, Research Paper

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

The book, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, is about a immature miss named Katherine who is forced to go forth her elegant place in Barbados to populate with relations in puritan New England after her gramps s decease. Katherine has a difficult clip accepting the dramatic difference between the two civilizations. For case, in the beginning of the book Katherine dives into the river to recover a plaything for a kid on the boat. The New Englanders aboard the ship stare at her with disapproval because they were non accustomed to adult females that knew how to swim. By the terminal of the book Katherine is charged as a enchantress because she chose to befriend a Quaker adult female and refused to wholly reform to the puritan manner of life.

Education plays a large function in this book in two ways. This novel shows the puritan manner of learning. It besides describes the Puritan position of who and what instruction was meant for.

One of Katherine s occupations during her clip in New England was to teache in a dame school. In her category she was suppose to learn the kids their alphabet and basic reading accomplishments. The proper manner to learn the kids was through memorisation and repeat. Katherine found this instruction manner drilling and less effectual than her ain instruction manner which used Poe

attempt and moving to maintain kids attending. One of Katherine’s lesson programs got out of manus. She had the kids act out a portion of the Bible and it created a battle between a few of the pupils. As the break occurred the caput maestro of the school walked in to the room. He was mortified non merely at the misbehaviour of the kids but besides at the activity Katherine had created. Katherine was fired as a consequence of this incident. This portion of the book showed that Puritans taught through repeat and memorisation and frowned on creativeness in the schoolroom. It is besides evident how much act upon their faith had on instruction.

I another portion of the book Katherine decides to learn a kid, who is unable to travel to school, to read. Katherine used a hornbook and subsequently the Bible to learn the kid. This portion of the narrative shows the two chief stuffs used to learn kids at this clip. It besides points out that non all kids were allowed to travel to school.

This book gives a good illustration of how kids were taught during the seventeenth century in the New England settlements. You can besides see that faith had a great influence on instruction during this clip period. By reading this book I have realized how much the instruction system has changed, and in my sentiment improved, since this state s get downing.