49 pages • 1 hour read
AviThe Secret School
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Education as the Right Path
Ida wants desperately to finish eighth grade so she can go to high school and, eventually, become a teacher. The sudden loss of Miss Fletcher forces Ida and her rural community to confront the importance of education and, despite resistance by some residents, take a stand for the value of knowledge in a modernizing world.
Elk Valley in 1925 is a farming community where farm work comes before everything else. If the animals aren’t fed, or the crops don’t get brought in, a family could starve. Despite this, the locals also believe their children will benefit from learning to read and write, knowing basic math, and understanding the history and values of their country. To this end, they establish a schoolhouse where kids can get a primary education.
When the teacher, Miss Fletcher, suddenly must move away, school board chairman Mr. Jordan uses the chance to save money by cutting short the school year. Like many farmers, he doesn’t see much use in teaching kids things they can’t use on the farm. He especially takes issue with educating girls: He believes they’re mainly good for raising babies and keeping house.
Ida is intelligent, resourceful, and inquisitive, and she wants to complete her schooling. She dreams of becoming a teacher, which requires much study. If she can complete her school year and pass the eighth-grade exit exam, she can advance to high school. Unwilling to give up her dream, she keeps the school open by serving as its teacher. The faraway sounds she hears on Tom’s radio remind her that there’s more to the world than farming. This attitude is precisely what Mr. Jordan and his allies want to suppress.
The other students also want to finish the school year, so they agree with Ida to keep their studies a secret, lest Mr. Jordan find out and force them from the schoolhouse.
Ida faces resistance from her parents and nearby farmer, Mr. Bixler. Her folks want Ida to be educated, but not at the expense of her duties on the farm. Mr. Bixler, whose farm is struggling, badly needs the help of his son, Herbert, and he resents the boy’s absences to attend school.
Herbert, a bright kid caught between his interest in learning about the world and his obligations to his dad, often fails to attend school, which makes him fall behind. He resolves the tension by pretending not to care about learning, acting up in class, and claiming he’s not very smart. Ida’s best efforts to help him aren’t enough to keep him from flunking his grade. Herbert finally realizes that the only way he’ll learn about the world is to join the Navy and see it.
At a school board meeting meant to shut down the school permanently, Ida arrives with community members, and she makes an ardent plea to keep the school open. The townsfolk realize that their halting efforts to educate their children have been sabotaged by their school board chairman. They make it clear that, despite the possibility that the modern world will flow into their community and carry away their children, they want those kids to benefit from an education.
Ida’s effort to finish her school year thus leads to success for the rest of her classroom of students, and it reinforces in her community a commitment to education as the path to a better future.
Passing the Test of Adulthood
To achieve her goal of finishing eighth grade, advancing to high school, and, beyond that, to a teaching career, Ida must take on multiple tasks. She must serve as the schoolhouse teacher to seven other students, continue to perform her chores at her family farm, study on her own account to pass her exit exam; and convince a community that has mixed feelings about education to support her efforts. In doing all this, Ida grows as a person. She accepts responsibility for her success, juggles demanding tasks, exercises gritty persistence, and learns to put the other students’ needs ahead of hers.
The first thing Ida decides is to take on the job of teacher. This responsibility frightens her, and she almost gives up before she starts: “Maybe I’m too scared” (34). Tom points out that she’ll be more scared if she doesn’t make it to high school. Ida decides that keeping the school open by doing the teaching is a burden she can take on. In doing so, she takes her first step into the larger world of grown-up responsibility.
Suddenly Ida’s workload doubles. She must teach for several hours a day, do her chores at home, study for her test, and try to get enough sleep. Simply juggling all of these takes energy, and she must learn to do multiple things simultaneously. For example, “she parsed sentences in her head as she milked Bluebell” (105), studies while eating, recites passages while driving, and finds ways to get the students to answer questions on their own while she practices for her test.
The relentless demands of her schedule force Ida to grind through tasks day after day. She develops a gritty, relentless persistence that helps her finish all that’s demanded of her. She looks forward to teaching, and this enjoyment helps to anchor her determination.
As the teacher, Ida learns quickly that it’s a demanding, challenging job but immensely satisfying as well. Working with the other students, she begins to care more and more for them and their welfare, a sign of a good teacher. Before long, she has chosen to put their success above her own. She’s willing to fail the exit exam as long as everyone else passes.
Combined, these traits form the foundations of adulthood. Ida’s quest demands the best of her, and the trial she undergoes imbues in her the responsibility, grit, and selflessness of a grown-up. The experience also provides her with the basic techniques of a teacher. Thus, Ida becomes the very thing she has dreamt of being. Not only is she now equipped with many essential teaching skills, but she has also passed the ultimate test of growing up. She has graduated into adulthood.
Honesty Is Mostly the Best Policy
If Ida and the other students want to finish their school year, they must do so in secret to keep Mr. Jordan from interfering. They thus form a pact to tell no one about their ambitious plans. Keeping this secret, though, is harder than they expect, and it’s Ida herself who reveals it to their opponents. Still, Ida learns that others will flock to her aid if she speaks her truth sincerely and honestly.
Failing to ask permission from the school board violates school policy, but at least it isn’t a lie. Though she won’t volunteer information about their secret school, Ida simply can’t lie about it or anything. Deceit isn’t in her character. When confronted, especially by adults, Ida tells the truth on the spot. Strangely, almost every time she does so, the other person takes her side.
At home, she tries to evade the reason for her sudden need to get to school earlier, but when pressed, she tells her father why. Though nonplussed and skeptical, he accepts her plan: “I won’t quarrel none” (45). Still, he insists she complete her chores as usual, and she agrees. Other students also face awkward moments with their own families, but no parent objects to the kids’ little conspiracy: It can only benefit them, and at worst, no harm will come of it. Telling the truth, if only because they have to, doesn’t hurt their cause because the goal is a good one.
Miss Sedgewick visits the school and meets Ida, who at first hides the fact that she, the teacher, is only 14. Ida realizes, though, that if she doesn’t admit her role, Miss Sedgewick will never administer the exit exam that the girl so badly needs. She thus owns up to her awkward role as a fill-in teacher. Naturally, Miss Sedgewick is surprised, but she’s also intrigued. She knows a smart and good kid when she sees one, and Ida’s project neatly solves the problem of a missing teacher and prevents the loss of a school year. Instead of quashing the plan when she learns the real story, she decides to help Ida.
Telling the truth does backfire on one occasion. Ironically, it’s Ida who spills the beans to her opponents when, searching for Herbert, she visits Mr. Bixler’s farm and blurts out that she’s the new teacher. Bixler doesn’t want his son in school at all—he thinks it’s a waste of time when there’s farm work to do. He coordinates with Mr. Jordan to try to shut down the school altogether. Ida’s mistake isn’t being honest but telling her secret to someone who doesn’t have her best interests at heart.
Mr. Jordan has already neglected to inform the township about the departure of Miss Fletcher, and he’s heard no complaints. He schedules a school board meeting without informing the rest of the township to push through a vote to kill off the school altogether. Herbert betrays his father by telling the truth about it to Ida. With Tom’s help, she tells the truth about the conspiracy to 20 farming families who didn’t know they were about to be cheated out of their kids’ schooling. With Ida’s help, the parents help save the day, and the school is preserved.
Aside from her unfortunate encounter with Mr. Bixler, Ida’s policy of telling the truth when asked earns her support from her family, neighbors, and county school inspector Miss Sedgewick. Ida learns that if she’s sincere and open in her desire to do something that will benefit the neighborhood, even if it’s unusual or outside the usual way of doing things, the community will come to her aid.
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