Chapter 6-9 (The Water is Wide)

“I expected her to praise me profusely, tell me what an outstanding job I was doing, and offer to help me in any way possible.”

I chose this sentence because it was funny to me. This is what Mr. Conroy was thinking when he told Mrs. Brown about his idea to take the children to Beaufort for Halloween. The sentence is funny to me because I cannot believe Mr. Conroy would have thought that Mrs. Brown would act in that way. She is always criticizing his teaching styles and what he does with his students. I do not see how he thought she would have praised him and helped him.

Chapters 6-9 showed so much about what kind of people Mr. Conroy and Mrs. Brown are. Throughout the chapters Mrs. Brown was constantly fussing about something Mr. Conroy and his students were doing. Like when the children had cut out pictures that Picasso had designed of women. She claimed it was a disgrace because they were naked women, or in her word (wimmin). Mrs. Brown for some reason despised people of her own color. She talked down about them and degraded them. It is really sad that she is not proud of who she is. I also find it sad that she believes in physically assaulting the children to keep them under control. She is not a good teacher because in my opinion she does not have good social skills.

Mr. Conroy on the other hand has done so much for these children in these chapters. He gave them a Halloween experience that no one had ever had. He also took the children to see the Harlem Globetrotters in Charleston. I found that so admirable and wonderful of him because as he said it was the farthest any of the children had been from the island and probably was the only chance they would ever have to get away. It was in a way sad that Mr. Conroy moved home and just commuted to the island but I understand why he did. The kind of person he is though he still but 100% effort into his students at the school on Yamacraw Island.