James Herndon (1926–1990) was an American writer and educator. He is best known for two memoirs of teaching, The Way It Spozed To Be and How To Survive In Your Native Land. He is considered one of the influential 1970s writers on education, among the ranks of John Holt, George Dennison, Jonathan Kozol, Paul Goodman, and Herbert Kohl.
Herndon’s first book, The Way It Spozed To Be (1968), chronicles his first year teaching, in a poor, segregated junior high school in urban California. This book describes his despair at the inadequacy of the school system and his innovative efforts to teach his students to read, which led to his being fired at the end of the year for poor classroom management.
The Way It Spozed to Be deals incisively with what is still the root problem of ghetto schools: their appalling failure to reach the kids, their obsession with rote learning and imposed discipline, which only drives them further into apathy and rebellion. . . . This book exposes the conflict between image and reality, between the way things “spozed to be” and the way they are.
Herndon’s second book How To Survive In Your Native Land (1971) centers on Herndon’s subsequent decade teaching. Its humorous, Beat style led reviewers to compare Herndon to Kurt Vonnegut.
In How to Survive in Your Native Land James Herndon details classroom life and the inescapable realities of a school situation. This is a compelling vision of what really goes on in school and how the conventional school structure actually affects teaching and learning. The realities may be hard, but Herndon’s humorous touch makes this book easy to read.
In 1973, Herndon privately published Everything As Expected, an account of his then-wife Fran Herndon’s collage collaborations with poet Jack Spicer. The Herndons were part of Jack Spicer‘s circle in San Francisco
Sorrowless Times, James Herndon’s memoir of his years as a merchant marine during World War II, was published in 1981.
In 1985, Herndon published Notes From A Schoolteacher, further musings on American education, including his reflections on his role as president of his local teachers’ union.
And of course a picture- at the time and place of my inception. So I guess that makes me part French, German, and American 🙂
The real MAN that stepped up was Max Aprile, a man I was told was my father until I was the age of 15- and the truth revealed, that he was not, and never legally adopted me, so I have his last name (my last name) but it was never formalized except his last name was the one entered into the grade school records, and so forth with all the other identity papers (SSN, DL). In all reality, there is no legal birth record or any sort of record for Frank Aprile.
Back when people didn’t know it was bad to smoke and drink when pregnant…
This is the place I was born in secrecy. Mutti told her parents I was adopted- in order to avoid the stigma of an out-of-wedlock child. My grand parents aren’t really that stupid- I think they figured it out pretty fast. The down side of the deception? I never got to meet them.