Anne Harte gasped upon seeing the large wall painting behind the mahogany desk. The painting, done in an abstract-expressionist style of fragmented images, was of a woman either bathing or masturbating. Because the images lacked clear definition, one moment the painting appeared to be innocent, the next moment pornographic. Sitting beneath the painting, leaning over the desk and massaging his temples, was a man who, without looking up, pointed to a chair nearby and told Anne to sit down. As she approached a red-leather armchair to his left, he dropped his arms and stared at her like someone with blurred vision who hadn’t had enough coffee or sleep to sober him after a long night of drinking.
Despite the lines undulating across his forehead and from the corners of his eyes, he could’ve been either in his early thirties or late fifties, prematurely old from dissipation or still youthful looking, blessed by good fortune. By popular standards, he was quite handsome, the type who would appeal to most young women Anne’s age as a sensual father type. To Anne, though, he was just a personnel officer for the Board of Education. At least, this was her first thought. More specific thoughts came to mind when he awakened from his stupor, and he stared at her legs, then slowly and thoroughly the rest of her.
As she attempted to sit comfortably in what appeared to be a sturdy armchair, she felt her body sink deeply into the featherlike seat, forcing her into an awkward position with her legs apart, for him to note studiously. For one violent moment, she hated him and his innocent-looking chair. Without revealing her attitude, however, she pulled herself up and perched on the edge of the chair and crossed her legs at the ankles.
His questions, as he casually interviewed her, were as cleverly worded as the chair was cleverly designed. If she answered one way, she was saying yes to a sexual overture, another way, no. While interviewing her, he leaned back in his chair, tilting it back toward the painting, as he continued to study her legs. She knew by his smile what he saw he liked. Yet, she made no effort to change her position. She merely answered his questions appropriately and conveyed, when their gazes met, a polite but firm no to his overture.
Without appearing discouraged by her attitude, he pulled his chair forward, cleared his throat, then began to tell her about a job opening at the all-black Horace Mann High School and about the six teachers who had recently quit, one after nearly being raped.
“Of course,” he said with a suggestion of a smile, “the student never really tried to rape her. It was just one of those exaggerated misunderstandings to which the teacher over-reacted.”
“What about the other five?” she asked. “What were their reasons for quitting?”
“To be honest,” he said, “they just didn’t agree with the principal on certain management issues.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” He smiled, and he leaned toward her. “In that case, I have another opening in a predominantly white school. But it requires experience.” He began to free a smile. “Do you have experience, Miss Harte?”
“I do. But not the type that you may deem acceptable for that job.”
“I see,” he said with a frown. “In that case, the best I can offer you is a job at Horace Mann High. Do you mind being in the minority at an all-black, inner-city high school?”
“Not at all,” she said.
“In that case, when would you like me to start?”
A row of stores, gutted by fire during the summer riots, lined the street like a block-long brick shell ready to collapse. Covering these stores, where once there were windows and doors, were sheets of plywood. Painted on the plywood were murals of angry-looking black men, some with raised fists, others armed with rifles; they were leading an army of similar militants through a city ravished by fire and looting.
Anne was surprised to see how significant the destruction was from the spring riots. Just as she was about to take a closer look at the murals, she noticed several men observing her. To avoid unwanted attention, she quickly walked down the street toward the school.
Hanging from a pole attached to a second-floor windowsill was an American flag. Beneath the flag at the entrance level of the school was a modernistic sculpture of twisted metal, resembling a 25-foot flame. It was all that distinguished the high school, a shoebox of glass and brick, from the other shoebox-shaped schools in the city. As Anne neared the school, it looked to her as though the flame was attempting to consume the American flag. When she paused to study the sculpture, she pushed aside several strands of her blonde hair, which the wind blew across her mouth. Several black teenagers were observing her. One pointed at her and startled her by calling her a fucking honky; two others made menacing gestures. Without revealing her discomfort, she walked past them and entered the high school through a green door, spray-painted with misspelled obscenities.
Inside the school against one wall was a picture framed in antique gold of the former U.S. President, John Ward. He was sitting in a wing-back chair by the fireplace with his loyal cocker spaniel, Beelzebul, on his lap. He was gazing at the burning logs in the fireplace, meditating, with the troubled expression of someone unhappy with a world that didn’t conform to his standards. Written across the wall above the picture was his famous quotation: “I dream of a New America in which all freedom-loving Americans will selflessly and willingly sacrifice themselves for their government.”
