Sanctuary Bingo – John Dewey
Disclaimer: "Sanctuary", its characters and background story belong to Damian Kindler and 3stagemedia. No copyright infringement is intended, no profit will be made.
This story was written for the prompt on my Sanctuary Bingo – Second Round card "John Dewey".
Summary: When Helen is called to the headmistress of Ashley's school on behalf of her daughter, she comes armed to the teeth – with words.
A/N: Words and phrases in italics are quotes from John Dewey's works. I had never heard the name before, blame my European upbringing. John Dewey (1859 – 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist and educationalist. Even during his life time his words were often taken out of context and misinterpreted. I meant no disrespect in quoting Dewey.
c
Education Is Life Itself
by
romansilence/center
Helen put the phone back in its cradle and took a deep breath. She had been expecting the call for some time now, though somewhat irrationally she still had hoped that it would never come.
She had been called in to see the headmaster of Henry's school in his second year. She had been called in a second time with a new headmistress in Ashley's first year, and never before had she felt this unsettled, not even when her father had berated her about using the source blood in the way they had. That woman had bombarded her with quotations from an American educator whose name she had never heard before; and Helen had felt like a schoolgirl on her first day, defenseless and overwhelmed. That, of course, had not kept her from standing her ground.
Now the headmistress' secretary had called and once again it seemed that Ashley was the one in trouble. She had been told to go and collect both of her 'unruly children' at the principal's office. But this time, however, she came prepared. She had read up on that marvel of pedagogic wisdom.
Helen entered the ante-room of the headmistress, ignored the secretary and focused her attention on Ashley and Henry. Ashley was sitting on a hard plastic chair, her hands were wrapped in gauze and Henry who was standing next to her held an icepack to the left side of her face.
Helen got down on a knee in front of her daughter and looked her in the eyes. "Are you alright?" She asked.
Ashley nodded but quickly averted her gaze.
Helen looked at Henry and he removed the ice pack. The bruise that was already developing at the side and under her eye did not look like the result of a fist fight. Someone had dared to hit her daughter with something resembling a pipe or a bat. That was all Helen needed to know about the situation.
"Come, let's go. I'll patch you up in the car and the Big Guy will drive both of you home," Helen rose and pulled Ashley in her arms while giving the impression that she was only helping her up.
Helen then turned around to face the headmistress' secretary, "Please let Miss Schwarzkopf know that I will be back momentarily."
The woman opened her lips to protest, but only saw the back of the imposing woman and her children.
On the way down to the black Mercedes limousine Henry told Helen what had happened. There was pride in his voice when he described how Ashley had stood up to three senior year students who had first harassed one of the smaller kids and had then insulted Henry who had tried to help.
"You told me not to fight, regardless of what someone said. I didn't but it didn't stop them. Ashley took exception. She stopped them, and they started it. Ash is more than a head shorter than they are and they still attacked first. And Miss Henderson said that Principal Schwarzkopf would suspend Ash because… something about discipline and moral. It made no sense."
"Do not worry, Henry. The last word on this matter has not been spoken just yet."
Helen opened the door to the back of the limousine. She checked Ashley's bruise and the raw scrapes on her knuckles. She re-bandaged them and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"I'm sorry, Mum," Ashley whispered.
"Why are you sorry, Ashley? Did you do anything wrong?"
Ashley looked up at her mother and answered, "I could have done better, Mum. That one guy got the drop on me with a baseball bat. That should never have happened."
"Maybe not, darling, but the most important thing is that you didn't just fight because you wanted to but to protect someone. And besides, you're still learning. Now, I want you to go home with Henry and the Big Guy while I deal with your headmistress."
center~*~/center
Helen returned to the office and glared at the secretary who immediately buzzed her in. The room looked just as it had the last time, dominated by a big desk with files stacked in neat piles on one side. The desk itself, however, was dwarfed by the larger than life portrait of John Dewey, philosopher and self-proclaimed educational reformer. From her last visit Helen knew that the framed photo on the right side of the desk did not hold the picture of a husband or child but an autographed picture of Dewey.
The woman behind the desk slowly raised her head, as if surprised by Helen's presence, "Doctor Magnus, please take a seat. There are serious things to discuss. Ashley's behavior is a disgrace for the whole school and her stubborn insistence on the righteousness of her acts leads me to seriously fear for her future. To quote the great John Dewey: Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. Ashley, however, refuses to think."
Helen ignored the hard-backed chair standing in front of the desk and made visual contact with the headmistress, "Yes, Miss Schwarzkopf, we do have serious things to discuss. Not only concerning Ashley's actions but yours as well. As your spiritus rector said: Not only is social life identical with communication, but all communication (and hence all genuine social life) is educative. You failed to communicate adequately by omitting that Ashley has been injured?"
Mary Schwarzkopf's eyes widened, whether in reaction to Helen's hostile tone of voice or because Helen had dared to use the wisdom of John Dewey against her, Helen didn't know and she didn't particularly care.
