Up the Down Staircase is a humorous novel written by Bel Kaufman, and published in 1965. Bel Kaufman is a Russian-American professor and author. ...

The plot revolves around Sylvia Barrett, a young idealistic teacher who quickly becomes discouraged during her first year of teaching at a large inner-city high school. Frustrated by petty bureaucracy, the indifference of her students, and the incompetence of many of her coworkers, she decides to leave public school to work in a smaller private setting. Her mind is changed by the realization that she has indeed touched the lives of her students. A teachers room in a Japanese middle school, 2005. ... Inner City on MTV Inner City is an American house music group, that was popular in the early 1990s. ... High school is the name used for the last segment of compulsory education in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mauritius, New Zealand (in New Zealand college is more commonly used as a generic term for secondary school) Philippines, Scotland, South Africa, some established schools in Singapore... Bureaucracy is a concept in sociology and political science. ... The term public school has different meanings: In Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and most other English-speaking nations, a public school is a school which is financed and run by the government and does not charge tuition fees. ...

The novel is epistolary in form: the plot is advanced largely through memos from the office, fragments of notes dropped in the trash can, essays that were handed in to be graded, lesson plans, suggestions dropped in the class suggestion box, and letters written by Barrett to her friends. An epistolary novel is written as a series of documents. ...

The novel has been adapted to film and stage. The film version, released in 1967, starred Sandy Dennis. The play is frequently performed in high school drama classes. 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sandra (Sandy) Dale Dennis (born April 27, 1937 - March 2, 1992) was an American theater and film actress. ...

External links

• Up the Down Staircase at the Internet Movie Database