37
with her curiosity of something which is interesting, she is considered as a curious girl. Sheila was curious about the flower that she had not ever seen before.
Before Sheila was taught by Torey, she was an uncontrolled child. Sheila expressed her unpleasant feeling through anger. After Sheila was getting closer to
Torey, Sheila never showed the uncontrolled behavior. The uncontrollable of Sheila changed into curiosity because she was a child who could not be calm in
everywhere. She could control herself through asking to Torey if she did not understand about something or situation.
d. Responsible
Hurlock 1972 states that the teacher affects the child’s self-concept by her attitude toward his academic work and his school behavior directly. The
students in Torey’s class had never been forced to finish their work. Whenever they wanted to finish, it was all up to the students. Sheila was one of the students
who showed a personality development. Sheila was a smart child actually. She got 182 for her IQ test. Yet, she never wanted to do the paperwork, writing, or
exercised math. After a few days learning in that class, she became excited if she was given many tasks. She loved exercise math. She had ever asked Torey to give
a paper to do paperwork. She was able to finish written assignments. Academically Sheila sailed. She willingly did almost anything I gave her
to do p. 185.
The class had an event on a Mother’s Day. They prepared for having a play performance. The children were all excited about the event. Sheila was one
38
of the students who had a chance to participate on the play. She played as Dorothy on the play. She sang a song and said a poem.
“I’m gonna be a Dorothy and Torey’s gonna braid my hair up in pigtails. An’ I’m gonna sing a song and say a poem, and my Pa’s gonna be here
and watch me” p. 276.
According to Murphy 1972, personal traits of the character can be seen through the author description and her speech. From Sheila’s act in dealing with
her action, she is considered as a responsible little girl.
B. Torey Hayden’s Teaching Style in “Garbage Class”
A school that was led by Mr. Collins as the headmaster was a living institution of knowledge for the special children. There were classes for the
emotionally disturbed, classes for the physically handicapped, classes for the behaviorally disordered, classes for the learning disabled, and a class for students
who were not included in the classification namely “garbage class”. It was the Torey’s class.
The teaching points of the school were much different from the conventional schools. In the “garbage class”, Sheila had a freedom to study. Torey
as the teacher valued naturalness and wanted to let children’s develop as naturally as possible. Her aim was to uncover and develop their good nature, so that the
children would grow into people with individuality. Excellent teacher styles are used to categorize Torey’s teaching style. It
blended the attention to the child as an individual with rights and claims of his
39
own characteristics. The eight teaching styles of excellent teachers from Copple and Bredekamp 2009 were used to analyze the data.
1. Acknowledging What Children Do or Say
According to Copple and Bredekamp 2009, the teachers acknowledge what the children do or say. It means that the teachers let the children know that
giving children positive attention, sometimes through comments or just sitting nearby and observing can build the students interest to join the class activity.
Sheila arrived at the new school. She met Torey as the teacher in her new class. Something unexpected had happened. In the first meeting, Torey did not ask
anything about her. She gathered the children around her. They began the class with a morning discussion. One by one of the children gave comments about the
topic that Torey gave, except Sheila. Torey just let Sheila listen to the morning discussion in the class.
“Now, who’s got a topic?” Everyone sat around me on the floor. No one spoke.
“No one has a topic? Well then, I’ve got one: what do you suppose it feels like when you’re new and don’t know anyone, or maybe you just
want to be part of a group and no one wants you? How’s that feel inside?” p. 20.
The cited story above happened when the class studied math. Sheila was given a paper but wadded it up and threw it. She did not want to do the task.
Torey did not only give a freedom to Sheila to do anything she wanted, but also taught her about being responsible. Torey told Sheila that there were only two
