A Creative Craziness: Local Author Reflects on Life and Latest Book

By Mark Allwood

Many years ago, educator and writer Bernie Schein diagnosed himself as crazy. There might even still be some there, but it's this self-professed craziness that has helped make his more than 40 years in education, teaching mainly middle school, so successful.

"They're off the wall in middle school," said Schein. "That's why nobody wants to teach in middle school. Most people don't even want to parent middle school kids. I like them because they're crazier than hell, and they're showing it. As long as they're showing it and acting it, then we can get to it. You want the problems to surface."

As a child growing up in Beaufort, Schein detested going to school. So he decided to become a teacher.

"I hated school when I was a kid," said Schein, 64. "It just bored me to tears."

It was this same boredom that led Schein to develop an unconventional approach to teaching middle school, an often difficult time for children adjusting to young adulthood. The subjects he has taught include creative and expository writing, literature, drama and social studies. He applied a unique approach to teaching by employing a class government and court system.

Schein began his career as a teaching principal at Yemassee Elementary and Junior High School, although the bulk of his career was spent teaching nearly 30 years at the Paideia School, an elite Atlanta private school that he also helped to start. He retired two years ago.

Schein writes about many of his experiences in education in his latest book, "If Holden Caulfield Were In My Classroom: Inspiring Love, Creativity, and Intelligence in Middle School Kids," released by Sentient Publications in September.

The book is available on Amazon.com and Barnes and noble.com, among other places, including bookstores. Schein's experiences in the book include dealing with bullies who really just want to be loved, girls acting out because of issues with their fathers and angry teenagers who ultimately reveal sadness.

Holden Caulfield is the narrator and protagonist of J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye." The classic novel, which follows Caulfield's expulsion from an elite preparatory school, is often read in high schools and portrays the common theme of teen angst.

"Holden Caulfield is your classic American teenager, except he's extreme," said Schein. "He's negative, he's cynical, he's casually nonchalant. He's a put-down artist of the highest order, a virtuoso."

The book's forward was written by Pat Conroy, who wrote "The Prince of Tides" and "The Great Santini," and who Schein has known since they were both students at Beaufort High School.

"Pat and I were the first people to have a black studies program in South Carolina," Schein recalled. "Mine was largely for white kids to reduce their prejudices. Juanita Washington was a friend of both of ours. She was a hero. She taught and integrated Port Royal Elementary School as a first-grade teacher. She was brilliant."

Schein credits Conroy with getting him to move to Atlanta, where Conroy's children were starting at the then-brand-new Paideia.

"I came in at the beginning of Paideia," said Schein. A graduate of Beaufort Elementary and Beaufort High School, Schein also taught at Port Royal Elementary and served as a principal at a school in Clarksdale, Miss. He holds a Master of Education degree from Harvard University.

"The issues kids were talking about -- romance, unrequited love, sexuality, friendship and betrayal for popularity and status, things like that, a death or an illness of a loved one or pet, sibling rivalry, family and social problems -- all of these were the great classical themes of literature in history, and they were jostling inside them, just begging to come out," said Schein. "I realized they were crazy as hell because they hadn't dealt with these issues. Well, that's when I realized that I was crazy as hell because I hadn't dealt with them."

In Schein's book, Conroy writes in the forward: "I was a frequent visitor to Bernie's classes. I know every kid that he writes about. I read their stories. They were lucky to encounter as very young men a man on fire."

"It means that I was really inspired and impassioned," Schein said. "Teachers have to challenge kids to get to the truth of what they feel, and then everything else will take care of itself. If I can get a kid to his emotions, then the emotions themselves -- the truth -- will catapult a kids reading, writing and thinking, and their ability to love, over 1,000 classrooms and curriculums. That's still what's missing."

Not one to hold his tongue, Schein called the No Child Left Behind Act a "disaster" because of its emphasis on test scores and said he would have moved back to Beaufort sooner, but no one would hire him as a principal.

He recalled a meeting with former school superintendent Herman Gaither where the two disagreed on the importance of testing as a way to measure intelligence.

"When you read and write, the purpose is not just to read and write," said Schein. "You read for wisdom, you write for wisdom, you study for wisdom. Well, a lot of that's already inside of kids. Plug into it, and they'll really expand themselves into books and music and so forth."

Schein believes that students need to be emotionally open and aware before true learning can take place, but the American education system is not set up this way.

"Frankly, I was always dying to get back to Beaufort," said Schein. "I just love Beaufort, but I couldn't get a job here. I had an elementary school teacher in the fifth grade in Beaufort tell me over drinks the other night that you can no longer criticize a kid, that if you do, it's not worth it. Well, I criticized them all the time. If their writing sucked, I told them it sucked. If it was great, I told them it was great. They want the truth. The truth does liberate."

Schein was awarded District Teacher of the Year in the metro Atlanta area in 1978, and his previous book, "Open Classrooms in the Middle School," which was co-authored with his wife Martha, was a featured selection of the Educator's Book Club.

"Here's where educators have gotten it wrong," said Schein. "They think the central purpose of American education is teaching kids to think. They think you can just give that to them. You can't. Roses grow from cow manure. Emotion is the key, and true emotion is as difficult to arrive at as the solution to an algebra problem. Emotion drives the boat, and thought and reason follow in its wake."

Schein said he stays in contact with many of his former students. Ultimately, he would like his book to be used in classrooms and to be a helpful tool for parents.

"I want it to change the way that adults, educators and parents -- people who work with kids -- I want it to open them up to how bright, sensitive and courageous these kids really are underneath all their craziness," said Schein. "They're not going to be able to see it if the craziness is all they see."

—The Beaufort Gazette