100-Year-Old Author Addresses Retirees At Iona College

The importance of humor, the joys of aging and working as a New York City public high school teacher were topics of a presentation Thursday by Bel Kaufman, 100-year-old author of Up The Down Staircase.

She addressed members of the learning program for retirees at . It was Kaufman’s first appearance in Westchester County.

“I will never call you senior citizens because it reminds me of a high school prom,” she told the crowd. “Old is a beautiful word. I am 100 years old and I don’t do what I have to do. I don’t have to go to school, I don’t have to work, my children have grown. The insecurities of youth are behind me.”

She told the audience that humor and laughter are the keys to living a long life.

“Laughter is the language of survival,” she said. “To live forever is the ability to laugh at one’s self.”

Kaufman was born in Germany, but raised in Russia.

“I lived in Russia during the revolution with shootings and famine,” she said.

She arrived in New York City at the age of 12 and later attended Hunter College and Columbia University. After completing her education, she worked as a teacher in various New York City high schools. Kaufman currently teaches Jewish humor as an adjunct professor at Hunter College in New York City.

She is the granddaughter of Yiddish author and playwright Sholem Aleichem.

The musical Fiddler on the Roof was based on Aleichem’s stories about Tevye the milkman.

Kaufman’s Up The Down Staircase was published in 1965. It is a “humorous novel,” based on Kaufman’s career, that chronicles  the trials and tribulations of an English literature teacher in a New York City public high school. It was on the New York Times’ best-seller list for 64 weeks and has been translated into 16 languages. The 1967 film adaption of the novel starred Academy Award-winning actress Sandy Dennis.

“I never planned to write a novel about schools,” Kaufman said.

“Raise your hands if you were a teacher,” she asked the crowd.

More than 20 hands went up.

Many members of the retiree program are former teachers, lawyers and physcians.

Learning in Retirement at Iona College (LIRIC) is a self-governing comprehensive program that offers not-for-credit courses and social activites for retirees. Founded in 1994, the program’s student body consists of about 300 seniors.

Members of the crowd asked Kaufman what she thinks about today’s educational system.

“Education is something that continues long after the school bell rings,” she said. “It is not about all these tests and marks.”

Kaufman said she tries to find humor in everything, but the state of today’s public schools are not at all a laughing matter.

“Back then the school was a place of refuge from what was happening on the streets with the drugs and poverty, but now what happens in the streets is what is happening in the schools,” she said.

Nancy Russo of New Rochelle had her copy of Up The Down Staircase.

“I read this a very long time ago,” she said. “The book is more than 40 years old. I also work for the New York Department of Education. She (Kaufman) is so articulate, funny, energized and sophisticated.”

Ted Levine, a LIRIC professor, was responsible for bring Kaufman to Iona.

“It was the best thing I have ever done in my career,” he said.

At the end of the event, and to thunderous applause, Kaufman said, “I thank you for coming for listening and for laughing.”