Education in To Kill a Mockingbird

to judge people like that. This is what Atticus told Scout: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. Miss Caroline also plays a role in this lesson, because without her there would be no lesson to learn. Harper Lee thinks very clearly about how she presents this lesson. Also, Atticus makes Scout go to school, this suggests that he cares about her education and that he thinks it plays an important role in people’s lives. That is also an important message that Harper Lee is trying to transmit. Atticus Finch is virtually unique in the novel because he has experienced and understood evil without losing his faith in the human capacity for goodness. Most people have both good and bad qualities.

The important thing is to appreciate the good qualities and understand the bad qualities by treating others with sympathy and trying to see life from their perspective. Atticus tries to teach this lesson to Jem and Scout to show them that it is possible to live with conscience without losing hope. In this way, Atticus is able to admire Mrs. Dubose’s courage even while deploring her racism. Miss Maudie teaches the children what is meant by civilized when Atticus shoots the mad dog. He is a good shooter with the rifle, but he decided long ago that "Atticus would only shoot when it was absolutely necessary to do so".

The children learn a lesson about how very civilized their father is and what it means to be civilized. Atticus tries to teach Jem and

Scout about courage. When Ms Dubose died Atticus “wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. ” “It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin". Atticus tried to teach them a lesson by using Ms Dubose because he thought that “she was the bravest person I ever knew” and he wanted them to learn it from her. Mrs.

Dubose was fighting an addiction to morphine and was trying to stay alive without the use of the medicine. After she died Atticus told Jem and Scout: "Mrs. Dubose is a morphine addict, she took it as a pain killer for years" As Scout and Jem went to read to her every day it was a distraction for Mrs. Dubose. She passed and Both Jem and Scout realize the truth about her. They ended up seeing a person with real courage because she portrays it by cutting down on her medicine even though she knew it would be painful.

Atticus also teaches Scout another valuable lesson. Scout likes to settle disagreements with her fists, but over the course of the novel she begins to control her temper and use her head instead of her fists. He tries to make her to use words instead of violence to solve problems and express feelings. One day at school Cecil Jacobs was being rather mean to Scout, and she was getting ready to punch her, but then she realised that “Atticus had promised me he would wear me out if he ever heard of me fighting anymore. He thought that she “was far too old

and too big” and that “the sooner I learned” to keep it in her “the better off everybody would be”. She “soon forgot”. This shows that she learnt from it and that she kept Atticus’s promise. In conclusion I think that Harper Lee develops lots of great ideas about education in a good and bad way. She criticizes some of the ways in which education is taught in the south, but also creates a good view of different types of teaching. She contrasts traditional and modern values.

A lot of lessons are taught to Jem and Scout throughout the novel, especially by Atticus. The way in which the characters fit perfectly into the story helps to pass the message of education because of the trust we have on Atticus. We also see how these lessons affect the character because we see if they react to them by learning them and putting them to use. Scout definitely evolves during the novel because we see that she is impacted by the lessons that she has learnt. 987 words