Hunter never experienced the violence that Richard Dadier encounters in the novel, but claimed such incidents were not unheard of in vocational schools. A pupil once shouted out to him, “Hey teach, ever try to fight 35 kids at once?” Hunter had one student who could not write his own name, and others who could not read. By his own accounts, Hunter found teaching both challenging and disheartening, and he was “shocked by the vocational school situation.” He noted that absolute “disorder” began the moment he arrived at school. After graduating from Hunter College, where he studied English and education and completed a semester of student teaching, Hunter took a substitute position at Bronx Vocational in the fall of 1950. Though Hunter’s novel is not strictly autobiographical, it is based on his experience as an English teacher at Bronx Vocational High School in New York City. As we pause to remember Evan Hunter, we should also revisit the story behind his famous work, for the history of The Blackboard Jungle can teach us much about the state of educational debate in America today. Originally, though, The Blackboard Jungle aspired to be more than just a sensational yarn about youth deviance. In the present day, the phrase “blackboard jungle” is essentially synonymous with school violence. Yet despite the fact that Hunter’s novel tackled a range of pressing educational problems, The Blackboard Jungle, along with the successful film it inspired, has survived in our popular memory as above all a story about juvenile delinquency.

As one reviewer observed, Hunter had laid to rest “the notion that high school teaching is simply a white-collar job with short hours and long vacations.” In the world of 1950s pop culture, this hard-hitting school portrait contrasted sharply with the preppie, peppy classrooms of Miss Dove and Our Miss Brooks. In the book, beleaguered protagonist Richard Dadier grapples with overcrowded classrooms, apathetic students, burned-out teachers, and an unjust educational system in his first year of teaching at a vocational high school. When it was first published in 1954, this tale of a novice teacher and his unruly charges offered a stark commentary on the state of education.

The blackboard jungle evan hunter