Anne grew sad thinking about his dream for America. She remembered some of his achievements: His military support for an undeclared war in which millions of Americans died needlessly protecting a “friendly” dictator in Asia while he ignored the systematic overthrow of Caribbean and Central American countries by Marxist terrorists; his New America Program for spending billions of dollars on the needy, which shamelessly turned out to be, not the needy, but the bureaucrats administering the programs; and his lawsuit against a major corporation that was incompliant to a new clause in the antitrust law, a clause which favored one of the President’s favored corporate supporters. To survive and avoid a huge fine, the incompliant corporation was forced to release several valuable assets to the President’s corporate supporter.
Protecting his name from being tarnished by these “achievements” was a Black Rights Amendment, his signature law. It was a law, which the newspapers with their racially inflammatory articles forced Congress to pass. Instead of ending racial discrimination, it merely reversed it by discriminating against whites. In this way a significant step was taken toward guaranteeing that racism would prevail. With “achievements” like this, she worried about the kind of New America “this freedom-loving” President wanted to create.
Her worry grew when she stared beyond the screaming and hostile teenagers in the hall toward a teacher who was telling a boy to clean the mess he made in her room. Several girls standing near the teacher were leisurely scribbling obscenities on the wall, while a boy, hopping past them like a kangaroo, was knocking loose tile blocks from a low-hanging, suspended ceiling. Beyond them, at the furthest end of the narrow hall, a window facing the street was broken. The way the floor-to-ceiling window was broken, it looked as though someone might have fallen through it.
Observing the activity, Anne felt weak and helpless. She wondered how she would ever teach here. Her doubts passed when she remembered something Dr. Maria Montessori once said: “When a child has disruptive tendencies, some great need of his isn’t being met.” Almost immediately Anne recovered her poise, then briskly walked to a door marked office.” Somehow, she would meet that need, she assured herself, as successfully as she had at the university.
A long, high counter divided the office into two unequal sections. The smaller section where Anne stood was for teachers and visitors. The larger section where the desks, filing cabinets, and office equipment were, was for office personnel. Atop a filing cabinet was a percolator and a doughnut box. Office personnel, looking important and busy, unexpectedly hurried from an adjacent office, grabbed a doughnut and some coffee, then disappeared into the office again, where they were overheard talking and laughing.
Anne politely waited for a woman, leaning on the counter and chatting on the phone, to finish her conversation before approaching her. When a bell rang, the woman suddenly told her friend that she’d have to go, and she quickly hung up.
“I would like to see . . .” Anne began, as the woman hurried past her.
“You’ll have to wait a minute, please,” the woman said. “Someone will be with you shortly.”
She then grabbed a coffee and a doughnut and disappeared into a room to Anne’s right. When no one returned, Anne called to a woman moving from office to office, while munching on a doughnut. Without responding, the woman strolled into another office. A few minutes later another woman appeared and stood at the opposite end of the counter to where Anne was standing. She glanced at Anne as though she were an inanimate object, then started to read a newspaper by forming each word with her lips. Anger welled up within Anne and revealed itself in her glare. She marched to where the woman was and said firmly: “Would you please tell the principal I’d like to see her?”
The woman delayed looking up just long enough to be impertinent, then in a bored voice said: “Your name?”
“I’m Miss Harte, Anne Harte, the new English teacher.”
The woman flipped on the intercom. “Mrs. Daniels,” she said into a microphone, “the Mrs. Parks’ replacement is here.”
“Send her in,” a voice answered.
Before resuming with her reading, the woman pointed to a door by the teachers’ mailboxes. The door was locked, and Anne had to knock. A buzzer sounded which released the lock. Anne entered.
The principal’s office was furnished with gray-metal filing cabinets and furniture. On a grey-metal desk next to an intercom system, there were two phones, one red (a hot line to where?) and another black. A collection of pictures covered one wall. They were all handsomely framed, and they provided a pleasant relief to the gray metal furniture. Each picture featured the same white woman with a professional smile, one with the mayor, the other with the school superintendent, and the others with other recognizable, local leaders. They all stood together tightly like a cluster of statues at some official event. They revealed no personality, just a professional smile and a perfectly dignified bearing. Next to these photos, there was an attractive arrangement of degrees, awards and membership certificates. The same white woman, minus the professional smile, stood near her desk in front of an easel. She was extending a green line to the line graph, which was resting on a large easel; the graph was titled “Attendance Chart, Horace Mann High School.”
