Miss Caroline from To Kill a Mockingbird

Miss Caroline is not only an inexperienced teacher, she is also a foreigner to Maycomb County, and her inexperience causes her to become defensive when she discovers that Scout is the only student in her class that can read and write in print, “​ …and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock­market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste.​ ”​

After a small argument with Scout, Miss Caroline orders Scout to tell Atticus to stop teaching her because he has taught her incorrectly, ​ “Now you tell your father not to teach you any more. It’s best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I’ll take over from here and try to undo the damage​.​

I believe that this shows how narrow minded Miss Caroline is towards Scout, she refuses to listen to her and what she has to say about her false statement. Another thing is, whenever she sees Scout writing in print or disrespects by talking back to her she decides to humiliate and punish her in front of the other students, “ ​ Miss Caroline picked up her ruler, gave me half a dozen quick little pats, then told me to stand in the corner. A storm of laughter broke loose when it finally occurred to the class that Miss Caroline had whipped me..​ ”​

This conflict that starts to stir up in chapter 2 is one example of coming­of­age because as Scouts continues to get older, and more mature about her surroundings, she starts to realize how  prejudice and ignorant people can be in the real world. For example, when Miss Caroline tries to offer to Walter Cunningham, Scout stands up in class and says,​ “​ You’re shaming him, Miss  Caroline.​..”(PDF pg 21) and instead of trying to understand Scout’s explanation, Miss Caroline gets frustrated with her, “​ “Jean Louise, I’ve had about enough of you this morning,” she said. “You’re starting off on the wrong foot in every way, my dear. Hold out your hand.”
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I think that it affects her terribly because no matter how many she tries to prove Miss Caroline wrong, she just won’t listen to her and also it affects her love for reading because when she fakes being “sick”, Atticus asks her what’s wrong and why she doesn’t want to go to school, and she replies with, ​ “­and she said you taught me all wrong, so we can’t ever read any more, ever. Please don’t send me back, please sir.”​ ​