Thursday, July 25, 2013

Abash

abash
verb, transitive. To cause to feel embarrassed, disconcerted, or ashamed. Usually used in the form of the adjective "abashed".

Ellen turned her face away from the bright windows and examined the next paper in the stack. The familiar feeling of disappointment welled up as she read the few sloppily-handwritten paragraphs. Were these children learning nothing from her? She picked up her red pen again and began to mark the grammatical and spelling mistakes.

As she worked, part of her mind began to daydream. She longed for a day when her patient tutelage and example would abash the class into taking in what she was trying to teach them. She was convinced that was the way to get through to them. Surely it would succeed where harsh criticism and punishing assignments would not.

She finished marking up, concluded by assigning a grade, then recorded it. The next theme awaited.

Suddenly, she could stand it no longer: not on a day like this. She got the canvas tote out of her bottom desk drawer, grabbed the students' papers, and stuffed them into it. She retrieved her purse, seated its strap on her shoulder, grabbed the tote's handle and headed for the door. She barely slowed to flip the lights off, and by the time she was halfway down the hall, she was running. She would derive some happiness from something today, or know why.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

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