Gryphon Short Story

The short story Gryphon by Charles Baxter has an unusual character, a new substitute teacher at the rural community of Five Oaks in Michigan. The students meet with the strange lady who brings them strange yet fascinating lectures. Miss Ferenczi could be an exceptional teacher in a suitable environment, with her willingness to break the boundary in teaching method, her lectures on new materials never presented in textbooks, and her influence to help the students explore new things.

I wonder if there would be any teacher daring enough to tell the class "six times eleven could be sixty eight." Miss Ferenczi accepts the normal mathematical answer, but she also provides a different view and solution to the math problem, because "it 's more interesting that way." When the narrator boy could not spell "balcony" she whispered to him; that the word is ugly and if he does not like a word, he does not have to use it. The students who have the wrong answer and the wrong spelling would always remember the right answers that way; moreover they do not feel ashamed of their wrong reply. They feel better when they are accepted and gently guided toward the
It is amazing how Miss Ferenczi captures the kids ' interest, make them focus to a point that "no one even went to the bathroom." With their old teacher Mr. Hibler, the students would chatter and whisper during the lecture, but with Miss Ferenczi they sit still and are fascinated with her lecturing. They are astounded at a plant that can kill animals, they are eager to discuss whether a half bird and half lion monster is real. They go home excitedly and dig up the dictionary to find out and feel "fabulous" to discover a new myth. She creates an "information hunger" in the children to explore, to discover new things that most teachers can hardly ever