Among School Children

“‘If you put your name on a paper, you should be proud of it,’ [Mrs. Zajac] said. ‘You should think, this is the best I can do and I’m proud of it and I want to hand this in.’ Then she asked, ‘If it isn’t your best, what’s Mrs. Zajac going to do?’ Many voices, most of them female, answered softly in unison, ‘Make us do it over.’” 

This quote is one of the first things Mrs. Zajac says to her students on the first day of school, and it sets the tone for how Mrs. Zajac runs her classroom. Her expectations are high, but she also wants the students to feel good about their schoolwork and their abilities. She doesn’t talk about her own personal standards for them but about how they should be proud of their own work. It illustrates the theme of perspective in the book, in that Mrs. Zajac has her own perspective, but her goal is to mold the perspective of her students. She wants them to want to learn, to have confidence in their work, and to see themselves as capable. One of the ways she accomplishes this goal is by talking from their perspective instead of her perspective. 

“Children get dealt grossly unequal hands, but that is all the more reason to treat them equally in school[.] […] Treating children equally often means treating them very differently. But it also means bringing the same moral force to bear on all of them, saying, in effect, to Clarence that you matter as much as Alice and won't get away with not working, and to Alice that you won't be allowed to stay where you are either.” 

This quote highlights the themes of perspective and social class throughout the book. Mrs. Zajac notes that fairness often means treating students very differently to get them the same message: they are worthy and capable of learning. Social class plays a large role in how teachers see and treat students right from the start of school.