History Main / Schoolmarm

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* Miss Minerva in ''Theatre/TheGoldenApple''.
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* Guenevere in the WildWest part of ''Webcomic/ArthurKingOfTimeAndSpace''.
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In fiction, a schoolmarm will tend to be portrayed as rather prim and proper, and will have the best diction in town. This tended to be true in RealLife as well, since most communities had [[ContractualPurity strict moral and behavioral requirements]] in the contracts for their teachers. In many school districts, teachers had to be single, and any "courtship" would raise fears that [[QuittingToGetMarried the town would lose its schoolmarm]]. Nevertheless, the Schoolmarm is a frequent choice for female love interest in a {{Western}} as she'll be [[MadonnaWhoreComplex the only single woman around who isn't]] in TheOldestProfession. As an instructor in the arts of civilization, she also made a good {{Foil}} to a wild and footloose hero. See also CaretakingIsFeminine.

This is still TruthInTelevision today in many regions of the world, where single-room schools still exist. For example, this isn't unheard of in Japan today; a combination of urbanization ''and'' declining birth rate means children are rare sight in rural areas. Since there are few children, schools are merged or just plain shut down, and those that remain are often run by a handful of teachers -- in rare cases, by [[TwoTeacherSchool one or two schoolmarms]]. In Russia, the situation is similar, except the rural areas are much larger and much more sparsely settled; one-room schools, called ''selskaya malokomplektnaya shkola'' (rural small-class school) never actually went out of style during the Soviet period, and are only in more demand today.

* A male “schoolmaster” is the protagonist in UsefulNotes/TheOtherwoods film ''Film/BenkiyaBale''. He is a good teacher and is popular with his students. But [[{{Nepotism}} the local politician’s son wants his job]], [[ReassignedToAntarctica so he has to be sent to a different poverty stricken disease ridden village]].

* Creator/StephaneAudran's character in ''Film/LeBoucher''. she runs and lives above the village school in a remote but scenic corner of France. She is loved and respected by pupils and parents alike. Then the wife of her assistant teacher is brutally murdered, forcing her to run the school alone...

* In ''Film/RustlersRhapsody'', a "pretty but somehow asexual young schoolmarm" is one of the features found in every single western town which hero Rex O'Herlihan has visited.

* In ''Literature/PatienceAndSarah'', it's mentioned that one of the few jobs unmarried woman can have is being a school teacher. 28-year old Patience teaches in the summer.

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]
* Miss Stacey takes over from Mr Phillips at the single room school house in Avonlea in ''Series/AnneWithAnE''. She's a SpiritedYoungLady type and Anne finds her a kindred spirit and likes her a lot more than Mr Phillips.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "The Storyteller", Dorothy Livingston's first teaching assignment was in the small, isolated town of Powder Creek, West Virginia in 1933, where she taught students of all ages in a one room school.

In fiction, a schoolmarm will tend to be portrayed as rather prim and proper, and will have the best diction in town. This tended to be true in RealLife as well, since most communities had [[ContractualPurity strict moral and behavioral requirements]] in the contracts for their teachers. In many school districts, teachers had to be single, and any "courtship" would raise fears that [[QuittingToGetMarried the town would lose its schoolmarm]]. Nevertheless, the Schoolmarm is a frequent choice for female love interest in a {{Western}} as she'll be [[MadonnaWhoreComplex the only single woman around who isn't]] in TheOldestProfession. As an instructor in the arts of civilization, she also made a good {{Foil}} to a wild and footloose hero.

* The Gaulish Village in ComicBook/Asterix has had three schoolteachers in charge of teaching the village children at three different times. The earliest teacher was the Druid Getafix during Asterix's childhood, in the present day Cacofonix the Bard is the teacher except when he was fired from his job by the children's parents, the bard Bravura was brought in to teach the children.

* Raine Sage of ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' is fairly grumpy as one of these. Of course, when one of your students is [[BookDumb Lloyd Irving]], this may be justified.

In rural communities of the past, particularly on the frontier, there would often not be enough children of different ages in the area to justify a school separated by grades, and insufficiently fast transportation to bring children from a wide area together every schoolday. So there would be a one-room schoolhouse, with a grand total of one teacher (usually female) presiding over a class of children of all ages and scholastic ability. That's the Schoolmarm.

* Kazuho from ''Manga/NonNonBiyori'' is the sole teacher at a rural school, with a class of only five students in different grade levels. She doesn't do a very good job of it, since she's always portrayed sleeping (sometimes to the point of not showing up at all), chilling with the students... or exploiting her students to work on her rice fields. [[SenseiChan She's also the elder sister of Renge, who is the youngest student in school]].

