Gryphon Essay

473 Words2 Pages
8. Home Reading. Ch. Baxter – speak on his style and his place in the world literature. Give your opinion on the story “Gryphon” by Ch. Baxter. Do you approve of Miss Ferenczi's methods of teaching. Would you like your child to be taught by a teacher like Miss Ferenczi? Charles Baxter is an American author of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. He is the author of two novels and four collections of stories. He is affable in many regards, famous for his gentle, dry wit, his modesty, his intelligence, and his generosity with his students. As for his short story “Gryphon” it is about a few days in the life of a fourth grade class, specifically, a few days spent with a unique substitute teacher Miss Ferenczi. Speaking about her style of teaching I would like to admit that she is very open and forward in her ideas and thoughts, something that children are just not used to. So this method of teaching is dramatically different for the students and the other teachers. The woman teaches children to have wonder in their life. An occurrence that created stress in the story was when the children were doing the times table and she told them that six times eleven was sixty-eight, which is untrue. This is stressful because there is a conflicting opinion between the teacher and the students. What’s revealed is a lesson for the children. She teaches that not everything in life has to be concrete, and she teaches them to use their imagination, not to take given information. Since the students live in a poor farming region these odd ideas that Ferenczi introduces can be extremely foolish. The students who haven’t been exposed to these ideas are fascinated by Ferenczi’s openness to tell outlandish stories. The older people in the town however are not so open to ideas she put into the fresh minds of the children. Ferenczi gets fired for this reason. Of course I don’t approve of such
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