Summary
During the Easter break, the class pets—tadpoles—grew into frogs. One classmate freed a few of them and the children followed them around the playground. One boy told you about how humans reproduce, and, distressed, you kicked him. Nevertheless, this information causes you to feel disgusted when you look at your own parents later. By July, the weather is ominous and sultry, causing the students to feel unruly. You ask Mrs. Tilscher about sex, but she only smiles and looks away. Soon the schoolyear ends, report cards are handed out, and the excited students run out of school just before a storm begins.
Analysis
In this second half of the poem, the way time is evoked changes radically. During stanzas one and two, Duffy recreates the in-the-moment mindset of a very young child by quickly and totally immersing us in a series of images. No mention is made of the calendar year, and time moves in impressionistic ways, marked by phrases like "some mornings." But now, in the third stanza, we move through time more quickly and according to the more objective and scientific terminology of the calendar: "over the Easter term," "that feverish July." The fact that time is moving faster, in bigger chunks, is a reminder of the fleeting nature of childhood. But the changes in language around time, through the use of month names and holidays, also tell us that the speaker's relationship to reality itself is changing. She is learning more about the world and has access to ways of thinking beyond her immediate sensory perception.
Of course, the more explicit way in which this growth occurs is through the discovery of sexuality. The process by which the speaker learns about sex is revealing. At first, she is disgusted and distressed by what she has learned, attacking the boy who tells her. Initially, then, the prospect of growing up and learning about the world outside the safe confines of Mrs. Tilscher's classroom alarms the speaker. However, regardless of her preferences, the speaker can't make herself forget what she's learned: growing up is beyond her control. Even her relationship to her own parents is altered by her new knowledge. The greatest mark of her growth is the fact that she has outgrown Mrs. Tilscher's realm. The teacher, who situates herself firmly in the realm of early childhood, abstains from answering the speaker's question about "how you were born." By the end of the year, the speaker has surpassed her beloved teacher's lessons. The language of the poem's final lines tells us that her orientation towards reality is, again, shifting. The sky is described as "sexy," with a "tangible alarm." The speaker now sees sex itself, as well as a more general prospect of impending change, in the world around her. The end of childhood is inevitable, and Mrs. Tilscher's students can't help but embrace change, running eagerly out of school. Only in retrospect does the speaker's nostalgia appear to set in.
