Otis Hewetson looked at her class of ‘babies’. They had spent a year in her care and, as far as anyone could tell, had come to no harm. Without exception they had learned the alphabet by heart, and most could read and write a few simple cat-sat-on-the-mat sentences, and add together single numbers. There had been crises such as when ‘dip’ touched these babies’ families.
‘Please Miss, our Timmy went and died last night.’
And not only Timmy. Diphtheria and whooping cough had taken two of Miss Hewetson’s Mixed Infants. Prevention of all ills was by sprinkling Lysol on the floors, iodine tablets to suck and purple fluid at the drinking tap. Otis walked slowly between the rows of little battered desks, straightening a chalk here, a slate there. Wilfie had lost hearing in one ear from a mastoid; it had been necessary to move him closer to the front of the class. At the front too were Elsie and Danny, the twins who had got charity spectacles for their sty-rimmed eyes. Kathleen’s Dad had been killed, Rose’s father had been gassed and Edward’s had lost a leg. Head-lice had been rife and treated with a glutinous paste, then impetigo and scabies had a turn at the babies’ skin. There were times when Otis thought that schools could do a lot worse than to start each day with hot baths instead of hymns. But it was a Church of England school where Cleanliness played second fiddle to Godliness.
She stopped behind Maggie Harris’s desk. Her slate was empty. ‘Hurry along with it, Maggie.’ The child jumped to life and blushed. She had started school knowing her alphabet, how to count to one hundred and could recite as many nursery rhymes as Otis herself. Since May, Maggie had become a ‘difficult’ child: not disruptive, but given to forgetting her lessons and sitting staring into space.
At Stockwell College she had been told: The children of the poor will always have difficulties, a good teacher never allows herself to become personally involved in them. She must endeavour to ignore the home lives and concentrate on providing within the classroom an ambience in which the child may take in its lessons.
A good teacher should try to be aware of what events within the child’s family might affect its classroom performance, but she must never be tempted to go beyond this.
How could a teacher ignore what it was that changed a child from the brightest in the class to a dullard? No, Maggie was not a dullard, her brightness was still there.
As soon as she had heard, Otis had ignored the Advice to a Good Teacher and involved herself in the home life of a Poor Child and, by going to ask her father’s advice, had involved him also.
‘It does sound as though this is an unfortunate case, Otis, and I am sure that if it were up to me I should never behave in so callous a way. A month’s imprisonment is exceedingly harsh for a first offence.’
‘Pa! Any term of imprisonment in this case would have been exceedingly harsh. Mrs Harris ought never to have been arrested.’
‘She broke the law, the Defence of the Realm is a serious matter.’
‘But Father, the Defence of the Realm Act was surely never intended to crush women like Mrs Harris. She is a decent and hardworking woman. Do you know the wording of the offence with which she’s charged?’
‘You told me, my dear – of being an “Unworthy Woman”. But she was in a garrison town, there was a curfew for servicemen’s wives and the commander was perfectly within his rights to bring her before a court-martial.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Pa, the woman was visiting her injured husband’s relatives.’
‘The arresting officers were not to know that when she was out after curfew hours.’
Otis had thrown up her hands then. ‘Curfew hours, Pa! This is England, she has a husband in France and a family of children. They have court-martialled her, withdrawn her dependants’ allowance.’
‘I understand how you feel, my dear, but you will soon discover that the kind of people with whom you have chosen to ally yourself fall into one bit of trouble after another.’
‘Then it is they who need lawyers and solicitors isn’t it? and not our sort of people.’
‘Perhaps in an ideal world. Until then.’
But he had done something. He had spoken to a local solicitor in the town where Mrs Harris had been imprisoned and she had been released after serving only ten days. But those ten days had damaged little Maggie.
This was Otis’s last day with these children, when they came back from the Summer Break they would start in Standard II where her only contact with them would be ‘’ullo Miss’ as they rushed past her in the street. Maggie would be transferred into the care of Miss Trethowen, who might not believe that this child was as bright as bright and had come from a family where she had been taught her letters before she was five.
For a moment Otis let her hand rest on the child’s shoulder.
A good teacher never allows herself…
‘Very well, children. You may put away your slates.’
The last day of term ended traditionally with the children reciting their work and the teacher reading an uplifting story. Otis had thought that these little Mixed Infants would not gain much from the recommended Kingsley’s Water Babies or the moralistic Aesop’s fables.
‘That was done very nicely, children.’
The Good Teacher will always praise work well done.
‘Go to the green cupboard, Maggie, and carefully carry to my table the brown box.’ Anything in a box will excite a six-year-old.
It has been found that a class of four streams will compete to their advantage. Rewards by way of ticks and paper stars on a chart will urge young children to compete on an individual basis.
They craned their necks as Otis opened the box. ‘We must be very quiet about this, so that we shall not disturb Miss Trethowen’s class because they are still working.’
She was sure that a box of Lou’s individual apple-pies specially baked with no spice and plentiful sugar were a much more satisfying reward than competitive paper stars.
‘Remember, this treat is a secret between us, a special reward for being such good children.’
If anyone walked in or the Head discovered the little party, Otis was sure to be on the carpet, but it was worth the chance of being found out, and she had an excuse ready.
I am sorry, Miss Verilees, but I thought it might be an object lesson in a few table manners.
When Miss Trethowen came in later to claim Otis’s children of the poor for her register of next term’s six-year-olds, all that remained was the faint aroma of apple and an indefinable collective giggling mood which she put down to end-of-term silliness.