- “York Alternative High School.”  It wasn’t too far away according to Google Maps, so I hopped on the bus and told the bus driver the address and he let me off in front of the courthouse.  I searched for the high school, but where the school should be, 2700 S California, I saw only the Maximum Security unit of the Cook County Jail.  It was surrounded by five concentric nests of razor wire.

 

I paced up and down the block from 26^th street to 32^nd street, and I saw that there was no distinct address for 2700 S California!  The whole five blocks were taken up by the sheriff’s office and prison blocks!

Finally, in desperation, I called the secretary of the high school and told her I couldn’t find the  school, and she told me that an “alternative” school means it’s a high school located inside the prison.

It took me forever to get through security.  I had to get finger printed, lock up my phone and keys, and let the security officers rifle through all my bags.  They told me that, if I wanted to teach in the prison in the future, then I had to bring only clear plastic bags, and no paper of any kind- no books or notebooks or pads or anything.

Finally I was allowed in, and the director of the “Alternative School” sat me down and told me not to ask the detainees about their lives in custody.  My job is to educate them, not to learn about prison life or what crimes they committed that brought them there.

Finally, I was shown to my classroom.  I looked over the lesson plans- an art history class, and then the guys were led into the class, all in light brown uniforms and handcuffs, and the warden unbuckled them and they all sat down and listened politely as I gave them a brief lesson on the history of Western Art.  Then, we watched YouTube videos on street artists like Banksy and also local Chicago graffiti artists.  Many of these kids were street artists themselves and could relate.

The boys were more polite than most high school kids.  That’s not surprising.  They either behave or they go back to their cell.  I taught  four periods that day.  Towards the end of the last period, some of the guys in the class asked if they could watch YouTube videos of rappers- all of them incidentally young, female and attractive.  I told them that that was not on the lesson plan, and I therefore had my hands tied.  The young man responded, “It’s a good thing you don’t work here every day, Mr. Klein, because otherwise you’d probably get killed.”

 

I think he was joking.  He was smiling as he said it.

 

Anyway, the rowdiness continued, and they shouted out the names of lady rappers they wanted to watch and I eventually had to call the guards in.  The moment the wardens came in, all the boys stood up, faced the wall, with their hands in position to get handcuffed.  They didn’t resist.  They knew the drill.

Surprisingly, the prison had a better atmosphere than many of the high schools I’ve visited!  Sometimes, when freedom is taken away from us, it can be a great boon to our aspiring self.

Sri Chinmoy writes in “Transcendence-Perfection”:

 

“If my life’s freedom dies,
What shall remain
In my heart?
Not the sighs of loss,
But the illumining
Surrender-tears
Of my gratitude-soul.”

 

As a spiritual seeker, I find I have to find ways to surrender my outer freedom to my inner life.  I have to do this all the time.

Many of my assignments are not too far from the University of Chicago.  There’s an old library on site that has been repurposed as a reading area.  But whenever people walk in, they gasp!  It’s like a cathedral!  It has huge vaulted ceilings and floating candelabras and it’s all made of old stone, and it is vast and glorious.  It is full of comfortable settees and big cushiony chairs and I go there often just to read Guru’s books.  In the past few weeks, when I’ve been feeling so low, so drained and tired after a long day of the foibles relevant to substitute teaching, I just bring a sack full of Guru’s writings and I sit there and read for three or four hours at a stretch.

And I’ve made a thrilling discovery: I have, in thirty years of discipleship to Sri Chinmoy, just barely scratched the surface of his writings.  This means I can spend the next thirty years, or whatever time is left to me, reading and studying his writings with much more intensity.

Sri Chinmoy writes:

“The book of your heart’s light
Is an excellent book.
Keep it always on your reading desk
To serve as your ever-ready reference book,
Especially when you enter into
The library of ignorance-night.”

Sri Chinmoy, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 76, Agni Press, 1983