(1) Scout's teacher is from North Alabama, from Winston County. Evidently, this has some special meaning to Scout's classmates: "The class murmured apprehensively, should she prove to harbor her share of the peculiarities indigenous to that region. (When Alabama seceded from the Union on January 11, 1861, Winston County seceded from Alabama, and every child in Maycomb County knew it.) North Alabama was full of Liquor Interests, Big Mules, steel companies, Republicans, professors, and other persons of no background." [21]

(i) In these remarks about north and south Alabama we have more references to place and how place matters, and how it marks its inhabitants.

(ii) What kind of knowledge does Scout and her classmates have? How does it work? Of what value is it? Can it be depended on? How can it be put to use without blinding you to some actual person?

(2) Miss Caroline tells a cat story to the children, a story in which cats talk and act like people, and the story is, to say the least, not so well received. The students were, it seems, "immune to imaginative literature." [21]. Scout explains why. They were, it seems not only first graders but young children who had "chopped cotton and fed hogs from the time they were able to walk"; they were already, at this young age, budding literalists. [21]. We see a bit more of this literalist bent in the discussion between Dill and Jem about putting a match to a turtle, a comment that Scout took literally to mean that Jem was considering burning the Radley Place. But its not so simple to say children are literalists for they are also fully exploring a life of imagination in their curiosity about the young Radley man who does not come out of the house, indeed about the entire Radley family and their peculiar (non-Maycomb like) ways.

In what sense are you, in taking up a study of law, working out a relationship between literalism and imagination?

(3) To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about teaching and learning, first, in the most literal sense, as we watch Scout and Miss Caroline struggle to get things right as they each take up new roles as student and teacher.

(i) Miss Caroline is Scout's first grade teacher but certainly not her first teacher. She learns from Miss Caroline that some teachers (in this case an inexperienced one, but we might imagined those with much experience might share her disdain of previous teachers) act as if they are working with a student who has a clean slate.

Isn't there something of the Miss Caroline approach to her students in the way law teachers act as if nothing you've ever learned has any bearing on how you learn to read cases and practice law?

(ii) Calpurnia has been a teacher for Scout, one that she has not at this early age learned to fully appreciate. Scout has described Calpurnia's presence as "tyrannical." "Our battles," says Scout, "were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won, mainly because Atticus always took her side." [10].(Calpurnia has taken care of Scout and Jem and been a surrogate mother since their mother died when Scout was 2.)

When Scout gets bored with the teaching methods of her first grade teacher, Miss Caroline, and gets caught writing a letter to Dill, we learn that Calpurnia rather than Atticus has been her writing teacher. "She would set me a writing task by scrawling the alphabet firmly across the top of a tablet, then copying out a chapter of the Bible beneath. If I reproduced her penmanship satisfactorily, she rewarded me with an open-faced sandwich of bread and butter and sugar. In Calpurnia's teaching, there was no sentimentality: I seldom pleased her and she seldom rewarded me." [23]

We see Calpurnia dealing rather firmly with Scout when she verbally raises a fuss over Walter Cunningham's liberal use of molasses on his vegetables and meat when he visits them for lunch. [28-29]

It's obvious that Atticus has confidence in Calpurnia. When Scout, feeling bad about Calpurnia's treatment over the Walter Cunningham molasses episode, seeks to have Calpurnia sent "packing," Atticus retorts in a "flinty" voice: "I've no intention of getting rid of her, now or ever. We couldn't operate a single day without Cal, have you ever thought of that? You think about how much Cal does for you, and you mind her, you hear?" [30]

(iii) Atticus is first described by Scout, as being "found satisfactory: he played with us, read to us, and treated us with courteous detachment." [10]. We learn, as the story progresses, that Atticus is a more profound teacher of his children than this brief line would indicate. It is one of the great joys of the novel to learn how Atticus teaches his children, about their neighbors and how they are to be left alone, but also about their follies and mistakes, and later about his principles and how they compel him to act toward them and others in certain ways. We learn about Atticus as he teaches his children how to make their way in a perilous world.