She was an attractive white woman who wore an expensively tailored dress, which would’ve been stunning on her if she weren’t wearing heavy-looking orthopedic shoes. The incongruity of the dress and the shoes detracted somewhat from her otherwise stylish appearance.
After completing her task, the woman removed her glasses, attached to a neck chain and let it bounce against her chest. But when she saw Anne, she lifted the glasses to her eyes. Without putting the glasses on, she held them to her eyes and studied Anne with the same intense care of a jeweler examining a gem.
“My,” she said, generously emphasizing certain words, “you certainly are an attractive woman!” She then smiled a smile which undoubtedly photographed well, but which in person was just a little too brief to appear sincere. Her insincerity spread when Mrs. Daniels sat behind the gray metal desk and magically transformed it into a status symbol which divided Anne and her. Even her voice, which was just a little too deep for a woman, deepened more, giving it an unmistakably authoritative ring. It appeared Mrs. Daniels was deliberately creating a psychological barrier between herself, the cultured educator, and Anne, the novice teacher. She might have been successful if a boy hadn’t appeared at the window behind the desk and started to amuse Anne with grotesque facial expressions.
Mrs. Daniels was in the middle of a sentence, elaborating on “how students at Horace Mann were learning, not by rigid academic exercises, but by doing” when the boy began to entertain Anne with his buffoonery. At first Anne tried to ignore the boy but stopped. His behavior seemed too fitting in view of the pedagogic nonsense Mrs. Daniels was gushing. Startled by Anne’s inattentiveness, Mrs. Daniels unexpectedly turned to the window. At that moment, the boy stopped clowning, made a vulgar gesture with his hips and hand, then disappeared.
Without rising from her chair, the principal yanked the shade down, while muttering something to herself that sounded inappropriate for the occasion.
In the hall, several teenagers were overheard arguing, cursing each other with colorful skill. Mrs. Daniels cocked her head toward the hall and listened. With a look of weariness, she turned to Anne and asked her, devoid of any pretension, “Tell me, Miss Harte. Have you ever taught?”
“Yes, for a year at the university.”
“Oooh,” she said, lighting up with a smile, impressed. She underlined key words, made them jump from the sentence. “Were you full-time faculty?”
“No,” Anne said. “I only taught a few part-time classes.”
“You mean you were one of those adjunct instructors?”
“That’s correct,” she said, “I taught two remedial English classes.”
“I see,” she said, disappointed. “Well, you’ll find here, Miss Harte, the work will be a little more challenging—just what a young teacher needs to sharpen her skills.” She then flashed a smile without allowing any sign of her disappointment to remain. “I assume you have read your share of Carl Blanc?”
“A little.”
“Only a little? Oh, Miss Harte, you must read all of him. In fact, I insist. Working with so many new students isn’t easy for inexperienced teachers. That’s why I urge all my teachers to read Blanc. It will unite us all with the same philosophy.”
“Are there many inexperienced teachers at Horace Mann?”
“Not very many,” she said casually. “Only about 55 or 60 percent.”
“You mean downtown staffed Horace Mann with that many inexperienced teachers?” Anne asked, surprised.
“Occasionally such staffing imbalances occur, especially at new schools like Horace Mann.”
“It’s a pity that Horace Mann had to lose six teachers,” Anne said. “It might have been avoided with stronger staffing.”
The remark startled the principal. She obviously wasn’t accustomed to having a subordinate express herself so candidly. “There will always be those, Miss Harte, like the six who just quit, who don’t realize how lucky they are to be part of such a won-der-ful school like ours.” Mrs. Daniels released a quick smile, noticeably insincere, as she ignored the swearing in the hall, which was growing louder and more bothersome. “Did you know our school has won several awards for its original design?”
Anne wondered (as she shook her head) if Mrs. Daniels ever left her pedagogic vault long enough to notice Horace Mann’s shoebox shape.
“Why teachers like you will be the envy of the system,” the principal continued. “Some of the most innovative ideas in education will be implemented here. And to think you, Miss Harte, you will be a part of all this.”
“Innovation?” Anne said, startled. “What kind of innovation?”
The principal leaned forward, obviously thrilled to tell Anne everything. “It isn’t official yet, but there are plans to establish in the schools a student panel to evaluate all the schools’ activities. As you probably know, it’s the latest concept for managing the schools, and it’s expected to be a huge success and gain full student support.”
