Mrs. Jewls

For information on this character in the cartoon, see Mrs. Jewls (cartoon).

“	She opened the door to the classroom. She was terribly nice. The children could tell just by looking at her.	”
— Narration in "Mrs. Jewls"

Mrs. Jewls
Personal Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Teacher at Wayside School
Friends	The students in her class Louis
Love interests	Mr. Jewls
Family
Children	Mavis Jewls
Pets	Monkey Face
Production Information
First appearance	"Mrs. Jewls"
Last appearance	"Rainbow" (mentioned) "After the Storm" (physical appearance)

Mrs. Jewls is a character from the Wayside School books. She is the teacher of the class on the thirtieth story of Wayside School.

Appearance

In "Mrs. Jewls," she is described as having a terribly nice face. Aside from this, little description of her appearance is given. Other students have been shown to describe her, though the accuracy of these descriptions are debatable. In "Bebe's Baby Brother," Bebe states that she's fat and has a big nose, though according to Mac in "Something Different About Mrs. Jewls," Mrs. Jewls being fat, due to her pregnancy, is a recent change, meaning Bebe's description is likely inaccurate.

Personality

Mrs. Jewls is one of the most frequently appearing characters in the books, which helps reveal a fair bit about her personality. As shown in her introductory chapter, she is a very nice teacher that cares very much for the well-being of her students. However, she is somewhat absent-minded, and fairly firm in her beliefs. Mrs. Jewls often tries to help out students utilizing a specific method she devises, as shown in chapters like "Joe" and "John," and always hopes she can utilize her methods to solve any problems these students may have. However, sometimes she shows oblivious to certain flaws in her plans which may make teaching certain students somewhat difficult. Ultimately, however, it has been shown that Mrs. Jewls is willing to adapt to the needs of certain students if necessary. In "Mrs. Jewls," upon believing she's actually teaching a class full of monkeys, she quickly makes an attempt to figure out how she could succeed in teaching monkeys rather than children, though she often ignores the comments from the children, figuring that they are far too cute to be that way. In "Sharie," it is revealed Mrs. Jewls lets Sharie sleep in class, adapting to the idea that Sharie learns best that way.

Mrs. Jewls as a teacher often tries to help her students what she believes is best for them, as she rarely likes seeing them struggle. In "Joe," she sees Joe struggling in math class, and tries to help him count properly, but often fails to realize how much he's succeeding utilizing his own methods. However, Mrs. Jewls can realize the flaws in her methods, as shown in "Maurecia," when she realizes Maurecia can't taste the Maurecia-flavored ice cream because it's the taste she tastes when she tastes nothing at all. To help her, she subsequently creates twenty-six other ice cream flavors that taste like the other students in her class. That being said, many of her solutions could be seen as impractical. For instance, in "John," she tries to solve John's problem of him only reading words written upside down, not by teaching him how to read right-side up, but by trying to get him to stand on his head, whereas in "Pencils" she helps curing Jason's pencil-chewing habits by taping his mouth shut. Something frequently seen with Mrs. Jewls's character is that while her heart is usually in the right place, she may fail to realize the concerns of some of the students around her. Her insistence also occasionally causes her to zero in on certain subjects, such as Todd, who was the first student to speak without raising his hand in class.

Mrs. Jewls's occasional absent-minded nature has come to notice in a few instances. In "Bebe's Baby Brother," Mrs. Jewls is easily fooled when Bebe Gunn tries telling her about her younger brother, who doesn't actually exist. It also gives her difficulty grading report cards as shown in "Science, Geography, Etc.," where it is shown that Mrs. Jewls rarely keeps track of assignments and oftentimes does cooking, takes showers, listens to records, and goes bowling rather than grading papers. That being said, she still does care for the students, as she is often generous with making up points for missed questions, and she mentions that she'd rather give hugs than give report cards. Often Mrs. Jewls will go beyond just solving issues with school, and even look into certain students' personal problems. In "Kathy," she attempts to help Kathy when she's worried her pet will run away, but unfortunately her attempt is futile due to Kathy's negative personality at the time. In "Maurecia," she helps Maurecia reclaim her love for ice cream by inventing new flavors, while in "Dana," she helps Dana cure her mosquito bite problem. In "What's the Point?," she additionally notices her students adopting a pessimistic attitude due to the Cloud of Doom, and explains to them that even in difficult times, it is important they still try their best, and that someday, the Cloud of Doom will be gone, and the world will be a much better place.