"The school nurse treated her. The boys she attacked, however, had to be brought to the hospital. She is a danger to society because she has no discipline. And: Every serious-minded knows that a large part of the effort required in moral discipline consists in the courage needed to acknowledge the unpleasant consequences of one's past and present acts. I have no choice but to suspend her for a week to give her a chance to learn from her mistakes, as I already said, The person who thinks learns quite…"
Helen silenced her with a dismissive wave of her hand. "John Dewey also said: We can have facts without thinking, but we cannot have thinking without facts. In your case, Miss Schwarzkopf, you have not thought through your facts and you also do not seem to have all the facts."
"You are wrong, Doctor Magnus," there now was a certain edge to the headmistress' voice. "iThinking is the accurate and deliberate instituting of connections between what is done and its consequences./i And those connections let me know that Ashley Magnus' consequences will be suspension and a six-month probation."
"Let's talk about facts. Fact is that Ashley defended herself, her adopted brother and a second grader against three school mates a head taller than herself. Another fact: the bruise on her head shows that at least one of them tried to knock her out with a bat of some kind, probably a baseball bat. Another fact: Ashley did not start that fight. She ended it," Helen said calmly but with ice in her voice.
"That's absurd. No one has that much luck. Ashley was not as badly injured as those boys because she took them by surprise, and should it really come to that, I'm sure that the baseball bat found will have her fingerprints on it."
"That is the crux with luck, isn't it, Miss Schwarzkopf," Helen said with a neutral expression. "Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid. I started to train Ashley in self-defense when she was five. She knows how to defend herself and others. Winning that fight had nothing to do with luck. It was skill and confidence."
"Confidence is directness and courage in meeting the facts of life. Still, a girl as small and slender as Ashley would not have stood a chance against those other students without using a weapon of some sort," Schwarzkopf insisted.
"I admit that skepticism is the mark and even the pose of the educated mind. But in this case you are taking the road of least resistance," Helen retorted.
"The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs," Mary Schwarzkopf said.
"We only think when we are confronted with problems. Wasn't that what John Dewey wrote, and I'm sure that as his student you will have no trouble to do just that."
Helen didn't feel completely comfortable playing this openly with the woman's soft spot for the writings of John Dewey. Taken out of context his words were applicable for almost any situation, and the hypothetical person who got only ten cent for every Dewey-quote used inappropriately would probably be among the top ten of the richest people in the United States.
Still, using and in some cases mis-using Dewey's works in Helen's eyes was preferable to having to spend hours with the stubborn, inflexible headmistress to get her point across as she had had to do the last time. If it got the woman to think…
"To 'learn from experience' is to make a backward and forward connection between what we do to things and what we enjoy or suffer from things in consequence. Under such conditions, doing becomes a trying; an experiment with the world to find out what it is like: the undergoing becomes instruction – discovery of the connection to things."
"So, what did you learn, Miss Schwarzkopf?" Helen asked softly.
"That I should have asked those boys more questions, that I will petition the parents' association to sponsor some surveillance cameras for the recreational areas. I apologize, Doctor Magnus, I failed to consider one crucial thing: Genuine ignorance is profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open mindedness; whereas ability to repeat catch phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish waterproof to new ideas."
Mary Schwarzkopf took a deep breath. "I will talk to the boys and their parents, and Ashley will face no disciplinary action. You just proved to me again that education is a process of living and not a preparation for future living. Yes, education is life itself and all genuine education comes about through experience."
Helen kept herself from completing the quote with Dewey's caveat that not all experiences are genuinely or equally educative. She was tempted to reach over the desk, grab the woman by her lapels and shake her until she let go of all of her quotes and pre-conceived notions and started to think for herself.
She didn't. Instead Helen limited her reaction to a mere, "I'm glad that we came to an understanding, Miss Schwarzkopf. Should you need any assistance with the parents of the boys or the parents' association, please do not hesitate to call upon me."
The woman nodded and Helen excused herself, "Have a nice day, Miss Schwarzkopf."
Helen caught a cab back to the Sanctuary, and from the way the driver took the corners in Old City she suspected that he was working free-lance. The drivers who didn't belong to one of the big companies had no fear to come to her part of the town.
center~*~/center
The door to her office stood open and she could hear Henry and Ashley in the library. They were supposed to do their homework but it sounded more like they were playing around. Helen didn't mind, their grades were in the upper five percent and life would turn serious for either of them soon enough here at the Sanctuary.
The Big Guy brought in a cup of tea, but didn't leave when she had taken it out of his hands. Helen looked up. He had a sober expression on his face, an expression which she had learned to take very seriously.
"The little one still feels guilty," he said.
"Thank you for the tea. I'll make sure that she understands that she didn't anything wrong.
center~*~/center
Helen knocked at the door frame of Ashley's room though it stood half open. There was no reply but Helen entered nonetheless. She found Ashley on the bed, curled up in a fetal position, oblivious to her surroundings. Helen kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the bed. She spooned her from behind and pulled her close. Ashley immediately relaxed.
Tomorrow she would step up Ashley's martial arts training and tell her how proud she was that Ashley had defended her friends but now Helen just enjoyed holding her little girl in her arms.
centerThe ENDcenter