Friday, October 17, 2008

Chapters 1-3 Education

What was Scout's first "crime" at school? What two mistakes did Miss Caroline make on the first day of school? What does this say about the education system in the South at this time?

10 comments:

Uin Kim said...

Scout's first "crime" at school was her literacy. The teacher did not like the fact that she could read. The two mistakes Miss Caroline made on the first day of school was not keeping the children quiet and making another teacher angry. In my opinion, another mistake is telling Scout that she should stop learning to read from her father (although she actually did not learn from him). If she wants to, she should be able to. These mistakes of Miss Caroline show that the education of the South during that time was not very organized. The teachers could not teach well, and they did not give much freedom to the students. They did not let the students do anything on their own, and they were not allowed to use their imaginations. I think that this is not the right way to teach. Children would easily get bored, and imagination is a handy thing in life that should be developed while learning in school. Hopefully the teaching system of the South has changed now.

Anonymous said...

When Scout went to school her first crimes were that she was able to read and also write. And even worse than the fact that she could write was the fact that she could write in cursive. She learned reading by having the pure pleasure of being able to read and writing because of boredom. Calpurnia would teach her to write when she would be sitting in the kitchen bored and being in Calpurnias way. Two mistakes that Miss Caroline Fisher did on the first day of school were the ones of trying to lend money to Walter Cunningham and before that, on the begining of the day, to try to defy a kid who later on made her cry. I believe that the education system during this time wasn't very much encouraged since many people went to the first grade for three years now. School also seems to have a boring aspect since if you are not allowed to be creative or learn creative, it will be much harder for you to learn.

yasmin F. said...

Scout didn’t really have a "crime" at school, but the closest thing would be her literacy aspect. Scout new how to read and write the basics, while everyone else in her class didn’t. Now, Miss. Caroline's two mistakes were not being to control her class the first day of school, and getting mad at Scout because she already new what they were going to learn. Not being able to control your class is a very big issue. But getting mad at someone for knowing something is even bigger.

Anonymous said...

Scout's first "crime" at school was that she could read and write. This was not supposed to be known how to do until second or third grade. This was not fair, because that is like telling someone not to learn. And that is a poor way to teach.
Mrs. Caroline had no control over the class, like Uin said before, this made another teacher angry.

adrian said...

Jean Louise Finch’s (Scout) first crime is to know how to read. Scout didn’t know that is was bad to have any Literacy before going into school. Miss Caroline still told Scout that she should not know how to read nor write, and to tell Atticus to stop teaching her. Neither Atticus nor Scout listened to his rule and proceeded to teach Scout how to read.

Miss Caroline Fisher’s First “mistake” was to offer money to Walter Cunningham. Scout told Miss Caroline that you do not lend money to a Cunningham, she asked why, scout answered that it was because he was a Cunningham and he couldn’t help it. Scout got in trouble because of this and beat up Walter afterwards. Miss Caroline Fisher’s second “mistake” was to not being able to control her class. These facts show that the education in the Southern part of the U.S.A was poor. Teachers would tell students not to learn, and learning is what school is all about, it would physically punish students and hold students by the law if they didn’t comply by the standards.

In response to Yasmin’s comment.

Yasmin,

I agree with you completely. Scout didn’t commit any “crimes” she just committed mistakes, mistakes that are pardonable. Maybe the author put the mistake in “crimes” to just emphasize how children were treated and the poor school system that they had.

sora cho said...

I agree with what Uin said. Miss Caroline thinks that Scout's "crime" is reading because she's a first grader, and you learn to read when you were in third grade. Miss Caroline did not know much about the school, and she had already committed two mistakes. I think that not letting Scout reading and writing is bad. I do not see what is wrong with being ahead of others. That indicates that Scout is a very intelligent person for her age, and she should try her best to become better.

Jacky Mejia said...

Scout's first "crime" was her ability to read. Miss Caroline did not like that she knew how to read already because, it was not until 2nd or 3rd grade where they started to read. Miss Caroline did make two mistakes herself...the first, was to try and lend money to Walter. The second one was that she could not keep her students quiet, which made another teacher get mad. This explains that education in the south is not the best. Education should be free, Miss Caroline should be glad that one of her students can already read and write.

andy said...

Her first crime was to actually know how to read. The thing is that knowing how to do something is not exactly a crime. It's like eating cheese being illegal. It's not even close to being considered a crime. Miss Caroline made the mistake of telling her to not skip ahead. The thing with that by skipping ahead, you have the advantage of making school a little easier for you and there is nothing particularly wrong with that. This demonstrates that the system of education of this time was extremely strict in the way kids were taught in and out of school. The thing is that they realized that this method did not work. That they had no control over the way that kids were taught out of school. The education was not what we see today. It was way more strict and with far more rules to follow.

yellowtyson said...

Scout's first crime at school was to be able to read. I disagree with uin that the first two mistakes Miss Caroline made was to not keep the children quiet and making another teacher angry. As many other people said, her mistakes were that she tried to lend money to Walter. The second thing was that she could not keep the children quiet which lead to another teacher getting mad. They are not the first two mistakes she made as Uin had said. I agree with Andy with what he said about the education. The education was strict and not encouraged very much.

Jacky Mejia said...

I agree with Myong Su that the education was very strict and not encouraged. It was not encouraged because the teachers now a days are always like "you can do better", "try your best", "you should try something new". Back in the old days, if you tried something new, like Scout when she learned how to read, she was punished.