To the Discussion Leader
Sarah Jane Price has a problem. She is fourteen and alone in Broken Bow, Nebraska in 1881. Her beloved father, the town's school teacher, is dead from black diphtheria fever and concerned elders in the town believe Sarah should be sent to live in the Orphan Girls Asylum eighty miles away. Negative stories about the asylum convince Sarah Jane that going there is not an option. She needs money and decides her father has taught her enough so that she could take his place as the new teacher. Young Sarah Jane faces many obstacles in her quest to take over her father's position. Several of the school board members are against her; she must lie about her age; and when she is reluctantly given the job, her sod school is not much more than a earthen cave devoid of books, furniture, and even an outhouse.
Award-winning author Jim Murphy uses his highly praised skills as a researcher to weave Sarah Jane Price's tapestry showing a child forced to mature quickly, take on the responsibility of teaching, and heroically shoulder the safety of her students. Jim Murphy manages to show readers what education was like on the American prairie from the McGuffey Readers to the necessity of students teaching each other in a one room sod schoolhouse that housed students at all grade levels.
My Face to the Wind: The Diary of Sarah Jane Price, a Prairie Teacher is also a story of courage and determination. Sarah Jane learns to face challenges from powerful elders as well as from an often hostile prairie environment. Jim Murphy says that he was inspired to write this book after seeing a photograph of a determined teacher and her class in front of their sod schoolhouse. He remembers thinking, "Wow, going to school must have been an adventure back then." From that inspiration, he succeeds in telling Sarah Jane's adventure while also shining a light on America's westward expansion, daily life on the prairie, and public education in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
Summary
"Father says if I write in this diary I will see the world differently. But with Father gone my world is nothing but wind and dry grass, more wind and more dry grass. And an empty feeling inside." As fourteen-year old Sarah Jane Price writes these words, she feels truly alone. It is 1881 in Nebraska. Sarah Jane and her father have come to the remote settlement of Broken Bow when he was given the job of teaching school there. For as long as she can remember, Sarah Jane has traveled with her father as they moved from town to town, "always staying for a school term or two, then moving west for one reason or another." But her father has died of black diphtheria fever, and Sarah is now an orphan. For two months since his death, Sarah Jane has been living at Miss Kizer's boarding house, but the money her father left her is running out, and she won't be able to live there much longer. Miss Kizer, who "'is nice, but is always worrying," promises to find Sarah Jane a home, but it turns out to be the Orphan Girls Asylum eighty miles away in Grand Island. Sarah Jane writes, "I'd have to leave (Father) in that tiny cemetery with nobody to visit him." When Sarah Jane's friend, Ida, tells her that the girls at the Asylum are forced to work six days a week in cloth factories and all their wages go to the Asylum, Sarah Jane is convinced she must somehow stay in Broken Bow.
One evening, when members of the school board are meeting, Sarah Jane boldly proposes that they consider her to be the new teacher in Broken Bow. At first the board is shocked and unreceptive to the idea of a fourteen-year-old teaching school. But as Sarah Jane states her qualifications and her desire, the school board decides to give her a chance. Sarah Jane's confidence is shaken slightly when she views her school a few days later. She writes, "I almost did leave when we came over another hill and I saw my school. There at the bottom of a tiny hollow was the most forlorn excuse for a soddy I have ever seen." With Ida's help, however, Sarah Jane cleans up the "dank dark interior." Using discarded beer crates for seats and borrowing books and supplies from townsfolk, Sarah Jane gets her school ready for opening day. Since she is being paid according to the number of pupils she'll teach, Sarah Jane must visit the homes around Broken Bow to recruit her students. Finally, the big day arrives and Sarah Jane has "fifteen scholars so far. Three were absent and probably would never show up—as long as I was the teacher. But fifteen meant I would make enough to pay Miss Kizer."
As the days go by, Sarah Jane has to deal with the unruly boys, truant students, and unannounced visits from a school board member who is still not convinced she can do the job. Still, Sarah Jane grows more comfortable as a teacher, always remembering her father's practices and advice. One cold March day, a sudden blizzard strikes as the children are in school. Classes stop, and Sarah Jane gathers her students around the stove for a read aloud session. Suddenly, the storm tears the roof off the school and destroys the stove. Sarah Jane knows they must "leave before the place caught fire or we choked to death." Before venturing out in the snow, Sarah Jane ties all her student and herself together with a rope, and they begin the journey home. Struggling against the howling wind, singing hymns to bolster their spirits, they head toward town. Sarah Jane writes, "and they plodded on, my parade of scholars did, lurching forward on wobbly legs, sometimes stopping altogether because they couldn't beat the wind. It was hard for me to tell who was who. The wet snow had covered them head to foot. But on we went, a white staggering column." Finally, after delivering all her students to their homes, Sarah Jane arrives at Miss Kizer's and is welcomed with warm food and a warm bed. The townspeople, grateful to Sarah Jane for saving the children, agree to find her a place to hold classes until they can build her a new wooden school with real desks, a blackboard, a proper out house, and a big bell "so everyone for miles around can hear that school is in session." Sarah Jane thinks about her father, knowing now he is at peace and would be proud of her. She tells Miss Kizer, "I'll be fine," and writes in her diary, "You know what, Little Book,? I knew I would be."