“You mean students will be making the decisions about school management?” Anne asked, startled.
“Exactly!”
“Do you believe that’s wise?”
“Absolutely!” Mrs. Daniels said like an administrator trained in the illusions of education. “To quote Carl Blanc, the only way to prepare a student for life is to let him perform those relevant activities so important to a democratic America.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Anne said, stunned
Alarmed, Mrs. Daniels stared incredulously at Anne. “You disagree?”
“Yes, I do, Mrs. Daniels,” Anne said. “I believe a teacher has the responsibility to educate students –to think about ideas and understand them conceptually, to integrate ideas and prove them logically – and not waste intelligent minds on limiting life-experience exercises.”
“Well,” she gasped, “you certainly are a woman of opinion.”
A voice on the intercom interrupted them. “There’s a Mrs. Jones to see you, Mrs. Daniels.”
Mrs. Daniels' pretty face wrinkled into annoyance when she spoke on the intercom. “Which Mrs. Jones?”
“Calvin’s mother.”
“Is that the boy who started the cafeteria fire yesterday?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, send her to Mr. Slaughter. You know I don’t handle those problems.”
“But Mr. Slaughter isn’t in his office.”
“Then page him.” Mrs. Daniels paused, then added with a ladylike fist, “And Miss Brown . . .”
“Yes, Mrs. Daniels?”
“Please do something about those students in the hall. I’m conducting an interview with a new English teacher, and I find the noise level disturbing.” She then returned to Anne. “Now let’s see,” she said. “Where were we? Oh yes, we were discussing the student panel.”
For thirty minutes, Mrs. Daniels tried to convince Anne that she was mistaken about the educational value of the student panel. To make her point, she quoted one of Carl Blanc’s most important thoughts, “Students learn best when they are free to sublimate their spontaneous impulses and desires with appropriate action.”
She then named prominent psychologists, philosophers, and educators who shared Dr. Blanc’s ideas, and she identified their main arguments which supported his essential point of view – while daring Anne to disagree with her! After thoroughly exhausting the subject, certain that she had driven her point into Anne’s brain like a metal spike, she said in conclusion, “So you see, Miss Harte, man learns, not by thinking, but by doing!” In a voice of someone accustomed to having the last word, she ended her final salvo with, “Therefore, our schools mustn’t be a place to teach readymade knowledge or intellectual skills, but rather a place for students to engage in relevant life experiences.”
“That,” Anne said, unimpressed, “is nonsense.”
Despite the lines undulating across his forehead and from the corners of his eyes, he could’ve been either in his early thirties or late fifties, prematurely old from dissipation or still youthful looking, blessed by good fortune. By popular standards, he was quite handsome, the type who would appeal to most young women Anne’s age as a sensual father type. To Anne, though, he was just a personnel officer for the Board of Education. At least, this was her first thought. More specific thoughts came to mind when he awakened from his stupor, and he stared at her legs, then slowly and thoroughly the rest of her.
As she attempted to sit comfortably in what appeared to be a sturdy armchair, she felt her body sink deeply into the featherlike seat, forcing her into an awkward position with her legs apart, for him to note studiously. For one violent moment, she hated him and his innocent-looking chair. Without revealing her attitude, however, she pulled herself up and perched on the edge of the chair and crossed her legs at the ankles.
His questions, as he casually interviewed her, were as cleverly worded as the chair was cleverly designed. If she answered one way, she was saying yes to a sexual overture, another way, no. While interviewing her, he leaned back in his chair, tilting it back toward the painting, as he continued to study her legs. She knew by his smile what he saw he liked. Yet, she made no effort to change her position. She merely answered his questions appropriately and conveyed, when their gazes met, a polite but firm no to his overture.
Without appearing discouraged by her attitude, he pulled his chair forward, cleared his throat, then began to tell her about a job opening at the all-black Horace Mann High School and about the six teachers who had recently quit, one after nearly being raped.
“Of course,” he said with a suggestion of a smile, “the student never really tried to rape her. It was just one of those exaggerated misunderstandings to which the teacher over-reacted.”
“What about the other five?” she asked. “What were their reasons for quitting?”
“To be honest,” he said, “they just didn’t agree with the principal on certain management issues.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” He smiled, and he leaned toward her. “In that case, I have another opening in a predominantly white school. But it requires experience.” He began to free a smile. “Do you have experience, Miss Harte?”
