What do you think Harper Lee's views on education are?

Given 's
first-grade experience, it would be safe to say thatthought education was something that
happened despite, not because of, the public school system. Scout enters
public school having learned to read on her own, almost by osmosis, from sitting on 's lap and
following along while he reads. She has learned to write from Calpurnia. Her teacher, however,
says it's wrong for her to read and write at home. Instead, the teacher, Miss Caroline, wants
the students to learn words from little cards she holds up and to read the stories she wants
them to read.

Scout is so outraged by the whole school situation that she
insists to Atticus that she won't go back. She doesn't want to give up her self-education.
Atticus strikes a deal with her, saying,

 If youll
concede the necessity of going to school, well go on reading every night just as we always
have."

He also tells her to try to see things from
Miss Caroline's point of view, and not to tell Miss Caroline about the deal she has made to read
at home. What the reader learns from this episode is that school is a place you tolerate and
work around, but that one's real education occurs outside its walls.