David Janowitz's 12th grade English class Weequahic High School 1963-4.
This remembrance is offered in gratitude to a kindly and caring educator who tried in earnest (and I should add not in vain) to make an intellectual and moral difference in the lives of some young people at Weequahic High School.
David Janowitz had his senior English class read 'Goodbye Columbus' by Philip Roth. A group of students (I don't recall who the others were, but I was sure one) were to analyze and intelligently discuss the novel. Although I could be wrong, I believe that I took some leadership role in this group. At our meeting to plan the topics we were particularly interested in the psychological motivation of the main female character. Specifically, did she hide her diaphragm in here dresser draw so that her mother would find it? Did this privileged suburban girl intend to doom her relationship with the underprivileged city boy? On the other hand, did she just thoughtlessly place the diaphragm in the drawer?
I don't believe that it crossed my mind that a discussion about a diaphragm with its concomitant sexual implications was taboo or even controversial. Well, maybe I did have a suspicion, but I quickly dismissed it.
Finally, the day of the presentation was upon us. With much enthusiasm and excitement the group went to the front of the class. I was to be the first speaker. It seemed to me that I was only halfway through my first sentence when I mentioned the unmentionable word--diaphragm. Mr. Janowitz was seated at the back of the classroom. Suddenly, he leaped into the air almost as if high jumping. He catapulted to the front, shouting all the while 'Stop!', 'Stop!' I had thought he had gone berserk. He had gone berserk! He brought me out into the hallway and dressed me down pretty well. He shouted, 'Of all the possible topics you could have discussed you had to choose to talk about diaphragms!' I was so embarrassed. I was stunned.
The other members of the team were in momentarily shock as well. Our entire planned discussion was off-limits. Somehow the group recovered and extemporaneously conducted a more appropriate discussion.
During that whole semester I had thought that Mr. Janowitz's moral standards were quite strict and that he was such a tough English teacher, but, a year later, while I was a freshman at Rutgers, Newark I came to appreciate old David Janowitz more and more. I think he genuinely cared for the welfare of his students as well as their intellectual and, yes, moral development.
Now, with distance and maturity I look back upon this infamous incident with a smile on my face. After all my principal fault was just my age, and David Janowitz seemed to clearly understand that. That is why I feel that it was my good fortune to have been nurtured at Weequahic High School by David Janowitz. In my yearbook he wrote, 'You are a good man.' I guess I feel the same about him.
