Ms. Bixby's Last Day

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains a description of death, a traumatic work accident, and fighting.

“The last kind we simply called the Good Ones. The ones who make the torture otherwise known as school somewhat bearable. You know when you have one of the Good One [sic] because you find yourself actually paying attention in class, even if it’s not art class. They’re the teachers you actually want to go back and say hi to the next year. The ones you don’t want to disappoint.

Like Ms. B.”

Breaking from the present narrative, in which a girl he accused of having cooties chases hi, Topher describes six categories of teachers, only one of which he characterizes as acceptable and worthy. From the first meeting and the playground encounter, Anderson makes clear that Maggie is unpredictable and fully engaged in the lives of her students. She senses where they are emotionally, intellectually, and developmentally and responds accordingly.

“She cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention and thanked me for sharing. Then she said, ‘To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.’ And she looked right at me and smiled, and I smiled back, because I like her quotes. I have most of them memorized too.”

After Steve shares with the sixth-grade class the news of his honorable mention medal in a talent contest, to the scorn of a fellow student, Maggie offers this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. This passage is indicative of how the teacher responds to conversations and student interactions with proverbs from historical figures. 

“I didn’t pick Ms. Bixby, either. Just dumb luck, I guess. Or maybe she picked me, though I doubt it. […] I’m pretty sure that the teachers don’t gather around a list of names like dodgeball captains and take turns drafting whichever students they want. If they did, I would probably be one of the last ones picked. […] I don’t stand out. Maybe you could say it was fate, but I don’t think so. You start believing that things were supposed to happen a certain way, you start to ask questions that nobody has answers for.”

While Topher lives in an ever-changing fantasy and Steve dwells in a world of hard facts and statistics, Brand, speaking here, is the tragically philosophical one of the three, often speaking despairingly of his life. He says he only has Topher and Steve as friends because they let him sit with them at lunch. He does not know how he lucked into having Maggie as his teacher, since all the rising sixth graders wanted in her class.