The Enthusiast

When Paul Richer, 21, walked into the dark brick junior high school in little (pop. 962) Riceville, Iowa last fall, he intended to throw everything he had into this first teaching job. A burly man with a Phi Beta Kappa key from the State University of Iowa, he had long wanted to teach. He had an irrepressible enthusiasm for literature and a head full of ideas on how to put his enthusiasm across. But no sooner had he completed his first few weeks than Paul Richer became the most controversial figure in town.

There was no doubt that his seventh-and eighth-graders idolized him. They called him Paul, and "they followed him around," one mother reported, "as if he were a Pied Piper." At lunchtime so many flocked to his table that he decided to use the hour to give extracurricular Spanish lessons. In class he had a knack for arousing the interest of the most unlikely pupils. One day he gave a farm boy who had always hated poetry a piece of paper and said, "Now, imagine you are seated at the plow. What do you see?" The result, says Richer, "was a truly beautiful poem. Every one of those kids was learning to think for himself. I thought that that was my job." Even Bein' God. Had he been willing to stick closer to grammar and spelling, all might have gone well for Richer. But he detested the regulation texts ("All workbook stuff--read the chapter, answer the questions, turn them in, then read the next chapter"), and if his pupils expressed curiosity about a topic, he was apt to get carried away. He assigned some strange themes (sample topic, taken from Green Pastures: "Even bein' God ain't no bed of roses"). He also read parts of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men "so that the kids could learn this lesson, that everybody in this world needs somebody else."

When he got permission from the Superintendent's office to buy paperbacked copies of How the Great Religions Began, parents and clergymen alike howled in protest. Later Richer assigned a 2 1/2-week study of Communism. He described Communism as objectively as he knew how, hoped that his pupils would figure out for themselves why it is wrong. They did--but their parents rose up once again. The Congregational minister even told Richer that he had suspected him of being a Communist himself.

Compounding his problems, Richer, as a disciplinary measure, denied one of his students permission to attend a released-time religion class, thus antagonizing the local Roman Catholic priest. Later he called on the priest to explain that he had not realized that the religion period was mandatory, but made it clear in passing that he was opposed to the released-time idea anyway.

Why Shakespeare? Richer's troubles did not end there. The American Legion post objected to his scheduling an adaptation of the Blackboard Jungle because it called for a boy's being stabbed by a flagstaff flying the American flag. When Richer scheduled a study of Shakespearean plays, one farmer complained: "What does my boy need to know Shakespeare for? It won't help him plow a field." The Rev. William Bohi was especially aroused. "This Richer," said he, "is interested in a lot of fool things. He talked to his students about mental health. He made them write themes on 'My Outlook on Life.' Imagine asking seventh- and eighth-graders that." Fed up, Richer finally dashed off an arrogant letter to the board of education, bluntly announced that he would quit at the end of the year. He accused his critics of "ignorance . . . and bigotry and intellectual narrowness. My decision to leave Riceville is based on one fact, one discovery--that there exists in the middle of the 20th century, in the middle of the United States, a group of people whose chief motivations are cowardice and fear." With considerable justification, the board countercharged that Richer was disrespectful and defiant, decided to fire him on the spot.

Last week, with Richer out of the way, it was hard to tell whether he or the town had paid the heavier price. He had been obviously willful and indiscreet, but he had also been in obvious need of guidance from his seniors. His chief fault was also his chief virtue. "He was," said School Board President Thomas Walker, "quite enthusiastic about his work."

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