A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room Read Online Free

O’Connel, I just
don’t see why Paul has to be in our group. He won’t help at all. He
just reads.
    Why should Armando and I have to do all the work, and
then he gets the same grade we do? It’s not fair.” Solange smiled.
How would he handle this? “Well, what do you think, Paul?”
    “About what?”
    “About Chelsea’s complaint. Do you think it’s fair
that you read while they do the research when you’re all graded the
same?”
    “No.”
    “Well, then, will you help?” Paul said he
wouldn’t.
    “See what I mean?” she said.
    “Okay, Chelsea, what do you want to do?”
    “Can just Armando and I work together?”
    “Sure, go ahead. It looks like you’re on your own,
Paul.” When the time was up, they gave their results. Paul set his
book aside momentarily to answer the question posed to him from the
top of his head, using no notes. He had no problems.
    Last to come up were the two girls in back who tried
to bluff their way through by aping other presentations.
    Solange watched his face, wondering if they were
fooling him.
    When they had finished, he read off the grades by
number. There were two zeros.
    Outraged, one of the two slammed her notebook to the
desktop. “Why’d we get a zero? We did the stupid thing!”
    “You got a zero because you chose to do nothing.”
    “That’s not fair!” she said, lip curled back over
small, sharp teeth.
    “You can’t just fail people because you feel like
it!”
    “Yes, I can,” he said, eyes smiling. “You see, it’s
my job to prevent outbreaks of false self-esteem.” She turned away
in her seat, disgusted. “I’ll have my mom call the school about
this! She knows Mrs. Lovejoy, and she can get you fired.” O’Connel
nodded. “You do that, Kim.”
    “Mr. O’Connel,” Moses said, “If this stuff happens,
even though it’s against the Constitution, then what good is the
Constitution?” The room quieted. O’Connel found a perch on the edge
of his desk. “Maybe you’re asking the wrong question, Moses. Maybe
you should ask— if we allow our government to ignore our
Constitution, what kind of citizens are we?” Moses frowned, shook
his head, not getting it.
    “Shaw said, ‘Democracy is a device that insures we
shall be governed no better than we deserve.’” Chelsea raised her
hand. “How come I’ve never heard any of this on the news? I mean, I
heard it, but not all of it. This is stuff we should know, isn’t
it?”
    “It’s not anyone else’s responsibility to keep you
informed,” O’Connel said. “It’s yours. There’s no such thing as an
unbiased source for the truth. Not me, not the—not the paper, not
the radio.” Chelsea opened delicate hands. “You mean they’re all
lying to us.”
    “I don’t know if lying’s the right term—let’s call it
selective truth telling.” Chelsea scratched her blond head.
“Selective truth?”
    “Yeah, it’s not exactly lying, is it? Mom asks if you
took the car out for a spin last night, and you say you were in bed
by ten. It’s not a lie—you were in bed by ten. You just happened to
be up by eleven.” She laughed. “Oh, you mean just not telling some
of the truth.” O’Connel nodded. “After Korea, the government knew
that U.S.
    POW’s were being sent to the Soviet Block to be used
as human experimental animals. Some were exposed to deadly doses of
radiation or chemical and biological agents, some were used to
train field doctors to do amputations.” Chelsea gasped. “You mean
they cut off their arms and legs?”
    “That’s what amputation is, Chelsea,” Paul said,
annoyed.
    “We knew it, but if the government had told the
people, we would have demanded they go in and get them back. One
admiral whose son was one of the men taken suggested sailing
nuclear carriers up off P’yongyang and sending a one word
message—produce.
    “We could have done it, though it might have started
World War III. But we didn’t. They kept it quiet, and thousands of
young men, not