In the book, “Rereading America,” written by Toni Cade Bambara along with Gary Colombo and Robert Cullen, Bambara focuses on the challenges and desire to teach by contras of what you don’t have and what you can achieve. (Bambara, pg. 253-259) It is without doubt that even though a cookie cutter theory is used in most schools; there will be certain social economical neighborhoods in which a teacher or adult will have to vary the process of communication in order to get his or her point across with dedication and teach the love for learning. Ms. Moore had been a wise educated woman who did not avoid the challenging attitudes of children going up in a disadvantaged economical community.
Her concept of labeling schools arises from two important points. One, it’s a very huge investment and second, increase in annual tuition rates by 125% over thirty years. She conveys the canonical facts of inflation indebtedness students lug after completing college or joining a job. Government and Education policymakers should be acutely aware of the plight of a student coming from a lower class or lower middle class family. Being educated from Harvard in English Literature, she has developed and researched the topic and laid out the facts and figures very beautifully for the
Susan Eaton’s work, The Children in Room E4, shows the racial and economic segregation that is very prominent in Hartford, Connecticut. Stemming from the availability of jobs and the housing market, Hartford has turned into the segregated city it currently is today. Especially in Hartford’s urban schools, economic and racial segregation is the constant truth that lurks in every corner, over every teacher’s shoulder, in every student’s face. This ugly truth has resulted in an unequal educational system between schools that are only miles away. Though the state has been made aware of the unequal opportunities between urban and suburban schools, little change has been seen to benefit the children of Hartford.
Unique Title Francie Nolan was a very special girl who went through a lot and still kept living her life normally. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, by Betty Smith is about a young girl named Francie and her family troubles. Her family troubles are very hard. Her father is a drunk and doesn't give her mother enough money to sustain them, so her mother also has to work. Her mother is beautiful and everyone in their neighborhood pity's her for have married Johnny Nolan (Francie father) and Francie has a lot going on with her family with just this, but there is more to the story.
Unsatisfactory schools do not maintain suitable conditions for students to learn and they are not treated as well as students from other schools. An example of this is in Kozol’s Fremont High School when it states that, “Long lines of girls are ‘waiting to use the bathrooms,’ which are generally ‘unclean’ and ‘lack basic supplies,’ including toilet paper” (Kozol 707). Student who have the desire to go to college hit dead ends in the school. One of the most impactful parts of the passage was when Kozol quoted Fortino saying, “You’re ghetto, so we send you to the factory” (Kozol 710). This shows the distrust that students in low-income areas feel toward our education system.
In “The Sanctuary of School” Lynda applies her personal life to the fact that some people think cutting down budgets for public schools will benefit when times get tough. Also that art, music and the creative ideas will be the first to go when budgets are cut. Lynda had a rough childhood where her parents had money issues and family members that needed temporarily to stay at her home (Barry, 721). The lack of attention from her parents made her look for attention elsewhere in this case the school. Lynda saw her teacher Mrs. LeSane as a mother figure.
When students are unaware of the history of social class, they begin to believe false information, such as, poor people deserve to be poor. Loewen does a great job of pointing out student’s misunderstanding of social status and strongly believes that it is the high school text books to
By doing this she explains how working-class parents were afraid for their child to enter the real world because they felt they might grow to be ashamed of their background, or they wouldn’t want to return home, or only come home to prove that their life will be better than their parents. “Class realities separated me from fellow students” (Hooks 419). In most class meetings, class disparity was not a topic of discussion and Hooks never discussed how she began to feel a sense of guilt when she thought about the brown skin Filipina women who got paid to clean the college living areas or how she tried to make an effort to send money home to help her mother out. Even though Hooks knew she would be receiving a good education she also knew she had the option to rebel at any
“ A tree grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith is an interesting book. Every chapter talks about the poverty in the 20th century in America. The author, Betty, does not only refer poverty as the lack of food, shelter, etc. “Tree” is a coming of age story and that is one reason why I believe it should be in the ninth grade curriculum. This book teaches us about poverty, the fall of innocence, education, and sexuality.
Francie Nolan, Malala Yousafzai, and Sonia Sotomayor all faced many adversities throughout their childhood and early adult years. Francie had to face many obstacles that stood in the way of her commitment toward self- actualization. Alcoholism, poverty, and a hard time building relationships with friends in her new school served as obstacles she had faced. All of these adversities helped her adapt to a life of hardship. Francie had to find and hand in scrap and junk to get pennies.
Lynda's story is not an isolated incident, but it is a situation that many children face. Many children across our country depend on the stability of programs in school. Our society does not address the needs of public schools enough. It is not uncommon today for teachers to pay out of pocket for classroom supplies. Unfortunately, the poorer school districts suffer the most.
Tenement districts in Brooklyn throughout the early 1900s provided challenges that entire families were forced to handle. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, depicts the Nolan family facing difficulties that even children had to overcome while they lived in one of these districts. Francie Nolan, the main character of the novel, is faced with the greatest difficulty of them all: growing up. Poverty was one aspect of Francie’s life that caused her to lack certain fundamental features of a regular child’s life. This is shown through Francie consistently being without food due to poverty, and having to discover for herself in a very difficult way that hunger was a painfully real issue.
The idea of classroom causing problems for America’s society is elaborated when President Johnson explains that many children in America don’t have enough money to afford school. “There your children’s lives will be shaped. Our society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and imagination.” In order for a society to be great, education is the foundation; schools are where child learn about their world, and what it is they will do in the future to earn money to live a good life. And to better prove his idea Johnson states, “Each year more than 100,000 high school graduates, with proved ability, do not enter college because they cannot afford it,” then questions what will happen in years when time has become elapsed to conclude any efforts are needed to come into play for there to be a Great Society.
When taking a look into Jean Anyon’s “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, readers are apprised of the hidden agendas many schools have. In this article, Anyon focuses on the curriculum and student-teacher interaction from five New Jersey elementary schools located in different communities with different levels of socioeconomic status. Anyon attempts to find evidence of the differences in student work in schools in wealthy communities versus those in poor communities, in an effort to bolster the argument that public schools in society provide different forms of knowledge. Through her researcher, she was able to determine that working class schools limited students; the students were given steps to follow and they were graded based on how well they followed directions—this level of education was preparing students for the labor force as blue collar workers. In addition, the affluent professional school and the middle-class school focused on attaining the correct answer, but allowed individuals to have a choice of appropriate method and material.
The cool, upland air, flooding through the everlasting branches of the lively tree, as it casts a vague shadow onto the grasses ' fine green. Fresh sunlight penetrates through the branches of the tree, illuminating perfect spheres of water upon its green wands. My numb and almost transparent feet are blanketed by the sweetness of the scene, as the sunlight paints my lips red, my hair ebony, and my eyes honey-like. The noon sunlight acts as a HD camera, telling no lies, in the world in which shadows of truth are the harshest, revealing every flaw in the sight, like a toddler carrying his very first camera, taking pictures of whatever he sees. My head looks down at the sight of my cold and lifeless feet, before making its way up to the reaching arms of an infatuating tree, glowing brightly virescent at the edges of the trunk, inviting a soothing, tingling sensation to my soul.
