Plastic Pedagogue

By James F. Bixby

If you have ever attended school for any period or if you have been a school teacher, you will want to read The Plastic Pedagogue. It is a touching story that will allow you to see why great teachers persevere in the profession with their students to the end.

From the inside of a teachers life, see what makes great teachers weep, do battle, and rejoice in education, with all those events, lessons, and obstacles that would drive many sane people from pursuing it. What is the reason why teachers cling most tenaciously to this most noble of professions? It is but for one reason and one reason alone: their undying love for their students and the unending desire to impart the wisdom of the ages and the love of learning to them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499081077

James F. Bixby

James F. Bixby holds two degrees in classical languages and has taught in Michigan's public and parochial schools for the last thirty years. Teaching young people to uphold the highest ideals and values such as Christmas and its beauty has been a great part of Mr. Bixby's educational philosophy and method of teaching. Writing stories that clearly teach adults and children to cherish such family values, appreciate and emulate the virtuous life, and learn moderation and detachment from this world's possessions and inordinate pleasures and excessive love of money are, according to James Bixby, absolutely essential to the Christian world view for a happy life. No philosophy has so markedly influenced this centuries-old discussion on how to be happy and achieve this most sought-after joy in this world to James Bixby than the incarnation of Jesus Christ and all the glorious influences it has had upon human learning, philosophy, art, and personal happiness now and in the hereafter. This is why “Old Dingledorf Square,” a Christmas poetry, and The Mystery of the Christmas Dollhouse, a novelette, were written—to applaud this most awesome of events in human history and to study more closely the hidden significances and ramifications of the birth of the Savior of the world.

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Copyright © 2014 by James F. Bixby.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/05/2014

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter I An Impression

Chapter II A Subsequent Evaluation

Chapter III The Grand Tour

Chapter IV The Plastic Pedagogue

Chapter V Flexible Scheduling

Chapter VI The Lesson Taught

Chapter VII The Lesson Comprehended

Chapter VIII A Revelation

Chapter IX The Showdown

Chapter X A Final Encounter

Chapter XI The Graduation Ceremony

Chapter XII A Final Farewell

Foreword

"A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."

These two lines from Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism describe perfectly the dilemma in today’s schools. To be educated nowadays means only to fill young people’s minds with facts, numbers, or formulas, thus forgetting the wisdom of the mind and, more importantly, the wisdom of the heart. Comprehending rationally one’s existence and its real purpose through education is long gone.

Such a profound understanding of man’s existence is courted strongly by Charles Dickens in any of his novels, but especially is this true in Hard Times, where he states through his character Mr. Gradgrind that:

There is a wisdom of the mind and a wisdom of the heart in life.

How few, indeed, are the schools today and most especially the educators that realize this necessity of truth in life and how this is the premiere role of the teacher in all education of youth. For a student to face the world today without a Christian philosophical understanding of life and its wisdom of the mind and wisdom of the heart, then one is, therefore, unable to confront reality in all of its challenges and circumstances.

This is the ultimate tragedy of modern education from the 1950’s onward till today. In years of bygone learning such a Christian world view was the sine qua non of education, discoverable in virtually every aspect of learning from the relationship of teacher to student and every part of teaching from textbooks to school behavior, a time was this when the notable signs of Christian decency of faith and its rules of courtesy and decency still prevailed. This dilemma is faced head-on by the main character, a teacher of the past, in the Plastic Pedagogue and clearly is the raison d’etre of the whole novel. The liberty of the pedagogue to address this problem in almost universal application has virtually been obfuscated and destroyed by both public and private education today.

Because teaching is a very noble profession of giving to the younger generation not only the wisdom of the mind—which today’s schools entirely miss, but also the wisdom of the heart which today’ schools have totally suppressed, it will always remain open to the idealism of the great teacher, though few, who address this problem straight forward and directly, as being the super-heroes of the profession. For, this it will take to preserve the survival of Western Civilization, its culture and its faith in God and as well as one’s decency toward one’s fellow man which are so extraordinarily under attack today as The Plastic Pedagogue demonstrates. This world will continue, nonetheless, because such great pedagogues of yesterday and today still exist who give themselves in love to youth and who change their lives out of wisdom of the mind, and out of the wisdom of the heart to become truly educated ladies and gentlemen in a civilized society.

Dedication

Meae Connubiae, et Meis Filiis et Matri Dei Mariae

Chapter I

An Impression

The morning sun yellowed in its summertime splendor of dazzling light, the sky blued like a fresh water lake at midday, and the grass greened deep from the life-giving rains the night before. Amidst breeze-blown oak leaves choirs of perched songbirds serenaded without interruption and their cricket admirers below imitated them in their own fashion as the heavenly warmth above animated nature everywhere. It was a perfect summer’s day in Michigan, not a degree too chilly or hot, the kind of day that planted a full-blown smile on Isaiah Witherspoon’s plump cheeks, for he felt thirty-five years younger as though he were fresh from Harvard and once again full of the vibrant idealism of youthful dreams. He fantasized all should fare well this morning at his interview for the teaching position at Oakdale High School, for this was, indeed, the kind of weather that brightened one’s optimism, blinded one’s pessimism, and made men believe everything beneath God’s heavenly paradise was good.

