Storm in the Village by Miss Read

Author:Miss Read [Read, Miss]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780618884162
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 1958-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Miss Jackson was listening entranced to Miss Crabbe's monologue when I took in the coffee.

Its theme, I gathered, as I set about pouring out was the regrettable manifestations of cruelty among children and how best to avoid them.

'It must be something lacking in our own approach as teachers,' asserted Miss Crabbe.

Miss Jackson nodded owlishly.

'Black or white?' I asked, for the second time. Miss Crabbe continued, brushing aside this interruption.

'Fundamentally, the Good should predominate in the normal child. Certain maladjustments do occur, of course, but with the right kind of environment——'

'Black or white?' I said loudly.

'Black, please,' muttered Miss Jackson. Miss Crabbe droned on.

'Which we should be able to make for them if we, as teachers, are appropriately adjusted, they should be nonexistent. It is, to a large extent, a question of Aura. Now, I personally have an Ambience which, I am told by my professional friends, suffuses a room and creates an atmosphere conducive to a ready flow between the children and myself——'

'Black or white, Miss Crabbe?' I repeated fortissimo, handing Miss Jackson hers. Miss Crabbe looked at me coldly.

'White, please,' she said, speaking more in sorrow than in anger. Now that she had noticed my presence in the room she seemed to feel that some conversational sop should be thrown to me. Speaking with maddening condescension she continued with her face turned towards me.

'We were discussing the little outbursts of spite which one still comes across in the classroom. Petty pinchings and so on. The children, of course, are the victims of their own dominating impulses, and Hilary and I were trying to find a solution to this problem. It calls for very great delicacy in approach, I feel—an application of psychological knowledge which helps the child who has had this emotional outburst without upsetting its ego. What do you do in these cases?'

'Smack!' I said briefly, and at last passed the coffee.

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