41 pages • 1 hour read
Among School Children
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Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 1-24 Summary: “September”
The book follows Chris Zajac, the 5th grade teacher at Kelly School, one year in the elementary school. The book opens describing her as a teacher who values dressing professionally, timelines, and effort from her students, and who is very dynamic and engaged in her classroom. We also meet the students and begin to get a sense for the school and this particular class.
Mrs. Zajac’s classroom is about half American and half Puerto Rican, and about half the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Mrs. Zajac receives the cumulative records (or “cumes”) for each of her students, which show their grades and behavioral issues or referrals and notes from their entire time at the school. She does not look at these records at first, letting herself form opinions as openly as possible before looking through them. She learns things quite quickly, such as which students are from wealthy families, which students may have a chaotic home life, and which students are likely to be diligent in class. She allows students to choose their desks on the first day, but then she re-arranges them based on what she has learned about them and what she thinks will be best for each student.
One student in particular, Clarence, features prominently from the outset of the book through to the last chapter. He often takes his frustration out on other students (e.g., kicking Felipe for no apparent reason), and he is not inclined to do his work. Mrs. Zajac keeps him after school in the first week because he didn’t do his work, but it does not seem to produce any changes in his behavior. Her encounters with Clarence frequently cause her to bring her work home, which affects her conversations with her husband. She tries not to bring her work home, but usually, at least one student each year manages to stay on her mind well after the final bell rings.
Pages 25-53 Summary: “Awakenings”
The second section of the book shows us a typical day for the 5th grade students. We learn a lot about the math groups. The students move among classrooms in the morning because some are advanced readers or advanced in math and others need help in reading or math. The teachers have a group of each type (e.g., “high math” and “low math” groups) during math instruction. This system means that the teacher typically spends a lot of time with the low group, leaving the high group to complete assignments on their own. This issue is a common theme in the book and education more broadly.
A representative from an education company comes and presents about a new way to teach math. He shares a lot of the research they did to determine that the curriculum works well, but Mrs. Zajac and several other teachers notice that even their lowest level lessons are for students with skills beyond their low math group. Mrs. Zajac notes that her low math group also has poor reading skills, making it difficult to even begin reading instructions or word problems, let alone take advantage of any of the “latest developments” in teaching math.
Alphonse Laudato, or Al, is the principal. He is well-liked at Kelly School, and he is supportive of his teachers and students. He appears to legitimately try to make things happen when his teachers need it, but bureaucracy hinders him just as it does any other principal. He has a tendency to frame everything positively, even when things may not be going that well.
When public education became mandatory, the need for teachers exploded. Women worked for less money than men and were more available, with many fewer seeking employment outside the home at the time. Many people argued that teaching was naturally a woman’s position as well, since it was like a “surrogate mother” (49). Early teaching contracts included rules to live healthfully (get sleep, eat well), to “be the willing servant of the schoolboard and the townspeople” (50), and not to fall in love or get married. Many teachers were therefore young women, and turnover was common.
Pages 55-107 Summary: “Homework”
The third section of the book details Holyoke’s past and Chris Zajac’s own history. Holyoke is an industrial town. Irish immigrants built it, and it has several paper mills, making more paper than any other city in the world around the turn of the century. Kelly School is in a section of town called The Flats. It was the hub of the city during its heyday, and Chris grew up only a few blocks from the school. Her father worked at one of the paper mills. Holyoke declined from the 1950s through the 1970s, and by the time Kidder was shadowing Mrs. Zajac for this book in the 1980s, the city was like many former industrial powerhouses throughout the country. Puerto Rican immigrants moved to the Flats steadily over that time, and by the 1980s, Kelly School is majority Hispanic (and mostly Puerto Rican). Kelly School’s founders built it to be an inspirational and aspirational building for the town, but vandals have graffitied much of the exterior so it looks more run-down than it should.
This section details how Mrs. Zajac grades her students’ work. With each grade, she evaluates how they, comparing it to how she expected to them to do, and she makes notes about any follow up needed to move them in the correct direction. One student, Dick, is from upper-class Highlands. He offers to help Pedro, who needs help with spelling, and Jimmy, a sleepy student who stays up almost all night and didn’t do well on the test.