One thing that does appear to consistently annoy Mrs. Jewls is her class being disrupted. She has a somewhat strict "no-talking" policy, but it usually only applies to Todd for reasons mentioned above. She does seem to occasionally be annoyed by Mac's long stories, but mostly because they are only loosely tied to class and take the entire period. In "Dana," she gets annoyed when other students in the class try to pull away from her arithmetic lesson. Additionally she has a weird love of paper clips, though this is largely because of the hard work and dedication that goes into making them, as is seen in "Consider the Paper Clip," though she is seen to snap if someone loses, or even worse, bends one, as is seen in "Inside the Closet." As shown in "The Mean Mrs. Jewls," Mrs. Jewls does have a bitter side that rarely shows. In the chapter, Mrs. Jewls gets very annoyed when the students fail to understand her lesson, and attempts resorting to corporal punishment. However, Mrs. Jewls quickly realizes the error of her ways, writes her name on the discipline list, and sends herself home early on the kindergarten bus. Typically, Mrs. Jewls tries to avoid letting herself get to bitter, as she knows that she can't stress out students with too much busy work or they won't learn anything.

Relationships

Todd

In the books, Mrs. Jewls is frequently seen punishing Todd, typically for speaking out loud in class, though he has been punished for other things in other chapters. While it is possible Mrs. Jewls holds a subconcious grudge against Todd for being the first student to speak out in class in "Mrs. Jewls," she doesn't seem to particularly dislike him. In "Todd," she states she does it for his own good, and in "A Bad Word," she worries when Todd doesn't show up to class. In "The Best Part," she lets Todd erase his name from the discipline list and get a Tootsie Roll Pop when he brings in his toy dog. In "Blame It on the Cloud," Todd is additionally the only student Mrs. Jewls doesn't punish, claiming that he has been good lately. Todd also likes Mrs. Jewls as a teacher, as in "Mark Miller," he refers to her as a nice teacher when introducing himself to Benjamin and in "The Best Part" he states that's why Mrs. Jewls let him go free. In "The Little Stranger," however, he notes Mrs. Jewls is "a little boring" after she talks for too long, but this is mostly after Mrs. Drazil let her students tell her that when she was a substitute.

Dameon

Mrs. Jewls is frequently seen enlisting Dameon for help over the course of the Wayside School book series, starting in "Dameon," when she has him run up and down the thirty flights of stairs of Wayside School to tell Louis about the movie they're watching. In "Love and a Dead Rat," Mrs. Jewls states she loves Dameon, though this is likely only platonically, as opposed to Dameon's seemingly romantic attraction. Dameon frequently is happy to help out Mrs. Jewls, and frequently passes out papers for her, as seen in chapters like "Bebe's Baby Brother" and "Pencils." In "Something Different About Mrs. Jewls," he gets upset when Mrs. Jewls is leaving, even though he's aware she has to. In "Science," it is shown that Dameon pays attention to what Mrs. Jewls says, though he repeats back the wrong thing, and in "Kachooga Boop," Dameon holds Mrs. Jewls's hand as they walk down the stairs.

Louis

Mrs. Jewls seems to enjoy having Louis around, and frequently is seen inviting him to help in the classroom. In "Dameon," Mrs. Jewls has Dameon run up and down the thirty flights of stairs at Wayside School to see if Louis wants to join them for a movie. In "Louis," she seems to be glad when Louis joins the class to tell a story, while in "A Package for Mrs. Jewls," she has Louis help with bringing the package to her classroom. In "The Little Stranger," Louis helps out Mrs. Jewls by bringing a bassinet, diaper bag, assortment of toys, and a baby bottle for Mavis Jewls.

Appearances

For a list of every chapter and episode Mrs. Jewls appears in, see here.

Trivia

• Mrs. Jewls's first name is not Shirley.
• While Mrs. Jewls enjoys strawberry yogurt, she is allergic to strawberries. This either confirms that the Sideways Arithmetic series is non-canon to the main series, or something is put in the yogurt to prevent Mrs. Jewls's allergic reaction. The latter is not really possible in real life, but the series has been known to deviate from the facts of real life. (it is also technically possible for someone to develop a strawberry allergy later in in life and possibly developed the allergy in between books.)
• Mrs. Jewls is the only character with a confirmed birthday, on May 17th.
• Mrs. Jewls has an Aunt Nora, an unnamed brother, a cousin named Arthur (it is unknown if he lives in Vermont), and a sister named Carol. It's unknown whether her siblings are older or younger than her.
• While she was fine with Dameon being in love with her, she did not approve of Ron kissing her, which are two entirely different things. She was also against falling in love with her in the cartoon but that is very different than the books.

Gallery

See a gallery for Mrs. Jewls here.

Other designs

Peter Allen design (British edition, 2004)

Mrs. Jewls as she appears in the cartoon. (2005)

Unknown illustrator (Traditional Chinese edition, 2008)

Satoshi Kitamura design (Japanese edition, 2010)

Unknown illustrator (Simplified Chinese edition, 2012)

Bruce MacPherson design (Journeys textbook, 2014)