“I do. But not the type that you may deem acceptable for that job.”
“I see,” he said with a frown. “In that case, the best I can offer you is a job at Horace Mann High. Do you mind being in the minority at an all-black, inner-city high school?”
“Not at all,” she said.
“In that case, when would you like me to start?”
A row of stores, gutted by fire during the summer riots, lined the street like a block-long brick shell ready to collapse. Covering these stores, where once there were windows and doors, were sheets of plywood. Painted on the plywood were murals of angry-looking black men, some with raised fists, others armed with rifles; they were leading an army of similar militants through a city ravished by fire and looting.
Anne was surprised to see how significant the destruction was from the spring riots. Just as she was about to take a closer look at the murals, she noticed several men observing her. To avoid unwanted attention, she quickly walked down the street toward the school.
Hanging from a pole attached to a second-floor windowsill was an American flag. Beneath the flag at the entrance level of the school was a modernistic sculpture of twisted metal, resembling a 25-foot flame. It was all that distinguished the high school, a shoebox of glass and brick, from the other shoebox-shaped schools in the city. As Anne neared the school, it looked to her as though the flame was attempting to consume the American flag. When she paused to study the sculpture, she pushed aside several strands of her blonde hair, which the wind blew across her mouth. Several black teenagers were observing her. One pointed at her and startled her by calling her a fucking honky; two others made menacing gestures. Without revealing her discomfort, she walked past them and entered the high school through a green door, spray-painted with misspelled obscenities.
Inside the school against one wall was a picture framed in antique gold of the former U.S. President, John Ward. He was sitting in a wing-back chair by the fireplace with his loyal cocker spaniel, Beelzebul, on his lap. He was gazing at the burning logs in the fireplace, meditating, with the troubled expression of someone unhappy with a world that didn’t conform to his standards. Written across the wall above the picture was his famous quotation: “I dream of a New America in which all freedom-loving Americans will selflessly and willingly sacrifice themselves for their government.”
Anne grew sad thinking about his dream for America. She remembered some of his achievements: His military support for an undeclared war in which millions of Americans died needlessly protecting a “friendly” dictator in Asia while he ignored the systematic overthrow of Caribbean and Central American countries by Marxist terrorists; his New America Program for spending billions of dollars on the needy, which shamelessly turned out to be, not the needy, but the bureaucrats administering the programs; and his lawsuit against a major corporation that was incompliant to a new clause in the antitrust law, a clause which favored one of the President’s favored corporate supporters. To survive and avoid a huge fine, the incompliant corporation was forced to release several valuable assets to the President’s corporate supporter.
Protecting his name from being tarnished by these “achievements” was a Black Rights Amendment, his signature law. It was a law, which the newspapers with their racially inflammatory articles forced Congress to pass. Instead of ending racial discrimination, it merely reversed it by discriminating against whites. In this way a significant step was taken toward guaranteeing that racism would prevail. With “achievements” like this, she worried about the kind of New America “this freedom-loving” President wanted to create.
Her worry grew when she stared beyond the screaming and hostile teenagers in the hall toward a teacher who was telling a boy to clean the mess he made in her room. Several girls standing near the teacher were leisurely scribbling obscenities on the wall, while a boy, hopping past them like a kangaroo, was knocking loose tile blocks from a low-hanging, suspended ceiling. Beyond them, at the furthest end of the narrow hall, a window facing the street was broken. The way the floor-to-ceiling window was broken, it looked as though someone might have fallen through it.
Observing the activity, Anne felt weak and helpless. She wondered how she would ever teach here. Her doubts passed when she remembered something Dr. Maria Montessori once said: “When a child has disruptive tendencies, some great need of his isn’t being met.” Almost immediately Anne recovered her poise, then briskly walked to a door marked office.” Somehow, she would meet that need, she assured herself, as successfully as she had at the university.
A long, high counter divided the office into two unequal sections. The smaller section where Anne stood was for teachers and visitors. The larger section where the desks, filing cabinets, and office equipment were, was for office personnel. Atop a filing cabinet was a percolator and a doughnut box. Office personnel, looking important and busy, unexpectedly hurried from an adjacent office, grabbed a doughnut and some coffee, then disappeared into the office again, where they were overheard talking and laughing.
Anne politely waited for a woman, leaning on the counter and chatting on the phone, to finish her conversation before approaching her. When a bell rang, the woman suddenly told her friend that she’d have to go, and she quickly hung up.
