Teaching, Mentoring, and Trust Theme Analysis

Ally's academic failures have a lot to do with the fact that because her dad is in the military, her family has moved about once per year since she started school. Because of this, Ally has never had the opportunity to form connections with her teachers or school administrators who, given the time and the wherewithal, could've identified her dyslexia and helped her learn to read much earlier than sixth grade; instead, she's come to believe that teachers are out to get her and that she's not smart. Especially when contrasted with this initial worldview, the positive and trusting relationship that Ally later forms with Mr. Daniels illustrates that for all students, but especially those like Ally who struggle with learning disabilities, behavioral issues, or low self-esteem, teachers have an immense amount of power to either help their pupils learn or rob them of knowledge and opportunities.

Fish in a Tree makes the amount of power that teachers have over their students clear from the beginning: Ally shares with the reader that during a parent-teacher conference, her third grade teacher told Mom that Ally was slow. Though this teacher is the only to say such a thing outright, Ally receives similar messages from most of her other teachers over the years. Hearing this over and over again culminates in Ally's belief that she actually is slow or dumb, which she believes in part because these prominent authority figures in her life have been repeating it for the entirety of her school career. This illustrates the dark and potentially dangerous side of the relationship between teachers and students: teachers have the power to fundamentally influence how their students think about themselves, for better and for worse. In other words, what they say about their students matters a great deal, even if the students in question don't like or trust their teacher.

Ally begins to suspect that the teacher-student relationship doesn't have to be this way on her first day in Mr. Daniels's class. Mr. Daniels arrives a few months into the school year to take over for Mrs. Hall, who is going on maternity leave, and he brings an entirely different tenor to the classroom. Though Ally remains convinced for several more months that she's dumb, she notices that Mr. Daniels does what he can to not draw attention to his students with learning differences or disabilities. She catches on quickly to the fact that Mr. Daniels seems to have a secret signal set up with Oliver, a classmate who struggles with speaking out of turn, that allows him to correct Oliver without actually calling him out and embarrassing him. Mr. Daniels also tells Ally that he won't send her to the office when she "misbehaves," something that suggests that he believes building relationships with his students, and not outsourcing to the principal, Mrs. Silver, can be far more effective for managing his classroom.

In doing all of this, Mr. Daniels treats his students like people first, with unique needs that he believes it's his responsibility to acknowledge and attend to. This in turn helps students like Oliver and Ally, who previously found school a place where they needed to be on guard at all times, relax—they're able to trust that they won't be punished for being different. This comes into play especially when Mr. Daniels advocates for Ally to receive testing for dyslexia and then offers to tutor her after school. In his initial offer to work with her, Mr. Daniels insists that Ally isn't dumb and that she can learn to read with the proper tools. He also shakes hands with her to make it clear that learning to read is a journey they're setting off on together, not something she's being forced into because her teacher told her to. The way that Mr. Daniels interacts with his students helps Ally realize that teachers aren't just authority figures out to get her; they can be trustworthy mentors who have the power to help her succeed.

Despite the overwhelmingly positive relationship between Mr. Daniels and Ally, it's important to keep in mind that Ally has already been through seven years of school and seven different teachers before finally encountering a teacher willing and able to meet her where she is and develop this kind of relationship with her. Even worse, her older brother Travis, who also has dyslexia, is midway through high school and hasn't yet met a teacher able to identify his dyslexia and help him succeed. These sobering facts speak to the flaws in the American school system more broadly, as well as the unhelpful and potentially damaging ways in which teachers are trained to interact with differently-abled students. Mr. Daniels himself, however, offers an example of what a good teacher and mentor looks like: he instills confidence, treats his students with compassion and empathy, and empowers students by helping them find the tools that will help them learn best.