No apples no stealing
The Teacher told a story about a man who has an apple tree with dozens apples on it, but one day when he came he saw no apples there because they were stolen. The next day he asks his student if he had taken anything without permission and the student answers the he had, but it wasn’t stealing because he hadn’t picked apples. It was mangoes and if it wasn’t apples there wasn’t stealing. The irony is that the child understood the teacher’s story literary and didn’t get its metaphorical meaning. It happened because of the cultural differences and that is why the student considers that he can take anything without permission and it won’t be regarded as thief, but if he will take apples it will be real stealing.
Teacher’s Methods
When children pronounced sounds incorrectly, especially when they reduced the sound r, the Teacher started mocking them, “teasing, scolding, yelling, frowning and taping with his ruler”, he called the whole class to witness: “Just listen to that brute!” and then he demonstrated the correct pronunciation with his lips, interrupting the pupil or asking “fresh-from France kid” to produce the sound correctly. Then he finally was satisfied and calmed down while all the students were trembling from fear. The teacher is depicted as hotheaded person who can’t explain something again and considers that the mocking is the best clarification method for little children who don’t even understand what he wants.
Teacher’s Arms
The Teacher had special switches, which were his arms. When a student pronounced the word without r sound or spoke Creole which was strictly forbidden, the Teacher used his arm to “convince” student that he should learn better. He even gave names to his switches: there were Durandal, Excalibur, Quicklime, the Snake, Attila, Hiroshima and many others. Depending on his mood, there were different kinds of punishment: to stand at the seat, or behind the blackboard, or facing the wall at the back of classroom, the pupil might be pinched on the shoulder, or dragged up to the blackboard “like a baby goat in a Hindu sacrifice”. The irony is that he treats his “weapon” better than his students, he gives each switch a name of great swords, warriors because he is sure that they help him to bring the light of knowledge to these supposedly "stupid" Creole children.
Teacher’s Pets
The Teacher had his pets, those who possessed light skin and fluffy hair. They know French a little, and they didn’t have any Creole customs, which the Teacher derisively called “ol-nigger ways”. That’s why he tried to ignore Big Bellybutton’s abilities in calculating. He was less severe with his pets, if they didn’t know the right answer, he didn’t throw anything at them, but repeated the question with great patience, because “they didn’t hear it correctly, that’s all”. But there were rare phenomena when he scolded them, he never used wounding words, never reached Durandal or Excalibur like he did with other pupils. Even if these did something wrong, they could always find the protection under the Teacher’s wings and unfortunately, other children didn’t have such tremendous opportunity. Here we can see a division of the class into good and bad, and it is ironic that this division is taking according to the category of social status and appearance but not according to their talents or knowledge.
