Gryphon Short Story

In the story Gryphon, by Charles Baxter, a boy named Tommy who goes to Five Oaks elementary meets an interesting new teacher. As the story begins, Tommy’s teacher, Mr.Hibler, tells his class that he has been feeling sick today and won’t be coming to class tomorrow. The next day, someone amazing comes in the classroom and turns out to be no ordinary substitute teacher. As the day goes on, she tells her students unusual stories and everyone loved the stories/facts. In the story it says “There was not a sound in the classroom, except for Miss Ferenczi’s voice, and Donna DeShano’s coughing. No one even went to the bathroom.“ The next time Miss Ferenczi came to their classroom was early December. This time Miss Ferenczi brought tarot cards so that she can determine her students future and unfortunately she got in trouble. Later that day Miss Ferenczi was fired and left the school. Tommy defended Miss Ferenczi because she made school interesting, was different than other teachers, and really cared for her students.

Tommy was interested and inspired by Miss Ferenczi because she told secrets to him that he had never known. She taught

the class in a nontraditional method that made them to think in an imaginative way. In the story it also tells that Tommy is usually a boy who does only chores in the house and has a simple life. But when Miss Ferenczi comes to his classroom he gets inspired into thinking freely and he also learned from Miss Ferenczi that if you don’t like it you don’t have to do it. One example about when Miss Ferenczi tells Tommy that if you don’t like it you don’t have to do it is when Tommy kept spelling boundary wrong like balcony and Tommy spelled it wrong Balconey and Balconie and Miss Ferenczi told “I don’t like that word either,” “It’s ugly. My feeling is, if you don’t like a word, you don’t have to use it.” Finally, Tommy gets inspired when Miss Ferenczi tells him that you can do anything.
Tommy likes Miss Ferenczi because he can do and think anything in anyway he wants in school.

Another example is when John Wazny was told to recite the tables of six. About six times eleven equals sixty eight and not sixty six and everybody disagrees about it being sixty eight. Then Miss Ferenczi tells “Besides, I’m your substitute teacher, am I not?” We all nodded. “Well, then, think of six times eleven equals sixty-eight as a substitute fact.”. But in real life there is no such thing as a substitute fact and Miss Ferenczi told it was a substitute fact because she thought it was just one mistake for the multiplication so she made an excuse that it was just a substitute fact. What she meant is that it is ok to make just one mistake and everyone should not make a big deal with just one mistake. For these reasons Tommy defended Miss

Ferenczi.
In the story what I observed was that Tommy always has to get the tomatoes and do chore, homework,and more.But when Miss Ferenczi enters his life she taught him do what you want to do and, she also taught him things she imagines. Then Tommy got carried away about when she taught him what she thought in her mind. What I think is that Tommy loves to think freely/in an imaginative way but since he always has lot of work he does not have time to think freely. One example about how his mom is strict about tommy doing his chores and how he does not have time to think freely is “Hi, Mom,” I said, hopping around the playpen to kiss her, “Guess what?” “I have no idea.” “We had this substitute today, Miss Ferenczi, and I’d never seen her before, and she had all these stories and ideas and stuff.” then, “Did you hear me?” my mother asked, raising her arm to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand. “You have chores to do.” “I know,” I said. “I was just telling you about the substitute.”. To end these are some examples of why Tommy loves being imaginative.
To end, Tommy defended Miss Ferenczi because he loves interesting ideas. Some examples were when Miss Ferenczi thought it is ok to make mistakes and you do not have to do something that you don’t like. Finally I think the reason why Tommy Defended Mrs.Ferenczi is because he loved the way she taught.