Tkam-Education

Education is very important in our society, rarely ever do you ever come across someone who does not really appreciate or think education is necessary. In the book to kill a mocking bird, education is sort of a secondary thing in Maycomb, especially amongst the poor and black community. For example, on page 165, when Jem attends Calpurnia’s church, he discovers that most of the black’s are illiterate. This for him and Scout is a shock because they had been taught by Calpurnia, who was black, to read when they were quite young. In fact, Scout gets in trouble from Miss Caroline because she was able to read and write in grade one. Scout was highly literate by the time she attends her first day of school, far surpassing the other children in the classroom and frustrating her teacher whose task is to teach her students according to a predetermined plan. Miss Caroline believed in the school’s way of teaching, where she would use flash cards and read aloud to the children, which is the Dewey System. ”The Dewey Decimal System consisted, in part, of miss Caroline waving cards at us which were printed ‘the,’ ‘cat,’ ‘man,’ and ‘you,’”(24) Once Miss Caroline discovered Scout is ahead of her classmates she punishes Scout and tells her not to learn anything else at home, because on page twenty-three she exclaims “Your father does not know how to teach, you can have a seat now.” Through Miss Caroline’s paradoxical views   we can see that education in the town of Maycomb is viewed as unimportant.     Furthermore, Miss Caroline has a very specific understanding of what children should learn when, even if this schedule requires holding a child back. For instance, when she asks Scout to write during class and Scout writes in script, she chides her and tells her that she should not be doing that for many years, because it isn’t taught in school until much later. Scout feels frustrated that her teacher does not understand her and only wants to hold her back. Atticus clearly understands...