Atticus Finch Vs Miss Caroline Analysis

Atticus Finch v. Miss Caroline
You would have a very difficult time finding two people who have similar goals to teaching but are so different it doesn’t even look like they’re on the same spectrum. But that’s just what you see when you look at Atticus Finch and Miss Caroline from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. They are both teachers of a sort, with their own specific styles that do nothing but clash with each other. They also both have a lasting effect on the main character, Scout, and shape her views on the difference of going to school and learning. To start off, Miss Caroline has a very strict style of teaching that comes partly from the fact that she is actually a teacher. But, really it is more to do with the fact that she has just started teaching and is still trying to learn how to be a teacher. She is very much against the idea of independent …show more content…
Atticus is more child-specific while focusing on moving at a pace that makes learning comfortable. He teaches not because he has to or because it’s his job, but because learning is good for everybody. He can afford to do this because he’s had years to perfect his teaching skills and his life doesn’t depend on how well he can teach. Miss Caroline, however, can’t be so lucky. She’s only had since college to learn how to teach and is just being put into practice. To top it off, her whole career, and in turn her livelihood, is riding on how well she can teach and how well the children she teaches preform. Because of this, she shows no flexibility in the way she teaches, and it only adds to her stress that her style doesn’t work the way she thinks it should. So even though these characters are different, one with a superior method to teaching than the other, it’s clear to understand why since they both have different motives for teaching and Atticus seems to have a gift for it, while Miss Caroline has to push