“The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara begins with the introduction of an unpleasant character from the point of view of a young narrator named Sylvia. The new member of the community is Miss Moore, she is described as an educated woman who often insists on instructing the neighborhood children on educational matters, which seems to considerable annoy Sylvia and the other kids as well. One day, Miss Moore organizes a tour to Fifth Avenue’s F.A.O. Schwarz toy store in New York where she takes with her a total of eight children, Sylvia, and Sylvia’s best-friend Sugar among them. During the trip, Sylvia and the children maintain a reluctant attitude towards Miss Moore educational intentions. Nevertheless, this unwillingness to cooperate with Miss Moore changes when the group reaches the store’s show-windows. After being presented to a one-thousand-dollar sailboat exhibited in the storefront, the kid's attention starts to wonder about the discrepancy of the toy’s price. Sylvia, however, remains closed to sharing her opinions, even though she starts to feel an angriness and confusion towards what she is witnessing. When the excursion is over, and they return to their neighborhood, Sylvia shows at the end a glint of a shift in attitude when she disregards Sugar’s willingness to spend their money and establishes that “nobody gonna beat me at nuthin” …show more content…
The story’s central idea revolves around economic and racial inequality, the story establishes that the spread of education and the recognition of these disparities can spark a willingness to take actions against