So the temptation to clobber was always there, and it was sometimes more difficult not to strike than it would have been to strike, and the consequences be damned. Because, despite any edicts about corporal punishment, there were a good many vocational school kids who got clobbered every day, and when the heavy hand of someone like Captain Max Schaefer clobbers, the clobberee knows he’s been clobbered, but good.
Clobbering, then, was one accepted means of establishing discipline in a trade school.
Another method was Slobbering, and this worked most efficiently when a female teacher — scarce as such creatures were — used it.
The Slobbering method appealed to the sympathy of the boys, and it took various forms. The most common form (and this is why the method worked best when employed by females) was the one which turned on a touched-to-the-quick expression, and then dolefully complained about the ingratitude of the class.
“After all I’ve done for you,” the Slobberer whined. “You give me this treatment.”
When a female used this tactic, unattractive though she might be, there was usually something inside the boys which responded. Perhaps it was their innate chivalry, their desire to come to the resue of the damsel in distress. Whatever it was, in the hands of a good female Slobberer (and Martha Riley was one of the best at Manual Trades, if not the best in the City of New York) an assorted collection of hoodlums could be made to feel like heels, and would indeed hold a respectful silence throughout the remainder of the period, showing their gratitude for all the teacher had done for them, which was usually nothing.
A male Slobberer performed a variation on the theme, and the variations were multiple and many-faceted. The most common form of male Slobbering was the one which appealed to the boys’ sense of fraternal spirit. Treating them all like Alpha Beta Tau boys, the male Slobberer would say, “Come on, fellows, give me a break. I’m just a poor slob trying to do a job, that’s all.”
And the fellows, knowing all about poor slobs trying to do jobs, might or might not respond to the teacher’s plea, depending upon how they felt about the proletariat on that particular day.
The Veteran Hook was another variation on the male Slobberer’s pitch. The Veteran Hook was not a direct plea; in fact, its effectiveness lay primarily in its quality for understatement. It entailed a dramatic reconstruction of several isolated war experiences, with a few descriptions of the Germans, Italians, or Japanese who had met death at the hands of the male Slobberer. The more dead enemies, the better. The boys loved tales of bashed skulls. But this was not where the Slobbering ended. In fact, had it ended here, it would have accomplished nothing. The Slobberer then went on to tell about the Purple Heart he received, or the steel plate he carried in his head, or the cork leg beneath his trouser, or the way his balls were shot off — none of which things ever happened to him. He then went on to describe the rough time he had rehabilitating, and the rough time he had in college, and the rough time he had finding a teaching job. And now, now that he is teaching, he’s grateful to the United States and the wonderful people who made all this possible, and he only hoped he could keep his job and continue to teach all these swell kids who helped make all this possible.
And the kids, weaned on the hero legend, unable to tell a cork leg from a cork-tipped cigarette, usually accepted this type of Slobbering and made it a little easier for the teacher to keep this job he fought for, provided they did not kick his leg out from under him some day to see if it really was cork.
Another type of male Slobbering, akin to the fraternal pitch, but different in a degree, was the type Halloran used. Halloran, as he exhibited on the first day of school while introducing the assorted teachers to the assorted students, was “just one of the boys.” He’d never been to college. He fulfilled the Board’s requirements for becoming a shop teacher in a trade school by:
1) Graduating from Junior High School, and having nine years of trade experience. Or...
2) Graduating from Senior High School, and having seven years of trade experience. Or...
3) Graduating from a technical or vocational high school, and having five years of trade experience.
He was, as any fool could plainly see, just one of the boys. And so he spoke like the boys, and he joked like the boys, and he even borrowed from the Clobbering approach and sometimes batted the boys around, but all the time just being one of the boys and basing his Slobbering technique upon that single peg.
Oh, the ways of the Slobbering technique were many and varied, and Rick heard about all of them, but he somehow felt all of them were a little degrading, like sucking up to an officer to get a weekend liberty, except that these kids weren’t even officers, and there were a good many of them.
If you didn’t choose to Clobber or Slobber, you could Slumber. Slumbering, as apart from Slobbering, was an art in itself, and Solly Klein was one of its most ardent practitioners. The Slumberer treated discipline as a non-existent problem. For him, indeed, the problem was a non-existent one. He chose to ignore it. He taught, and if no one heard what he was teaching, it was just tough. He taught like a man talking in his sleep. He rattled on and on, and the noises and sounds of the outside world meant nothing to him. If, as occasionally happened, the noises broke into his slumber, the Slumberer would simply step outside the room for a moment, waiting for the class to knock itself out, and keeping an eye open for the Boss at the same time. The Slumberer’s philosophy was a simple one: Let the bastards kill themselves. So long as I’m not hurt.
So if a fist-fight started in the Slumberer’s classroom, the Slumberer allowed the two protagonists to beat themselves silly while he stood by and watched. He then stepped over the pool of blood on the floor and went on with his lesson, not caring if anyone was listening, and having long since realized that no one was listening anyway. No one ever failed a course the Slumberer taught. There were a lot of Slumberers in the New York City system.
The Rumbler was a fellow exactly like the slumberer, except for one thing. The Slumberer knew there was no discipline in his classes, but he slept soundly at night as well as during the day. The Rumbler, on the other hand, did exactly what the Slumberer did all day long, but then he went home and complained to his wife about the lack of discipline, or he complained to his Department Chairman, or even to the principal. Or when no one else was around to listen, he would rumble silently to himself, cursing everyone responsible, including God, and especially cursing people like the Slumberers who had allowed such a shocking disciplinary problem to develop.
The Fumbler, and Rick classified himself in this broad group of teachers, simply didn’t know what the hell to do. The Fumbler kept trying. He tried this way, and he tried that way, and he hoped that some day he would hit upon the miraculous cure-all for the disciplinary problem. Most Fumblers eventually became proponents of one of the other methods of establishing discipline. Some Fumblers really did lick the problem eventually, but they never divulged their secrets — learned after many years of batting their heads against the wall — to the lesser mortals who shared the teaching profession.
So Rick fumbled, and he was immensely grateful for Stanley’s visits because there was no disciplinary problem whenever Stanley was present. On those occasions, he was allowed to teach, and he discovered then that there was something other than a lack of discipline to fight at North Manual Trades. The discovery left him feeling a bit defeated, like a man who’s purchased an AC television set only to discover that his apartment is wired for DC.