Chapter 7 - Principal Whitmore prefers soft words
Whitmore had been head of Ashbourne Preparatory Academy for eleven years.
Elite.
Expensive.
Outside Boston.
Students went to:
Harvard.
Yale.
MIT.
Stanford.
Williams.
Amherst.
The school marketed itself as:
Rigorous.
Civil.
Character-driven.
Whitmore loved phrases like:
Restorative conversation.
Peer conflict.
Developmental mistake.
Community repair.
Those phrases can be useful.
They can also become hiding places.
At our second meeting, he said:
“We do not want to permanently define teenagers by their worst behavior.”
I answered:
“Neither do I.”
He relaxed.
Then I added:
“But you have been repeatedly defining Emma by her reaction to what they do.”
Silence.
I slid the prior reports across the table.
“Distressed.”
“Overwhelmed.”
“Left class.”
“Refused participation.”
All descriptions of Emma.
May you like
Where were the descriptions of what others did first?
Whitmore looked down.
