Miss Caroline Quotes

Scout's teacher criticizes Atticus's teaching In Teach

“Your father does not know how to teach. You can have a seat now.”
I mumbled that I was sorry and retired meditating upon my crime.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 2. Scout’s first grade teacher Miss Caroline shows her prejudice towards her pupil when she makes Scout feel bad about being able to read. “Now you tell your father not to teach you any more”, she says. This is small-minded and hypocritical for an educator. Scout should be proud of her ability at such a young age.

I thought I had made things sufficiently clear. It was clear enough to the rest of us: Walter Cunningham was sitting there lying his head off. He didn’t forget his lunch, he didn’t have any. He had none today nor would he have any tomorrow or the next day. He had probably never seen three quarters together at the same time in his life…
“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.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 2. Walter Cunningham Jr. arrives to school with no lunch and refuses money from teacher Miss Caroline. Scout tries to explain to the clueless Miss Caroline how farmer Walter Cunningham and his family are poor, work hard for anything they have and young Walter is too proud to take the money because he cannot pay it back. Scout gets in trouble for this and Miss Caroline slaps her with a ruler and makes her stand in the corner.

As I opened the front screen door Atticus said, “By the way, Scout, you’d better not say anything at school about our agreement.”
“Why not?”
“I’m afraid our activities would be received with considerable disapprobation by the more learned authorities.”
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.
“Huh, sir?”
“I never went to school,” he said, “but I have a feeling that if you tell Miss Caroline we read every night she’ll get after me, and I wouldn’t want her after me.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 3. Atticus has a unique and untypical parenting approach which sets him apart from the other characters in the story. It is a very admirable one in which he shows respect for his children and engages with them as equals. He chooses to treat them as individuals and speak to them in an adult-like way.
Close