Thinking About the Book
1. Why is Sarah Jane living with Miss Kizer?
2. Sarah Jane does not want to go to live at the Orphan Girls Asylum even though Miss Kizer and Reverend Lauter praise the institution. Why won't she go?
3. If you only could use three words to describe the following characters, what would those words be? Why?
- Mr. Gaddis
- Ida
- Reverend Lauter
- Miss Kizer
4. Why do you think Mr. Gaddis was so reluctant to have Sarah Jane be the new schoolteacher?
5. By the end of Sarah Jane's story, she has discovered both good things and not so good things about being a teacher. See if you can list four positive things about being a teacher and four negative things. Compare your list with those of others in your group.
6. How has Sarah Jane Price changed from the start of her diary to the end of it?
7. Write three or four sentences that describe each of the following terms. Why is each important in Sarah Jane's story?
- Homestead Act
- Manifest Destiny
- Nebraska Coal
- Transcontinental Railroad
8. Why is Sarah Jane's diary called My Face to the Wind?
9. Read the Epilogue. Are you surprised at what happened to Sarah Jane when she was 25 years old? Why or why not?
Student Activities
1. Have you ever eaten cornbread that had dates and sunflower seeds in it? People living on the prairie in the 1880s "...combined simple ingredients to make hearty foods." Try making a batch of prairie cornbread using the recipe in the back of My Face to the Wind. Share the cornbread and your reactions to it with members of your discussion group.
2. During the terrible storm, Sarah Jane keeps her students quiet and interested as she reads aloud a "true-life story of a nine-year-old boy who was captured by the Indians in 1789." That book was A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner. One of the other Dear America books tells the fictional story of a young girl who was also captured by the Indians. Read Standing in the Light: The Captive Diary of Catharine Carey Logan by Mary Pope Osborne. Share your reactions to this book with other members of your discussion group. What did you learn that surprised you most in Carey Logan's story?
3. Though we are told not to judge a book by its cover, most of us do it all the time. Take a look at the cover of My Face to the Wind. Create a cover for this book that you think is true to the story and will attract readers to pick up Sarah Jane's diary.
4. Sarah Jane didn't have any books or supplies to start the school year, but one parent gave her part of a McGuffey Eclectic Reader. To see what this old fashioned reading book looked like log on to http://members.aol.com/sholessch/pages/mcguffey2.html How would you describe this reading book? How is it different from your schoolbooks?
5. In Sarah Jane's time it was not unusual for girls to become teachers at 15. Another young teacher was Laura Ingalls Wilder who writes about her first teaching experience in These Happy Golden Years. Read this book. How is Laura's experience similar to Sarah Jane's? How is it different? Who had the more challenging class? Tell why you think so.
6. As a reward, Sarah Jane reads aloud to her class from a book called Camp-Fires. What kinds of stories do you like to listen to? What book is your favorite read aloud and why?
An Interview with Jim Murphy
Richard F. Abrahamson, Ph.D. & Eleanore S. Tyson, Ed.D.: You've said that you were inspired to write Sarah Jane's story because of a photograph you saw featuring a teacher and her students in front of their sod schoolhouse. You thought going to school must have been an adventure back then. How did you go about doing the research for My Face to the Wind? Was teaching and going to school back then the adventure you thought?
Jim Murphy: Research for My Face to the Wind began with trips to a number of public libraries near my home where I found many general reference books about 19th century schools in states west of the Mississippi. In addition to learning individual state requirements for a teacher, what was in a typical curriculum, and what a normal day in class might have been like, I scoured the bibliographies for firsthand accounts left by actual teachers. These let me get inside the classrooms to 'experience' what a brand new teacher went through day in and day out. I also studied interior and exterior photographs of old school houses and visited as many surviving examples of them as I could.
