The Teacher
Mr Parkhill is the point-of-view character in the stories, a staid, kind-hearted, mild-mannered teacher with a tendency to think of his pupils in terms of classical literature. Mr Parkhill is rigorously fair-minded, often to his own detriment when faced with Mr Kaplan's very individual brand of logic. He is also a lonely and rather tragic character: when the class present him with a new briefcase with the initials "M.P." on it as a birthday present, he is at first puzzled since his first name does not begin with M; then realizes that the letters stand for "Mr Parkhill" and that he cannot remember the last time anyone addressed him by his first name.
Read more about this topic: Hyman Kaplan
Famous quotes containing the word teacher:
“A teacher can but lead you to the door; learning is up to you.”
—Chinese proverb.
“The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. In our system, she must become a passive, much more than an active, influence, and her passivity shall be composed of anxious scientific curiosity and of absolute respect for the phenomenon which she wishes to observe. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.”
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952)