Summer School (Maxi)

[MAXINE MCMANUS]

There were only a few weeks left until school started and one and a half weeks left of summer school. Maxi actually hadn’t been the instructor throughout most of the course, but Mr. Dillerman, the usual teacher, ended up in the hospital after a heart attack and Maxi offered to take over the class. She was lucky that the students were just about to begin To Kill a Mockingbird when she took over. Four hours a day for two and a half weeks wasn’t so bad and it was good practice to get her back in the groove of having school every day. Some of the students were actually there because she had flunked them, which didn’t make them the most cooperative bunch, but she had private talks with them to adjust their attitude and discuss their problems from the previous year. She didn’t want to have to flunk anyone in summer school, too. It was getting hard to keep everyone’s attention, however, with the end of summer school so near.

She spent the first forty-five minutes discussing the first part of the trial with the class, showing clips from the old black and white film version. “Okay, so moving on from the beginning of the trial. We see that Bob Ewell is a rude, nasty little man that probably has no business raising eight kids. We’ve also seen that Bob is left-handed which would better explain how Mayella ended up with bruises on the right side of her face. We’ll come back to that, however. Now I want to talk about Mayella herself. She’s an interesting character, right? Can someone describe her for me?” Maxi looked around the classroom for any volunteered hands. She could see the Crayola red-haired girl in the back of the classroom, looking as if she was trying to go unnoticed. Didn’t she know that just called more attention to herself? She considered calling on the girl, but a hesitant hand came up from another girl sitting closer to the front. Maxi smiled and pointed to her. “She’s a liar.” Some of the kids sniggered and Maxi grinned at the bluntness of the statement. “Yeah, she certainly is a liar. How do we know that, Lucy?” The girl she had just called on looked like she was thinking for a moment. “Because she gets real defensive when Atticus calls her out for being a liar.” Maxi nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely. How else can we describe her?” A boy raised his hand from the front row and she pointed to him. “Well, she’s kind of bitter because she doesn’t get any help around the house from her brothers and sisters.” Maxi nodded again. “Precisely. She’s very bitter. How do you think she feels about Tom?” Without raising his hand, a student towards the back of the classroom grinned wide. “She’s got jungle fever.” Everyone laughed, including Maxi, and she pointed at the student. “Yup! She’s got a big old crush on Tom Robinson. This is like high treason in the South at this time and she’s well aware of that.”

She paced to the other side of the room, looking perplexed down at her feet. “So, she likes Tom Robinson, she’s got seven brothers and sisters to care for with practically no help, she’s poor and dirty and not much of a looker either. Quinn, do you feel sorry for her?” At that point she raised her big, deep blue eyes to the red-haired girl she had noticed before, and she waited patiently for the girl’s answer. Maybe she didn’t want to participate, but participation was important to Maxi. She made sure everyone answered at least one question in class. It kept them on their toes and let them know that she wasn’t playing around with their assignments. She expected them to do the reading, and how hard could it be? To Kill a Mockingbird was one of the best books ever written by an American author. It sucked the reader in, and she couldn’t imagine anyone actually not liking the book.

[MAXINE MCMANUS]

It took Quinn a long moment to answer after she had jumped to attention, but Maxi just watched her patiently and ignored the snickers from the other students. The girl looked really uncomfortable, squirming in her seat, and Maxi almost felt bad for calling her out, but she didn’t move on to another student for their opinion. “Um, yeah I guess. But she seems to handle it pretty well. She is young but being a tomboy and all, she can yah know, stand up for herself…” Maxi was confused at first. Mayella Ewell handled it well? No…It was pretty apparent Quinn either hadn’t read the book or she wasn’t sure where they were in the story. Her eyes had been focused out of the window as opposed to on Maxi, so it was possible she was just lost. The other students were still giggling or giving her weird looks, and she really did feel bad for calling the girl out.

It was obvious after a few seconds that Quinn had confused Maxi’s question for asking about Scout. A small smile came to Maxi’s face, but it wasn’t cruel amusement like the other kids. It was just a smile to acknowledge that she knew where Quinn’s head was at in that moment. She nodded. “That’s true about Scout who’s watching the trial from up in the colored balcony, but what about Mayella Ewell, the girl who accused Tom Robinson of raping her? Do you feel sorry for her?” Maxi was going to give Quinn a chance to really answer her question, but she wasn’t mean about the girl not paying attention. It never made sense to Maxi to make her students feel dumb or out of place where they were because then they wouldn’t ask questions or come to her for help. That was her job as a teacher, though, to help them when they needed it. She didn’t want Quinn to stop trusting her as a teacher because of one misunderstood question.

After a pause, she heard a distinct, “No,” from one of the other students. Her eyes panned the classroom, landing on a black-haired boy towards the back of the classroom. Maxi caught his gaze and put a finger to her lips to indicate quiet for a moment so Quinn could answer. She looked back to the girl and nodded encouragement with a soft smile.

