Chalk It up to Experience: The Sacrificial Image of the Teacher in Popular Media, 1945–1959

Sitting alone at his classroom desk after school, Beaver quietly reads from a book. He is catching up on a day’s work he has missed, when he skipped school because he was afraid of the contents of a note his second-grade teacher sent home with him. After erasing the blackboard, his teacher Miss Canfield turns, says he can stop studying, and sits at a student’s desk to face Beaver. He subsequently learns that her note asked permission of his parents for Beaver to play Smokey the Bear. Beaver looks downcast, and Miss Canfield gently raises his chin with her hand to talk with him.