Nigel Ratburn

Nigel (formerly Emil ) Charles Ratburn III is a third-grade teacher at Lakewood Elementary School.
 * "Mr. Ratburn" redirects here. For his father, see Otto Ratburn.

Appearance
Mr. Ratburn's appearance consists of a green suit complete with a solid yellow shirt and bright red necktie (in the books, his uniform ranges to different colors). Being a rat, he has long whiskers, which he appears to keep trimmed.

He has brown clumps of hair in the books; although in the cartoon show, his hair was restricted to thin black lines. He also wears his shirts tucked into his pants and always wears a belt buckle with his pants.

His casual clothing consists of a cream-colored T-shirt and faded blue jeans. For formal occasions Mr. Ratburn wears a charcoal or black Tuxedo jacket with a white Tuxedo shirt black bow tie and charcoal or black Tuxedo trousers.

When outdoors for something like fossil-hunting Mr. Ratburn wears a dark brown hat with a yellow line on the bottom of the tip of the hat going all around the tip. He also wears a very light yellow or beige shirt a dark blue scarf tucked into the shirt.

There is also a short-sleeved beige jacket with two pockets one on each side of the jacket and two shoulder straps one on each side of the jacket. He also wears blue shorts very light yellow or beige socks and light brown boots. He always carries a briefcase with him to class.

Personality
He tends to give out a lot of homework to the kids in his class, sometimes assigning two research projects in the same week. Because of these tendencies, he is often considered the strictest teacher at Lakewood Elementary School.

However, many of Arthur and his friends find out he's not as bad as they first thought, although the Brain seems to have no problem with him, but Buster has the strongest dislike for homework. Though he is a cool and calm character, in some dream sequences, he cackles uncontrollably.

Past life
When Mr. Ratburn was a baby, he was wearing a light blue sweater with a white collar, a red bowtie, white cloth diapers with pins, and bright red shoes and blue socks.

As a kid, he had two outfits: A school uniform that was colored blue like Glenbrook Academy's dress code and the uniform that had the school's [[Media:Glenbrook Academy Logo.png|badge on it]]. Then he had casual clothes; which he wore to events, like the Father's Day picnic. That consisted of a blue-buttoned shirt with a white shirt under it and blue pants.

He used to be a "fat rat", until he learned how to play ping-pong.

As a young adult, he attended Elwood City High School with Bailey, David Read , and Mr. Haney.

In college, he was in a band called the "Ratburn Rats".

Future Life
Not much has been seen about Mr.Ratburn's future. But if the future in the episode, "Buster Makes the Grade" happens Mr. Ratburn will continue his career as a teacher at Lakewood Elementary.

In Other media
In the Living Books computer games, he came out in Arthur's Teacher Trouble, even though there's a shadow look-alike of him walking outside while Arthur and Jane are out shopping for party supplies in Arthur's Birthday. He was voiced by David Kessler before the cartoon show replaced him with Arthur Holden.

In the later computer games (such as Arthur's Thinking Games), Mr. Ratburn's appearance was the same as he looked in the cartoon show.

Students
Mr. Ratburn has 13 students (seated in groups of 4) in his class. The majority of his students used to be in Mr. Marco's 2nd grade class. Some of his students moved to Elwood City and attend his class. Ladonna is currently the newest student in his class.
 * Arthur Read
 * Buster Baxter
 * Francine Frensky
 * Muffy Crosswire
 * The Brain
 * Binky Barnes (twice)
 * Sue Ellen Armstrong
 * Fern Walters
 * George Lundgren
 * Jenna Morgan
 * Alex
 * Maria
 * Ladonna Compson

Former students

 * Prunella Deegan
 * Billy
 * Chris (books only)
 * Helen ("Tipping the Scales")
 * Luke ("Tipping the Scales")

Jobs
Mr. Ratburn has a numerous amount of jobs. In "Arthur and the Real Mr. Ratburn," it's revealed that Mr. Ratburn's a teacher, a basketball coach, and works on the school newspaper. In his spare time, he administers puppet shows that are popular among young kids. In "The Short, Quick Summer," Mr. Ratburn got a summer job at Jack's Joke Shop, where he worked as a cashier and helped Sue Ellen learn a card game magic trick.

Trivia

 * Outside of school, Ratburn is shown to enjoy many jovial pursuits, such as magic, puppeteering, and camping.
 * The car that Mr. Ratburn drives is a red roadster convertible.
 * Mr. Ratburn is a fanatic of Spooky-Poo, a play on the Hanna-Barbera-based Scooby-Doo show.
 * A running gag is Mr. Ratburn knowing nothing about computers or the internet.
 * Another running gag is his love (almost obsession) of desserts, especially for cake.
 * In "Cents-Less," Mr. Ratburn is shown feeding two goldfish, whom he calls Vladimir and Estragon. It would seem that Mr. Ratburn has named his pets in honor of two characters from Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.
 * He is based on Gary Rathbun, Marc Brown's seventh-grade algebra teacher.