Confidently, Isaiah Witherspoon swung his heavy legs back and forth as he hurried up the long, long walkway in front of Oakdale High School. Pear-shaped from head to torso and overstuffed in the middle, he moved his six and a half foot frame along with dexterity and ease for a man of such noteworthy dimensions. He felt quite as fine as the weather, though dressed in the same style of tweed suit he had worn that first day of instruction many years ago. The brown tweed outfit had virtually the same thick lapels, wide cuffs, and deep pleats of a bygone era. His black beret was in place atop his whitened head but everywhere snowy wisps of hair escaped without much hindrance from the confinement of the small woolen cap. Proudly, he touted his brown leather briefcase, weathered from years of dedication to the three R’s. All that showed the passing of many years of teaching was Isaiah’s strong hickory cane that supported his extraordinary huge size. As Isaiah progressed towards Oakdale High School he tapped his cane on the walkway as he came closer to the glass doors on the front of the school.

To Isaiah Witherspoon Oakdale High School seemed like an unending maze of buildings that stretched out almost as far as he could see. It was not at all like Huron City Private, the small secondary school where he had worked for the past thirty-five years up north. There were no Greco-Roman arches and columns with their Corinthian capitals and tapestries above the windows and doors as he was accustomed to at his former school of employ, but instead the gigantic wings of Oakdale High School, constructed of red brick, steel, and glass towered above him in their sharp angular motifs of rectangles and square. More than anything else, enormous walls of glass dominated the school’s exterior façade, so much so that like mirrors they reflected the fullest brilliance of the morning sunlight.

Isaiah remembered as he walked that as unpretentious and unassuming as Huron City Private had been, it nevertheless bolstered the pride of rural education for it served a community of farmers who cherished highly the fruits of academia’s rigors because book learning up north was not as universal or mundane of an experience as it was in the big city school system of Detroit. Having been dedicated so long to nothing more than a one-room schoolhouse, Isaiah could only marvel as he came nearer and nearer to Oakdale High School’s front doors. This, indeed, must be a paradise for educators, one of those ultra-modern institutions of higher learning equipped with every pedagogical opportunity imaginable.

Excitedly, he opened a front door and entered the large school lobby in the administration annex of the school. The lobby was as large as Huron City’s whole town hall and had stone seats built right into the brick walls like shelves. A gold-plated sign with the words ‘main office’ directed Isaiah down a corridor to his right. As he moved along the terrazzo floors, he noticed many solid wooden doors with similar golden name plates affixed to their exteriors; each one of which having the name of some important school official imprinted thereon. The temperature had suddenly changed and gave Isaiah the sensation he was growing warmer and warmer from the muggy heat that was entrapped within the building on this morning of late August. Shortly, he came upon another set of glass doors that opened into the main office. Without delay he opened one of the large doors, entered, and removed his black beret. A younger woman, dressed in a pink pantsuit and white blouse, immediately acknowledged Isaiah’s presence. On her desktop were stacks and stacks of school forms that she had been busily working at on her typewriter. Her general appearance was as neat as a store manikin’s with her tightly shaped permanent of short brown hair which was as impeccably styled as her pink outfit.

Is there something I can do for you?

Yes, indeed, my dear. My name’s Isaiah Witherspoon and I’m scheduled for an interview with the principal at 11:30 A.M. With his black beret in his hand Isaiah stood at attention before a long formica countertop that separated him from the lady in pink.

I’m Joan Haley, Mr. Fettitch’s personal secretary. You may go right into his office through that door to your left. He’s been expecting you. All your credentials arrived last week so everything’s set for the interview.

Thank you, dear. said Isaiah politely as he tipped his head slightly towards the secretary. Pulling the door handle toward himself, he passed through one of those contemporary wooden school doors, the upper half of which had a large pane of glass. Over the window was a green plaid curtain for the sake of privacy.

Good morning! I’m John Fettitch, the principal of Oakdale High School and here’s my number one assistant, Ed Tracey.

I’m Isaiah Witherspoon. It’s my pleasure to make your acquaintance. beamed Isaiah somewhat proudly.

Once the handshaking ritual ended, John Fettitch continued. Take a seat, Isaiah. Any one of those plastic chairs there in front of my desk will be just fine.

Isaiah sat down on a red plastic chair but only after he put his leather briefcase and black beret on the empty red chair seat beside him. His black cane he conveniently hung on the back of the chair. Comfortably seated, Isaiah studied these two officials of Oakdale High School closely.

Like Isaiah John Fettitch was a very heavy man, but his weight was distributed like a football player’s