In fiction, a schoolmarm will tend to be portrayed as rather prim and proper, and will have the best diction in town. This tended to be true in RealLife as well, since most communities had [[ContractualPurity strict moral and behavioral requirements]] in the contracts for their teachers. In many school districts, teachers had to be single, and any "courtship" would raise fears that [[QuittingToGetMarried the town would lose its schoolmarm]]. Nevertheless, the Schoolmarm is a frequent choice for female love interest in a {{Western}} as she'll be [[MadonnaWhoreComplex the only single woman around who isn't]] [[HookerWithAHeartOfGold in the entertainment industry]]. As an instructor in the arts of civilization, she also made a good {{Foil}} to a wild and footloose hero.

In male viewer-oriented stories, the schoolmarm tends to be young and pretty--sometimes [[MsFanservice suspiciously so]]. In stories from the schoolmarm's point of view, she may be a bit older and [[GenericCuteness somewhat plain-looking]], to make her eventual romantic involvement that much sweeter. If the story is from the children's point of view, [[MaidenAunt the schoolmarm will often be a hatchet-faced spinster]], who's [[ApronMatron not afraid of using a switch on misbehaving youths, for loose values of "misbehaving."]]

* Kazuho from ''Manga/NonNonBiyori'', who's always portrayed sleeping (sometimes to the point of not showing up at all), chilling with the students... or exploiting ''her'' students to work on her rice fields. [[SenseiChan She's also the elder sister of Renge, who is the youngest student in school]].

* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Keiko O'Brien sets up a one-room school on [=DS9=] after she finds herself unemployed (she's a botanist on a SpaceStation) and realizes that the crew don't have a school for their children. This is just one of a number of [[SpaceWestern Western tropes used in the series]].

* ''Series/LittleHouseOnThePrairie'': In order – Eva Beadle (Charlotte Stewart, 1974-1978), Alice Garvey (Heresha Parady, 1978-1979), Eliza Jane Wilder (Lucy Lee Flippin, 1979-1980), Laura Ingalls Wilder (Melissa Gilbert as the series' main protagonist, 1980-1982) and Etta Plum (Leslie Landon, 1982-1984). A few times throughout the series, Caroline Ingalls (Karen Grassle) would fill in as a substitute teacher, except when the plot called for someone else.

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* [[spoiler:Yoko Littner]] from ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' takes this as a job after the TimeSkip.

* Miss Deer from ''Anime/MapleTown''. She was the sole teacher in Maple Town, teaching students of various ages (including Patty's older sister, implied to be older than everyone else) and located in a small schoolhouse.

* One issue of the ''ComicBook/{{Archie|Comics}}'' comics put Jughead and Reggie in the Wild West, with Jughead as the town sheriff and Reggie as a card hustler. Reggie agrees to Jughead's challenge that whichever of them draws the low card in the pile will leave town, and when Jughead draws a three, Reggie is pleased to think he's all but won - until he learns that the winner gets the town schoolmarm, Miss Ethel. Much to his relief, Reggie draws a deuce and flees, while Jughead locks himself in jail to keep himself away from Ethel.

* ''Film/ButchCassidyAndTheSundanceKid'': Etta Place, Sundance's woman, is a schoolmarm who abandons her duties to go to South America with them.
* ''Film/CatBallou''[='s=] title character is a schoolmarm turned {{Outlaw}}.
* ''Film/TheGunfighter'' has the schoolmarm as the secret wife of the lead.

* Ms. Crabtree from ''Film/TheLittleRascals'' shorts.
* In ''Film/RustlersRhapsody'', a "pretty but somehow asexual young schoolmarm" is one of the features found in every single western town which hero Rex O'Herlihan has visited.
* Creator/MichaelHaneke's ''Film/TheWhiteRibbon'' has a RareMaleExample as one of the few sympathetic characters.

* At the end of ''Film/MyDarlingClementine'', Clementine decides to stay on in Tombstone as the new schoolmarm.
* ''Film/PetesDragon1977'' has a schoolmarm who is exceptionally quick to dish out harsh words and discipline. Unfortunately for protagonist Pete, an outsider boy fleeing from slavery, he is [[CassandraTruth (understandably) disregarded]] when his protest that the disasters happening around him are not his own fault but due to his invisible dragon friend. When she escalates her punishment to beating him with a yardstick, the dragon roars viciously and [[ImpactSilhouette crashes through the school wall]] causing much panic and bringing even more unwanted attention to Pete (although stopping the schoolmarm bullying attitude as she is rendered practically speechless).

