'Yurt': Ms. Hempel's Argument

“Yurt” by Sarah Bynum is narrated through the vision and feelings of a teacher, Ms. Hempel, who is at a crisis in her life. To add to Ms. Hempel’s sadness is Ms. Duffy, who is formerly a teacher at the school. Ms. Duffy returned to the school for a day after leaving for a year. Ms. Duffy is unlike her former self where she is surprisingly happy and Ms. Hempel not only seems envious but confused as to why. When the two women finally meet at the bulletin board in the hallway of the school, Ms. Hempel’s behavior completely changes as she realizes that she still loves teaching after carefully observing Ms. Duffy looking over the children’s work. Without this interaction between the women, their states of mind and feelings towards teaching would …show more content…
Hempel recognizes that her feelings are changing towards teaching as she stands next to Ms. Duffy at the bulletin board. As Ms. Duffy complains about the mistakes displayed on the bulletin board, Ms. Hempel begins to notice the mistakes which she had not detected previously, “her own alertness to error had wavered over the years” (25). After years of doing the same thing repeatedly, Ms. Hempel had lost the talent to discover errors in students’ work. Also, this could be caused from not finding enjoyment in teaching anymore. If Ms. Hempel is miserable with her job and is just going through the motions of her work, then it could be easy for her to miss mistakes she would have once noticed right away. However, as Ms. Hempel listens to Ms. Duffy’s rant, Ms. Hempel “could feel her powers beginning to return” (25-26). This is the most significant moment of the story because this is where Ms. Hempel realizes that she still loves teaching. The word choice of “powers” in this statement represents energy and ability. Ms. Hempel becomes excited and feels motivated to look over the work on the bulletin board. Her gift is back, and she can recognize mistakes immediately. Furthermore, for the story to use the phrase “beginning to return,” Ms. Hempel admits that she had lost her ambition to point out mistakes and teach students how to fix their mistakes. During the last few years, Ms. Hempel may have been ignoring or not spotting the mistakes on her student’s work because she was unhappy with herself, which may have caused her to lose focus during her job. Therefore, if she had not listened to Ms. Duffy criticize the work on the bulletin board, Ms. Hempel may have never discovered that her love for teaching was still within