Compare and Contrast
Shannon Ford

The Influence of Teachers

Countless of students are taken into schools to be given the opportunity of accessing insightful experts who have undergone years of experience through long durations of studying; however, the actions of teachers towards students are just as crucial than the topics themselves. Teachers have the ability of influencing the outcome of future generations with their words and actions towards students who come to school to acquire knowledge. “Long Long After School” by Ernest Buckler takes place in December at the graveyard of Ms Tretheway, the protagonist’s old teacher, Wes, where he meets and speaks to the chairman about cherished memories of Ms Tretheway and how he viewed her as beautiful. “A Teacher’s Award” by Robert Phillips starts off as a nice conversation between Raybe, a poor orphan who lived with his aunt, and Ms Scofield, his ex teacher who used to wrap his knuckles and humiliate him in front of the class. It then takes an unexpected turn of events when Raybe snaps at Ms Scofield and demands her to put her hands on the table while pulling out a hammer from his jacket.
Despite the contrasting teaching styles between Ms Scofield and Ms Tretheway, they both influence one of their students with the presence of a unique bond than the rest of the class. In “Long Long After School”, Ms Tretheway has an intimate friendship with Wes instead of a generalized student and teacher bond, filling Wes’s eyes with admiration and reverence for her, whereas Ms Scofield and Raybe have a deleterious relationship, creating a barrier between Raybe and the class. Often discriminated for his appearance due to being black in an all white school, Ms Tretheway becomes Wes’s school counsellor. She provides him with support by going out of her way to learn about his interests and visits him often: “‘She used to come see me everyday,’ he said. ‘She used to bring me books. Did you know that books… well, that for anyone like me that’s the only way you can…?’” (Buckler 5). In addition, she defends Wes when being mistreated such as the incident when one of the girls refused to hold his hand, blatantly calling him dirty: “‘Why, Marilyn, Wes’s hands are much cleaner than yours. Maybe Wes doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, did you ever think about that?’” (Buckler 3). The way Ms Tretheway handled the situation shows that she disregards her limited position as only being a teacher, but a friend and a role model who must step in and intercede. On the contrary, there is Ms Scofield who picks on Raybe and physically abuses him by “rapping [his] knuckles with [her] ruler” for simply being poor (Phillips 1). Uncontrollable isolation often fills his empty and fragile body caused by the abusive bond that makes him feel misplaced and mistreated: “‘Because you picked on me all the time. Made me out worse than I was. You never gave me the chance the others had. The other kids left me out of things because you were always saying I was bad. And you always told me I was dirty. Just because my aunt couldn’t keep me in clean shirts like some of the others. You punished me for everything that happened’” (Phillips 7). Raybe constantly feels put down for crimes he did not commit purely because he does not look presentable to the eye. Although both teachers have diverse bonds with one of their students, one being a supportive relationship, and the other being an unhealthy relationship, they both have distinctive connections that exceeds the standard position between the student and the teacher, making the students feel either cared for or ostracized.
Many students incline to the belief that teachers favour one student more than the rest, either due to their high status, being related to an honour student, or for being ingenious and responsible. Ms Tretheway has an opening in her heart for Wes; she would risk anything for him and goes out of her way to please him, giving him the opportunity of expressing his feelings to her whenever he desires. Unfortunately, that is not the case for Raybe. Ms Scofield, however, does not favour the protagonist, but students like Nathan Pillsbury who come from a high status causing Raybe to become envious due to her biased views. Luckily for Wes, Ms Tretheway is aware that “Wes’s privacy seemed to be everyone’s property” and tries to make him feel welcome as much as possible: “Miss Tretheway came along and you all ran. She helped me pick up the stuff and shake the snow off it. She went with me right to Mrs. Bank’s door and told her what had happened.” (Buckler 3). Wes acknowledges the non-judgmental and trustworthy support of Ms Tretheway, making him feel he is accepted and respected. Furthermore, she does not hesitate before donating a quarter of her blood to Wes, showing that she cares for him and favours him slightly more due to their similar internal and external conflicts of being judged from society and finding self-acceptance; this makes Wes feel loved and hopeful about the good in humanity. In Raybe’s situation, Ms Scofield’s focus is on pleasing her wealthy students and pushing aside the ones who she does not have interest in. Her thoughts and memories are solely kept on to the students who have an affluent background: “How about Nathan Pillsbury? The dentist’s son. He was in your class, wasn’t he?” (Phillips 5). The way she went on a tangent about Nathan Pillsbury instead of asking about Raybe demonstrates that she emphasizes high rank titles such as “dentist” in her mind, and completely ignores the fact that there are other students like Raybe that were present in her class. For this reason, Raybe feels forgotten and invisible compared to Wes who feels he is the center of attention: “‘My folks are dead. They were dead when I was your student. If you’ll remember. Grandfather died too. I lived with an aunt. She’s dead now’” (Phillips 4). The tone in Raybe’s voice expresses pain and grief to hint to his former teacher that her head is full of ignorance and is in desperate need for her empathy. In addition, this makes Nathan and the other troublemakers assume they can escape undesirable consequences and will not have to take responsibility for their own wrong doing. Even though one feels special and loved by their teacher and the other feels jealous in two distinct situations, they similarly are both affected by partiality based on the position of the student.
Personality is an essential part of one’s identity; it allows one to understand their motivations, their passions, and their purpose. Despite all of that, teacher’s can still interfere with the development of one’s personality by changing their behaviour and perspective which may end up reflecting through their modified disposition. Fortunately for Wes, he grows into a more open-minded man who sees the beauty within him and others; he learns to not base people by the shade of their skin or the number of wrinkles, but the heart and mind that’s found deep inside that makes an individual who they are. He is able to push through hardships by finding his own happiness and learning from Ms Tretheway’s morals of treating others with respect, and the importance of understanding an individual before forming false judgements: “‘I said: ‘Miss Tretheway, you’re making me blush.’ And do you know, that was the first time I’d ever been able to say that, and laugh, myself.’ ‘She was beautiful,’ he added softly. ‘She was a real lady.’” (Buckler 5). Raybe, however, did not turn out as anticipated. From being an ingenuous young boy, he transforms into an indignant man who becomes solely motivated by revenge on his former teacher. Becoming sickly obsessed with getting revenge for the scars of mistreatment and physical abuse, he dramatically takes the turn of going to her house and returning the punishments. To make his emotions more vivid, he mentions that he has spent time in prison before acting up, which the reader can infer that he started committing crimes after the major impact of long painful and dreary years of being bullied by his teacher. Likewise, Wes and Raybe’s personality and views have been altered by the interference of their teachers’ influences; Wes has changed into someone self-assured and have found self-acceptance that was lacking before, howbeit, Raybe has changed into a menacing man, who has become vengeful and incensed.
The attitude towards a student may motivate them into diving deeper into their obscure identity which may lead to self acceptance and discovering the beauty within themselves and others, while some may take a dark path into a trail of anger and revenge. The way a teacher approaches a student can have a major impact on them; they can become a better person or become someone worse than who they were originally. They also have the power of changing their students’ perspectives and to become more knowledgeable about the outside and limitless world. Therefore, it is important that teachers are aware that students may have things going on outside of school and to treat all their students equally, no matter if they are black, white, rich or poor.