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What Does Dummy Smart Mean

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Throughout the first half of the book He described how the social factors continued to play a huge role on how the African American and Latino youth gradually develop. As the novel progresses, He starts to further develop this idea by shedding more light on how these adolescents actually felt and why they chose to be deviant instead of becoming working members of society. As it is further explained in the novel, most of these adolescents want to make change of lifestyle, but there are many barriers that prohibit them from doing so. Change seems to be something simple, but can become difficult because of all the negativity the youth in the novel experience. It becomes next to impossible to strive to be better when the youth are constantly told they are worthless by people of higher authority and even their own peers. In the novel, Dr. Rios describes a concept He calls “dummy smart”. During his study he noted that there were multiple youth who were doing very well in school, but were labeled as being deviant and dumb by school officials. They purposely acted as if they were uninterested in school, but when called upon they always knew the answer, which shows they are more willing to gain respect from people of higher authority in a more negative way. As the novel progresses Dr. Rios goes on to explain how some of the youth wanted to change, but felt …show more content…

If educators chose to show respect and properly teach these minorities this concept would be void. In order to help these minority youth the people of higher authority need to encourage the kids to do better because sometimes punishment is not always the answer. If the youth really seem to be serious in regards to changing their lifestyle they should become accustom to these being many difficult barriers which could almost seem impossible to surpass, however if they are willing and able to do so they can and will surpass

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