Earlier, we found Atticus responding to Jem's questions about Arthur Radley by telling him "to mind his own business and let the Radleys mind theirs. . ." [15]

Atticus talks to Scout about empathy when she tells him about her dissatisfactions with her first day of school.

"First, of all, he said, "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--"

"Sir?"

"--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." [34]

[Later, Scout attempts to practice what Atticus is trying to teach her, when Jem becomes silent and moody after his brush with disaster at the Radley Place, losing his pants and getting shot at. Scout says, "As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem's skin and walk around in it. . . ." [62]].

Atticus teaches Scout about fairness in applying the laws. [35-36]. And about the possibilities for a secret agreement to continue their reading together. [36]

"Jem and I were accustomed to our father's last-will-and-testament diction, and we were at all times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding." [36]

(iv) Jem too is a teacher and since he is young and lacking experience some of his "pronouncements" [in the difficulties of teaching is also a frequent source of misinformation.

Jem teaches Scout about courage and restraint in response to Dill's challenge to get up close to the Radley house.

Jem reassures Scout that Miss Caroline's way of teaching reading will soon be used in all the grades and that it's called the Dewey Decimal System.

When Scout asks Jem what an entailment is (a matter on which Atticus represents Walter Cunningham, senior, Jem tells her its's "a condition of having your tail in a crack." [25]

When Scout takes up her fight with Walter Cunningham, junior, Jem takes a rather different approach to Scout's difficulty. While Scout picks a fight with Walter, Jem invites him to lunch. [27]. And how does Jem know to treat Walter in the way he does? Obviously, he's learned it from Atticus. Jem is practicing the respect for Walter junior, that he has seen Atticus accord Walter senior. ("Our daddy's a friend of your daddy's.") [27]

At lunch, Walter and Atticus "talked together like two men, to the wonderment of Jem and me." [28]

Jem tries to teach Scout about Indian Head pennies: "Well, Indian-heads--well, they come from the Indians. They're real strong magic, they make you have good luck. Not like fried chicken when you're not lookin' for it, but things like long life 'n' good health, 'n' passin' six-weeks tests . . . these are real valuable to somebody." [40]

(v) Both Scout and Jem have learned from old sayings they have picked up: When Scout and Jem discover the tinfoil pouch in the knothole of the tree containing the Indian Head pennies and are trying to figure out what to do with them, Scout muses: "Finders were keepers unless title was proven." [39]

(4) Miss Caroline's ineptness begins to show through: When she tries to loan Walter Cunningham 25 cents for lunch; money he will not take. [24]. It is left to Scout to tell Miss Carolina that Walter is a Cunningham. But Miss Caroline doesn't know what that means. Scout: "I thought I had made things sufficiently clear. It was clear enough to the rest of us; Walter Cunningham was lying his head off. He didn't forget his lunch, he didn't have any." [24]

Scout tries to explain: "The Cunninghams never took anything they can't pay back--no church baskets and no scrip stamps. They never took anything off of anybody, they get along on what they have. They don't have much, but they get along on it." [25]. Scout has learn this from watching Atticus deal with Walter's father as they work out payment for his representation in a property matter. "By the lunch broke, Miss Caroline has been reprimanded by another teacher and as the children leave for lunch, Scout sees her "sink down into her chair and bury her head in her arms." [27]

(5) We learn, during the course of the novel that Atticus Finch is a "gentleman." (Thomas Shaffer has gone to some lengths to suggest that if we are to understand Atticus's ethics we must take account of the fact that he is a "gentleman.") But we are first introduced to the "gentleman" theme when Jem tries to make amends for Scout's revenge on Walter Cunningham, Jr. (who has upset her first day at school) by inviting him home for lunch.

When the children return for their afternoon session with Miss Carolina we see the term "gentleman" used to describe Little Chuck Little, one of the students who comforts Miss Caroline in the Burris Ewell "cootie" episode. [30-33]. "Little Chuck Little was another member of the population who didn't know where his next meal was coming from, but he was a born gentleman." [36].

To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about a gentleman lawyer and a son and daughter in training to follow in his footsteps. [On the Gentleman Ethic]

Atticus Finch

Course Readings      Home Page