Among School Children

Chris Zajac is the main character of the book. She is the teacher Tracy Kidder follows for one year as she teaches a 5th grade class. Kidder first depicts her as a competent and firm teacher. She has a set of rules and expectations for her class that she lays down immediately and enforces without question. Her high expectations, however, are not about outcomes, but about process. She expects each student’s best effort instead of a specific level of quality. She realizes that they all enter her classroom with different abilities, and she should expect them to work hard and progress, but she does not necessarily expect them all to be at the same level.

Mrs. Zajac is also conscientious about bias and attempts to minimize bias in her classroom. The school where she teaches is over half Puerto Rican students, and yet the teachers are still mostly white, and many are biased against the Puerto Rican students in their classrooms. Mrs. Zajac actively searches for the beauty in her students and tries to notice when she is defaulting to biased views. She is largely successful, but even she can’t ignore the reality that Puerto Rican families are more often poor and struggle to help their children succeed. She does not pretend that the students will not face challenges because of their race and social class.

Mrs. Zajac is mostly optimistic. She manages to maintain the hope that she will reach her difficult students and turn them into model students. She acknowledges that she will not reach all of them, but she still holds out hope. That hope helps her not give up on students and helps her work hard to come up with potential solutions. However, that same hope can cause conflict when she isn’t able to reach a student. With Clarence, she feels she failed him despite trying many different approaches. She does not like the final outcome, and she agonizes over his future. Her hope means she feels disappointment when the outcome isn’t what she wanted, but her hope is also what keeps her going each year.

Clarence is Mrs. Zajac’s most difficult student. She even thinks that he may be the most difficult student she has ever had to teach. Clarence is a boy who wants to do whatever he wants and lashes out any time he gets punished. He is stubborn and sometimes violent, but he can also be sweet and insightful. Mrs. Zajac struggles to control his outbursts and make him do his work.

Clarence is a boy of contradictions. The first contradiction is that he clearly wants attention and love, but he lashes out at the slightest criticism, often alienating those around him who would show him love. Mrs. Zajac receives good responses when she praises him, but to hold him to the same standards as other students, she must scold him when he does not do his work. Her scolding inevitably results in him taking out his frustration on another student, often violently, which gets him suspended or at least sent to the principal’s office.

Another of Clarence’s contradictions is his refusal to do his schoolwork while having the clear ability to do it. The few times he tries at school, he actually does quite well. However, he refuses to do his work, even when kept in for recess or kept after school. His home life may hold many answers to this contradiction, a theme that is common for children in the book.

Clarence’s mother features more prominently in the book than many other parents because of his behavior. Many of the stories about her demonstrate the parenting themes in the book, including difficulties getting parents involved in their children’s education. Clarence’s mother, not unlike Clarence, shows signs of interest in helping him succeed, but then she fails to follow through or stick with arranged plans. Parents also don’t always see the situation the same way teachers do. Clarence’s mother struggles with the decision to send Clarence to Alpha class, as she claims that he was doing well in Mrs. Zajac’s class, despite repeated suspensions and unfinished homework. Clearly, the teachers and principal saw the situation differently, but Clarence’s mother may have been reacting to improvement, even if small, in Clarence’s behavior and approach to school.