Claude is a student who perpetually has an excuse for not having his homework, and another student, Blanca, has a troubled home life that makes Mrs. Zajac concerned for her safety. Mrs. Zajac can’t do much about the students’ home lives, but she can have them assessed for academic issues using “cores,” which involved looking at the child’s background and putting them through a series of tests. It takes a long time to get a core started, and they don’t always result in better outcomes, but sometimes they help identify students who need more help. Mrs. Zajac decides that Pedro needs a core.
Part 1 Analysis
The first part of this book, comprising “September,” “Awakenings,” and “Homework” introduces the characters and setting for the book, and all the important elements of Mrs. Zajac as a teacher and the students in her class. Part 1 discusses the principal and some history of education in America. Finally, it provides details concerning the town of Holyoke and its own history, which is important background to understand the school and students. Arguably, one of the most important aspects of these first sections is understanding Mrs. Zajac’s perspective on her students and her role as a teacher. Somewhat surprisingly, Mrs. Zajac is minimally concerned about the content of her lessons. She knows she has to cover certain topics, but the curriculum is largely set by others. Her focus is on motivating students to put in effort at school. She recognizes that many students don’t come to her classroom thinking school is particularly important, and she wants to change that opinion so they have better options in their future.
Mrs. Zajac’s perspective is that her students want to learn and want to do well. She doesn’t approach teaching the way many other teachers do: that only some students can learn, or that it’s only worth teaching the ones who want to learn. Mrs. Zajac realizes that she does not know everything happening in the students’ lives, and she knows that some things at home or elsewhere may have led them down a path of apathy, or even hostility, towards authority figures and school. She thinks these students want to learn and just need the right motivation do it. She believes that showing students that they are already capable and already worth teaching will help them focus and try in school.
Mrs. Zajac’s statements are always framed in terms of wanting to see each student’s best effort, and she believes that they can be smart if they study and do their homework. She uses her presence and proximity to students to show them that she cares—an important message for students. She doesn’t read students’ past histories immediately to avoid biasing her views of them before she’s even met them. She understands that those biases are what led people to dismiss these students previously.
Perspective is an important theme across the book, as the perspectives of different characters often conflict, such as Mrs. Zajac and parents, Mrs. Zajac and other teachers, and Mrs. Zajac and her students, and these conflicting perspectives from the core of solving problems in the book. When students don’t see the work as important, Mrs. Zajac has to figure out why so she can convince them it is important. When parents have other home concerns for their children, Mrs. Zajac has to figure out how to make them see what is happening at school and figure out what will work for each family.
This section also introduces other key themes. We learn about the importance of race and nationality in Holyoke, with Puerto Rican students seen as less trustworthy and less competent. As the author describes, “Holyoke remains a balkanized city. The divisions used to be more numerous. Only one sharp ethnic division exists anymore—between Puerto Ricans, the latest newcomers, and practically everyone else” (66).
This section explores how time affects teaching and Mrs. Zajac’s goals for her students. She must always balance the need to move forward in the curriculum and with the day and the needs of students who are not mastering the material. Moving on means these students fall farther behind but staying on a topic for too long means they don’t cover the required material, and the students who are mastering the material will languish.
Kidder points out that history is integral to the school environment. Both Holyoke’s history and the history of education affect how Mrs. Zajac does her job, the expectations placed on students and teachers, and the specific issues Kelly School faces. Holyoke has always been a working-class industrial town, but it’s former status as bustling and important leads to constant comparisons between contemporary Holyoke and the “good days.”
Additionally, teaching has some unique quirks, such as teachers receiving little training before becoming responsible for an entire classroom. They also have almost complete autonomy in their classrooms, and as the author states: “[P]ublic education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid” (52), which is a status seen in few other professions. This history means that teachers are uniquely powerful but must learn as they go, opening the possibility of having underqualified and ineffective teachers whose classroom environments could have serious consequences for students.
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