“I would like to see . . .” Anne began, as the woman hurried past her.
“You’ll have to wait a minute, please,” the woman said. “Someone will be with you shortly.”
She then grabbed a coffee and a doughnut and disappeared into a room to Anne’s right. When no one returned, Anne called to a woman moving from office to office, while munching on a doughnut. Without responding, the woman strolled into another office. A few minutes later another woman appeared and stood at the opposite end of the counter to where Anne was standing. She glanced at Anne as though she were an inanimate object, then started to read a newspaper by forming each word with her lips. Anger welled up within Anne and revealed itself in her glare. She marched to where the woman was and said firmly: “Would you please tell the principal I’d like to see her?”
The woman delayed looking up just long enough to be impertinent, then in a bored voice said: “Your name?”
“I’m Miss Harte, Anne Harte, the new English teacher.”
The woman flipped on the intercom. “Mrs. Daniels,” she said into a microphone, “the Mrs. Parks’ replacement is here.”
“Send her in,” a voice answered.
Before resuming with her reading, the woman pointed to a door by the teachers’ mailboxes. The door was locked, and Anne had to knock. A buzzer sounded which released the lock. Anne entered.
The principal’s office was furnished with gray-metal filing cabinets and furniture. On a grey-metal desk next to an intercom system, there were two phones, one red (a hot line to where?) and another black. A collection of pictures covered one wall. They were all handsomely framed, and they provided a pleasant relief to the gray metal furniture. Each picture featured the same white woman with a professional smile, one with the mayor, the other with the school superintendent, and the others with other recognizable, local leaders. They all stood together tightly like a cluster of statues at some official event. They revealed no personality, just a professional smile and a perfectly dignified bearing. Next to these photos, there was an attractive arrangement of degrees, awards and membership certificates. The same white woman, minus the professional smile, stood near her desk in front of an easel. She was extending a green line to the line graph, which was resting on a large easel; the graph was titled “Attendance Chart, Horace Mann High School.”
She was an attractive white woman who wore an expensively tailored dress, which would’ve been stunning on her if she weren’t wearing heavy-looking orthopedic shoes. The incongruity of the dress and the shoes detracted somewhat from her otherwise stylish appearance.
After completing her task, the woman removed her glasses, attached to a neck chain and let it bounce against her chest. But when she saw Anne, she lifted the glasses to her eyes. Without putting the glasses on, she held them to her eyes and studied Anne with the same intense care of a jeweler examining a gem.
“My,” she said, generously emphasizing certain words, “you certainly are an attractive woman!” She then smiled a smile which undoubtedly photographed well, but which in person was just a little too brief to appear sincere. Her insincerity spread when Mrs. Daniels sat behind the gray metal desk and magically transformed it into a status symbol which divided Anne and her. Even her voice, which was just a little too deep for a woman, deepened more, giving it an unmistakably authoritative ring. It appeared Mrs. Daniels was deliberately creating a psychological barrier between herself, the cultured educator, and Anne, the novice teacher. She might have been successful if a boy hadn’t appeared at the window behind the desk and started to amuse Anne with grotesque facial expressions.
Mrs. Daniels was in the middle of a sentence, elaborating on “how students at Horace Mann were learning, not by rigid academic exercises, but by doing” when the boy began to entertain Anne with his buffoonery. At first Anne tried to ignore the boy but stopped. His behavior seemed too fitting in view of the pedagogic nonsense Mrs. Daniels was gushing. Startled by Anne’s inattentiveness, Mrs. Daniels unexpectedly turned to the window. At that moment, the boy stopped clowning, made a vulgar gesture with his hips and hand, then disappeared.
Without rising from her chair, the principal yanked the shade down, while muttering something to herself that sounded inappropriate for the occasion.
In the hall, several teenagers were overheard arguing, cursing each other with colorful skill. Mrs. Daniels cocked her head toward the hall and listened. With a look of weariness, she turned to Anne and asked her, devoid of any pretension, “Tell me, Miss Harte. Have you ever taught?”
“Yes, for a year at the university.”
“Oooh,” she said, lighting up with a smile, impressed. She underlined key words, made them jump from the sentence. “Were you full-time faculty?”
“No,” Anne said. “I only taught a few part-time classes.”
“You mean you were one of those adjunct instructors?”
“That’s correct,” she said, “I taught two remedial English classes.”