Was teaching and going to school an adventure? I was astonished by the severe conditions students and teachers had to endure. Schools were often made of rough timbers or sod with dirt floors and one or two tiny windows. Winter winds whistled through the classroom; rain dripped down on students. Many schools had no desks and the only texts were the ones a teacher either had or could borrow from parents; pencils, rulers, chalk and notebooks were luxuries. One teacher even had her lessons disrupted when a rattlesnake dropped through the sod roof and landed on the pot belly stove!
RFA & EST: Why did you choose Broken Bow, Nebraska as the location for Sarah Jane's story?
JM: My research had given me a number of states where Sarah Jane might teach. I knew I wanted Sarah Jane to be in an unsettled, primitive area where everyday life was a struggle; I also wanted her close enough to a big city that she might be tempted to abandon her new home and its hardships. A history about railroads in the United States talked about the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad and how its rumored plans to build tracks through Custer County, Nebraska, prompted people to settle there long before the line was in place. I searched for histories of the towns along this line and Broken Bow seemed the most interesting and appropriate to me, so that's where I decided to set the story.
RFA & EST: Are there any lessons to be learned from what went on in the prairie schools of the 1880s that should be considered in today's classrooms?
JM: One interesting thing was that students had very different skills and talents, and learned at varied rates. One six-year-old might learn to read with little difficulty, while another — who happened to be very talented at adding and subtracting — struggled to remember the alphabet and learn to read. Teachers back then seemed to take this in stride and found ways to help students who lagged behind (often by having more skilled students tutor them). The other thing was just how vital it was to maintain order in the classroom. Teachers had to find a way to make rowdy, disruptive students behave so the rest of the class could concentrate on their studies. Most teachers found creative ways to keep students in line, though I did read about one Texas teacher who was faced with a very large, very aggressive boy and finally got him to settle down after bringing a six-shooter to class (not that I'm suggesting modern teachers use this technique!).
RFA & EST: Other than Sarah Jane herself, who is your favorite character in the book? Why?
JM: I have a number of characters that I am very fond of but my absolute favorite is Johnnie Hatter, the eccentric hermit who goes around talking to himself all the time. At first I saw him as the town 'crazy," the person who tried to live on the vast, empty Plains but just couldn't handle the hardship and solitude and so he went off the deep end. But as I wrote and revised the story, I began to see him as an individual who struggled against severe emotional problems and yet still managed to find a place for himself in the town. He lives on his own, manages to find enough to eat, and even cares for a three-legged dog.
RFA & EST: Sarah Jane seems ambivalent in how she feels about Reverend Lauter. She is moved by his oratory but is put off by his rigidity. Even Miss Kizer seems unsure of him herself. How do you see Reverend Lauter?
JM: Reverend Lauter is my least favorite character and yet he's really not a bad man. He has a severe and set view of how he and other people should live and act, which is derived from an overly literal interpretation of the Bible. He holds himself to this code and expects others to fall in line even if their interpretation of the Holy Book is different. Despite his outlook on life, I ended up respecting him a great deal. He could have softened his approach and taken on a permanent position as head of a new church in one of the towns on his circuit; instead he holds true to his rather harsh values even though it means standing alone in the world and missing out on a certain kind of happiness (in his relationship with Miss Kizer).
RFA & EST: In many ways Sarah Jane's story is a testament to the power of a teacher. Yet, she is powerless in many ways as she tries to deal with Mr. Gaddis. Even today teachers bemoan their lack of power. Do you believe teachers have power?
JM: Teachers are among the most powerful people in the world — more so than wealthy individuals, presidents, and movie stars. In fact, only parents have more real power. Why? Because a teacher who can get their students enthusiastic about a specific subject or about learning in general will change and affect the way those kids think and act for the rest of their lives.
RFA & EST: If you could ask young readers of Sarah Jane's diary one question after they finished reading your book, what would that question be?
JM: I would have readers put themselves in Sarah Jane's position — alone in the world, in a harsh and not always friendly environment, scared and worried about what to do — and then ask them what they would do if in her position. The answer I've shaped in my story is just one possible solution, and may not have even been the best one.
RFA & EST: What is one thing you hope young readers will take with them after reading My Face to the Wind: The Diary of Sarah Jane Price?
JM: To never give up. We often find ourselves in hard, unpleasant, and unhappy situations, but if we are determined enough to seek out help and support, there are usually ways to succeed.
Discussion guide written by Richard F. Abrahamson, Ph.D., Professor of Literature for Children and Young Adults and Eleanore S. Tyson, Ed.D., Clinical Assistant Professor,
University of Houston, Houston, Texas.
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