[MAXINE MCMANUS]

Again, Quinn took a while to answer, shifting uncomfortably in her seat, but Maxi’s gaze wasn’t hard. It was her silence that indicated she wasn’t going to give up on Quinn giving a suitable answer. “Uh, well, yes. I guess. I mean, she was raped so I do feel sorry for her…” It was the wrong answer and it was clear to Maxi that Quinn had not done the required reading. The students were giggling and Quinn slumped down in her seat, looking like she just wanted to disappear. Maxi knew exactly how that felt; the difference was, Maxi could actually do it. Well, she used to be able to do it until the darkness started. Without the sun, she wasn’t able to do anything. She decided to make the best out of Quinn’s answer, though, and move on to other students. “Well, we know she wasn’t actually raped from later in the reading, but maybe you have a point there, Quinn. Maybe Mayella has actually made herself believe that she was raped. Or maybe she knows exactly what she’s doing, which would actually make her quite cruel. I think maybe it’s something in between, where she wants to believe so badly that she really was raped that she’s trying to convince herself of it as she’s trying to convince the jury and more specifically Atticus. Does Atticus buy it?” There was a collective negative answer from the class and Maxi began her pacing at the head of the classroom again. “Nor should he, as Tom’s defense attorney. Thank you Quinn for your answer.”

Maxi went on to explore the possibilities of Mayella Ewell being a victim or an oppressor, the class agreeing that she was somewhere in between, and she showed clips of different renderings of Mayella’s performance in the classroom. She allowed the students their ten minute break, followed by a discussion of Tom’s story on the stand and how his left arm was useless from a fight with a cotton gin. That made it less likely the bruise on Mayella’s cheek was from Tom and more likely it came from her left-handed father who likely beat her, as Atticus supposed and Tom confirmed. But still, no matter what Atticus did, the jury came back with a guilty verdict. She discussed with the class why the colored folk of the town still showered Atticus and the Finch family with gifts as if they had won their case. Overall, it was a very involved class with several heated discussions, all of which Maxi facilitated, and for some students she had to force their involvement as she had done earlier with Quinn. As for the girl, she didn’t participate much throughout the rest of the class.

When she let the class out, she went to her desk and watched Quinn milling out with the rest of the students. “Ms. Sullivan, would you mind staying for a few minutes?” A couple of the guys started sniggering, but Maxi shot them a look that made them cut it out and leave. The last one to leave was a girl name Tracey who she asked to close the door behind her. It was just her and Quinn and she cocked her head to the side. “So, I’m guessing you haven’t gotten far in the book, huh?” she started with a half smile. She wasn’t angry in the least, but she did want to give some encouragement. “You know, I reviewed your grades in this class…it looks like you’re right on the edge of failing. Are you having trouble with the material or is it the assignments you’re struggling with?” Maxi was one of those teachers who genuinely cared about her students and what they were learning. Even if she hadn’t been Quinn’s teacher for long, she wanted to help her in any way she could, as well as she could. Every student she taught who made an improvement made Maxi feel like she had just won the Olympics, and she was eager to help Quinn too, if she could.

[MAXINE MCMANUS]

“I’m a little behind…I just can’t focus. It takes me about two hours to do half a worksheet…” Maxi had come across several students with this issue in the past, but perhaps not to the extent that it took two hours for a worksheet. Perhaps Quinn legitimately had ADHD, but that was normally diagnosed in elementary school and treated. As a teacher, she had been taught the signs of the disorder, but usually she wasn’t the one diagnosing it, so she didn’t make the suggestion to Quinn. Besides, that was a problem to discuss with the parents, not the student, even if she was a teenager. In any case, they were a week and a half out from the end of summer school, and it didn’t make much sense to try and correct the issue now. Perhaps when the school year started, she would look into it.

Maxi looked down at her hands and nodded. “That’s a long time. I’m guessing you’re bored with the material, correct?” The teacher waited for her student’s answer, nodding when she did. Maxi was a pretty flexible teacher. There were certain requirements she had for her students set by the school board, but the assignments outside of those requirements could be tweaked in her opinion. She couldn’t change the fact that Quinn had to write a final paper…but perhaps she could offer some kind of extra credit. “I like to make the material fun when I can, since I know it can be dull. Unfortunately, I can’t let you do something in lieu of the final paper, but I’d like to offer you some extra credit for To Kill A Mockingbird if you’d like the opportunity for an extra 5% towards your grade. We’ll talk about what you can do for the credit, but first I’ll discuss the paper. You’ll have a variety of topics to choose from in relation to the novel and you’ll have to write five pages. Some teachers won’t look over the papers before they’re due, but I would love to help you edit the paper if you’d like. That way we can ensure you get a good grade on this final paper. It’ll be a tutoring session and I can give you some pointers.” Maxi smiled warmly, liking the thought of some one on one work with Quinn.

“As for this extra credit, I’d like to do something that gets you more into the book. What do you like to do in your spare time? Do you have any hobbies that we could make an assignment out of?” All Quinn needed to do was suggest a hobby or method of the assignment and Maxi would determine the level of difficulty. She had done it several times in the past to offer students the chance to pick up their grades and she found that it usually provided for some very creative projects and enjoyable grading.