“I see,” she said, disappointed. “Well, you’ll find here, Miss Harte, the work will be a little more challenging—just what a young teacher needs to sharpen her skills.” She then flashed a smile without allowing any sign of her disappointment to remain. “I assume you have read your share of Carl Blanc?”
“A little.”
“Only a little? Oh, Miss Harte, you must read all of him. In fact, I insist. Working with so many new students isn’t easy for inexperienced teachers. That’s why I urge all my teachers to read Blanc. It will unite us all with the same philosophy.”
“Are there many inexperienced teachers at Horace Mann?”
“Not very many,” she said casually. “Only about 55 or 60 percent.”
“You mean downtown staffed Horace Mann with that many inexperienced teachers?” Anne asked, surprised.
“Occasionally such staffing imbalances occur, especially at new schools like Horace Mann.”
“It’s a pity that Horace Mann had to lose six teachers,” Anne said. “It might have been avoided with stronger staffing.”
The remark startled the principal. She obviously wasn’t accustomed to having a subordinate express herself so candidly. “There will always be those, Miss Harte, like the six who just quit, who don’t realize how lucky they are to be part of such a won-der-ful school like ours.” Mrs. Daniels released a quick smile, noticeably insincere, as she ignored the swearing in the hall, which was growing louder and more bothersome. “Did you know our school has won several awards for its original design?”
Anne wondered (as she shook her head) if Mrs. Daniels ever left her pedagogic vault long enough to notice Horace Mann’s shoebox shape.
“Why teachers like you will be the envy of the system,” the principal continued. “Some of the most innovative ideas in education will be implemented here. And to think you, Miss Harte, you will be a part of all this.”
“Innovation?” Anne said, startled. “What kind of innovation?”
The principal leaned forward, obviously thrilled to tell Anne everything. “It isn’t official yet, but there are plans to establish in the schools a student panel to evaluate all the schools’ activities. As you probably know, it’s the latest concept for managing the schools, and it’s expected to be a huge success and gain full student support.”
“You mean students will be making the decisions about school management?” Anne asked, startled.
“Exactly!”
“Do you believe that’s wise?”
“Absolutely!” Mrs. Daniels said like an administrator trained in the illusions of education. “To quote Carl Blanc, the only way to prepare a student for life is to let him perform those relevant activities so important to a democratic America.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Anne said, stunned
Alarmed, Mrs. Daniels stared incredulously at Anne. “You disagree?”
“Yes, I do, Mrs. Daniels,” Anne said. “I believe a teacher has the responsibility to educate students –to think about ideas and understand them conceptually, to integrate ideas and prove them logically – and not waste intelligent minds on limiting life-experience exercises.”
“Well,” she gasped, “you certainly are a woman of opinion.”
A voice on the intercom interrupted them. “There’s a Mrs. Jones to see you, Mrs. Daniels.”
Mrs. Daniels' pretty face wrinkled into annoyance when she spoke on the intercom. “Which Mrs. Jones?”
“Calvin’s mother.”
“Is that the boy who started the cafeteria fire yesterday?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, send her to Mr. Slaughter. You know I don’t handle those problems.”
“But Mr. Slaughter isn’t in his office.”
“Then page him.” Mrs. Daniels paused, then added with a ladylike fist, “And Miss Brown . . .”
“Yes, Mrs. Daniels?”
“Please do something about those students in the hall. I’m conducting an interview with a new English teacher, and I find the noise level disturbing.” She then returned to Anne. “Now let’s see,” she said. “Where were we? Oh yes, we were discussing the student panel.”
For thirty minutes, Mrs. Daniels tried to convince Anne that she was mistaken about the educational value of the student panel. To make her point, she quoted one of Carl Blanc’s most important thoughts, “Students learn best when they are free to sublimate their spontaneous impulses and desires with appropriate action.”
She then named prominent psychologists, philosophers, and educators who shared Dr. Blanc’s ideas, and she identified their main arguments which supported his essential point of view – while daring Anne to disagree with her! After thoroughly exhausting the subject, certain that she had driven her point into Anne’s brain like a metal spike, she said in conclusion, “So you see, Miss Harte, man learns, not by thinking, but by doing!” In a voice of someone accustomed to having the last word, she ended her final salvo with, “Therefore, our schools mustn’t be a place to teach readymade knowledge or intellectual skills, but rather a place for students to engage in relevant life experiences.”
“That,” Anne said, unimpressed, “is nonsense.”