* A male “schoolmaster” is the protagonist in UsefulNotes/TheOtherwoods film ''Film/BenkiyaBale''. He is a good teacher and is popular with his students. But [[{{Nepotism}} the local politician’s son wants his job]], [[ReassignedToAntarctica so he has to be sent to a different poverty stricken disease ridden village]].

* Miss Alice in ''Film/{{Gunless}}'', who runs the school and also conducts philosophy classes for the adult.

* ''Literature/{{Holes}}'': There's a schoolmarm who [[spoiler:turns outlaw after her love interest is killed.]]
* Anne from ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' goes to a one-room schoolhouse. The first teacher is male, then Miss Stacy becomes the schoolmarm. Later on, Anne herself takes on the role, and even while attending college takes temporary schoolmarm positions in the summer.
** Many of the characters did this while paying for college, including Gilbert Blythe. It becomes a plot point that he trades teaching positions with Anne to allow her to be closer to Green Gables.
** Creator/LMMontgomery's novels ''Literature/EmilyOfNewMoon'' also feature such characters, of both genders.

* The ''[[Literature/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girl]] Kirsten'' books have Miss Winston, who's nineteen -- same age as the oldest boy in the class. She stays with Kirsten's family for a while. (This was TruthInTelevision; many teachers, both male and female, were not able to afford their own homes, so they often stayed with their students' families, or other families in town, on a temporary basis.)
* Miss Read, the pseudonymous author/narrator of the ''Literature/FairacreAndThrushGreen'' novels, both {{Barsetshire}} settings, is the schoolmistress of a tiny two-room school in the village of Fairacre, and there's a similar school in Thrush Green.
* Literature/JaneEyre is a village schoolmistress for a short while (quite sensible as she'd previously been a governess - one of the few jobs acceptable to women of the landowner caste at the time); a slight variation as in her town, male and female children went to separate schools (seeing as we never meet her male counterpart, presumably St John, the local cleric, teaches the boys during the week)
* Nineteen-year-old Christy Huddleston from ''{{Literature/Christy}}'' is a city-bred young woman of an affluent Asheville family who is inspired to go teach school in an impoverished Appalachian village in 1912. Needless to say, it's nothing like she thought it would be, in both good ways and bad.
* In ''Literature/PatienceAndSarah'', it's mentioned that one of the few jobs unmarried woman can have is being a school teacher. 28-year old Patience teaches in the summer.

* Captain Gunpowder is sweet on the local school mistress in ''Series/WildBoys''.
* Seth Bullock's wife, who sets up the first schoolhouse in ''Series/{{Deadwood}}'', a sign of its improving circumstances.
* ''Series/HoratioHornblower'': Mariette, Hornblower's love interest in "The Frogs and the Lobsters", is a French peasant girl who became a schoolteacher in Muzillac, her home village, after the revolution. She's the only teacher there.

* Miss Stacey takes over from Mr Phillips at the single room school house in Avonlea in ''Series/AnneWithAnE''. She's a SpiritedYoungLady type and Anne finds her a kindred spirit and likes her a lot more than Mr Phillips.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "The Storyteller", Dorothy Livingston's first teaching assignment was in the small, isolated town of Powder Creek, West Virginia in 1933, where she taught students of all ages in a one room school.

* A TabletopGame/{{Munchkin}} set, ''The Good, the Bad and the Munchkin'', which was Western-themed, had a Sidekick card called Schoolmarm, whose "book learning" could [[BadassBookworm help you escape from a trap]].

* Raine Sage of ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' is fairly grumpy as one of these. Of course, when one of your students is [[BookDumb Lloyd Irving]], this may be justified.

* Keine Kamishirasawa from ''VideoGame/TouhouEiyashouImperishableNight'' is a teacher who's generally portrayed like this in fanworks, usually to the younger youkai characters (though this goes against canon, where she says that she's only willing to teach humans). However, ''Manga/TouhouSuzunaanForbiddenScrollery'' officially [[{{Jossed}} josses]] this portrayal since she's shown to teach at an elementary school with several other teachers.

* One of the chief ghostly characters in ''VideoGame/DarkFall - Ghost Vigil'' is Thomas, who apparently was the sole teacher at Shangri-La children's home in TheEighties. He taught about a dozen pupils, of ages ranging from 6 to 16.

* ''Literature/LittleHouseOnThePrairie'': Laura Ingalls is a schoolmarm in ''These Happy Golden Years''. Her description of what it was like is generally conceded to be fairly accurate, although the Brewster household may be dramatic license.

* Rumiko Chie in ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'', being the only teacher at the school the main characters attend. Since the series takes place in the rural village of Hinamizawa, this isn't surprising.

* Ms. Leading from ''WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack'', though unlike most fenale examples, she is actually married.

* Ms. Leading from ''WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack''.