Be Someone's Miss Honey
- kassandraaloe
- Aug 21, 2025
- 3 min read
The summer is winding down, and the school year begins next week. As a teacher, this moment always brings a mix of anticipation and stress. The relaxed pace of summer gives way to the high-energy rush of planning, organizing, and preparing for new students. In the middle of the endless lists and logistics, I’ve been thinking about Miss Honey from Roald Dahl’s Matilda.
At the start of each year, I ask my students what they hope for in a teacher. I was inspired by George Couros to begin this practice, and now it’s a ritual I love. I record their answers in hand-made graphics I share back to the class. Every time a student writes “understanding,” I surround the word with concentric rainbow lines. It takes far longer than a Google Form data or AI analysis—but the slowness is the point. It allows me to give each child my full attention, while noticing the patterns that always emerge: kindness, respect, patience, and understanding. These are the same qualities that make Miss Honey so enduringly beloved.
Miss Honey: Epitome of Strength
For Miss Honey, I chose the Strength tarot card. Traditionally it depicts a young woman calmly opening a lion’s jaws—an image that reframes strength not as force, but as gentleness and composure. This contrast is clear in Matilda: Miss Trunchbull, a former
Olympic athlete, wields brute power to intimidate and control, while Miss Honey appears delicate, even fragile. Yet Miss Honey creates strength of another kind. Within the grim walls of Crunchem Hall, she builds a classroom filled with warmth, art, and safety. Her students adore her not because they fear her, but because they know she sees and cares for them.
Surviving Trauma
Of course, Miss Honey’s quiet strength is hard won. When Matilda visits her shabby cottage, she learns that Miss Honey was raised under Miss Trunchbull’s abuse, both as her guardian and her employer. The tone of the novel shifts here: the earlier punishments of the children were absurd and almost comic, but Miss Honey’s memories of neglect and cruelty ring painfully real. She admits that years of domination left her obedient and fearful, even into adulthood.
“After my father died, when I was five and a half she used to make me bathe myself all alone. And if she came up and thought I hadn’t washed properly, she would push my head under the water and hold it there…I think what I am trying to explain to you,” she said, “is that over the years I became so completely cowed and dominated by this monster of an aunt that when she gave me an order, no matter what it was, I obeyed it instantly. That can happen, you know. And by the time I was ten I had become her slave.”
Yet this is where her true courage shows. Despite trauma and poverty, she carves out a life of her own—earning her teaching license, finding independence, and creating a home, however humble, that Matilda comes to see not as sad but as triumphant.
That, to me, is the heart of Strength. Miss Honey does not prevent every cruelty, but she builds a space that fosters resilience and care within a harsh world. Her gentleness is not weakness; it is endurance, bravery, and love in action.
Inspiration for the school year
As I prepare for a new year, I hold her example close. Strength in teaching is not about efficiency or control. It is about slowing down, listening closely, and creating a classroom where students feel safe enough to grow. That’s what inspired me to transform my illustration into new t shirt design: “Be Someone’s Miss Honey.” It’s not just a slogan for teachers—it’s a reminder for anyone. We all have the chance to be that steady, kind presence in someone’s life. To choose gentleness when the world shouts for force. To offer safety, patience, and understanding when those things matter most.
As the year begins, that’s the kind of strength I want to carry forward—and the kind of Miss Honey I hope to be.
The discussion about affordability stood out. Finding bulk t shirts cheap while maintaining decent quality is always a challenge, and this article explains the balance clearly.