Sheila's Involvement In An Inspector Calls

The book begins describing Torey, the teacher, reading a newspaper article about a girl burning a young boy. Torey was a resource person for special needs children until asked by Ed Somers, the Director of Special Education, to teach the “garbage class”, which contained kids that couldn’t be placed anywhere else. She began with two helpers and eight children until Somers requested her to remove one child in order to take another. Feeling none were ready to leave, she took nine. Her new student was Sheila, the six year old girl from the article. During her first day, she received rude comments and violently stabbed goldfish. Torey found Sheila’s file comparatively small and learned she was untested. Sheila screamed, attempted to escape the classroom, never participated in class activities, and refused to speak, opting to sit in the quiet corner. Eventually, Torey gets Sheila to do basic math with blocks, and she excels. Torey administers Sheila an IQ test and she scores off the charts, higher than the equivalent of a 170. Sheila becomes involved in class and grows to trust Torey. Knowing Sheila’s solid academics, Torey focuses her attention on fixing Sheila’s hygiene and manners. Sheila had a violent outburst in a teacher’s room during lunch and was …show more content…
Any future change breaks this bond in Sheila’s mind, relating Torey to her mother. Sheila excels with oral assignments, but refuses to do paperwork, destroying each assignment she gets and sulking if she answers incorrectly. Eventually, Sheila does paperwork in order to do creative writing. Torey leaves for two days to give a speech, and though she promised to return, Sheila felt abandoned and terrorized the substitute. A space opens at the state hospital, and Torey pleads to keep Sheila. She takes the matter to court backed by the school district with her boyfriend Chad as their lawyer, and