No Room

Sometimes a person with fabulous ideas will go where he is not wanted. He may talk to people about beautiful, truthful things, and they won’t hear a word. What they will hear is that a newcomer wants them to change their way of thinking, and perhaps even to change their way of doing. They will rise up against the newcomer with everything they’ve got.

Marianna was just such a person. She arrived at her new job full of vim and vigor. She had passion. She knew that the job benefited children, helped them grow. That was the job! This was her time! What could be more exciting or important? She saw that some of her co-workers were essentially warehousing the kids, keeping them quiet and amused until the end of the day. They showed lots of movies and handed out worksheets, then let the kids play computer games the rest of the day. Marianna felt that this was a waste of time. She started planning educational activities, devoting her evenings to creating lesson plans and devoting her days to carrying them out. The kids loved her devotion, and some of them, previously speechless, actually began talking. She was pleased at their progress and dreamed of newer and bigger projects. Parents, also, started noticing that the schooling their kids were getting had changed in a qualitative way.

The rest of the staff, however, was not at all happy with Marianna. They knew she was an upstart and they felt she was making them look bad. Marianna talked with them about her ideas and her projects. She tried hard to be extremely careful how she spoke, since she didn’t want to be critical or confrontational. Her carefulness didn’t really matter. Her co-workers acted polite, but they were clearly not interested. They also gave her many, many reasons to the effect that her efforts were charming, but would have no long terms results. These kids were beyond hope, according to them. They watched Marianna carefully to find flaws.

Soon enough, the diligently observant staff observed an error Marianna made. However inadvertent, it was a considered a serious infraction. They reported her and she was dismissed. Though she later found work in the same field and spent many years working successfully with kids, she never re-experienced the belief and missionary zeal she had lived during that disastrous job.

[Sharon Lee]

Lovely

[Annie D]

The image complements the words beautifully - a poignant narrative

[Denise Wood]

Terrific :)

[gloria jones]

Oh my, Francoise, you've hit a particular passion of mine for the advocacy of education with this excellent short story of exceptionalism vs mediocrity.