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Katie Lanie transferred to Seton Catholic high school during our junior year. Katie’s reason for leaving Carl Isle high school centered around one shadowy statement, “No one in that school understood me.” Katie said this to me almost every day and I produced only mixed reactions to her claim. I thought it would take more than a few short years of high school to completely understand a person. And frankly, not everyone cares about another’s problems, especially high school kids—most of them care about themselves and their status only. Sadly, I admit I fell into this group and didn’t get out until I found my appreciation for Katie. Throughout the year I kept Katie’s words in mind and they started to make sense.
Seton Catholic was a small high school, so it wasn’t too long before everyone knew “Crazy Lanie”. That’s the nickname the boys at school gave her. Katie’s physical appearance and loud-mouth intimidated the young Catholic school boys, but her oblivious attitude caused her to be unaware of this. Katie was very opinionated and spoke out in class on a daily basis. These habits were annoying when you were trying to learn, but they came in handy in our Economics class. There was one word that every Seton Catholic student used to describe the Economics teacher—torture. Then Katie came and turned that class around. Her first love is talking, then politics and current issues. So she talked up a storm in class, eventually strayed away from the subject at hand, and turned our class into a current issues debate team. A lot of us appreciated Katie’s unintentional deeds and some didn’t. One guy in particular who didn’t take pleasure in Katie’s existence was Mike Reckliss. Mike was an on the edge type of guy who only cared about his motorcycle and class—that’s where he got most of his shut-eye. Katie, Mike, and I had Business Law together every day after lunch. By the time we got to class, Mike’s stomach was full and he was ready for his afternoon nap. But with Katie there, baby Mikey was a crabby pants. On one particular day, we were discussing a person’s rights to property. Our teacher explained that his neighbor’s tree branches were hanging over onto his property, so technically he was entitled to cut down the branches that extended beyond the property line. Before our teacher could finish his story about property, the light in Katie’s head turned on.
Often the change and transition to middle is a difficult one for students, so it is no surprise that a student of Juanita’s caliber would be having trouble as well. Her regular middle school teachers were not going above and beyond to make sure Juanita succeed, if anything it seemed as if Juanita was a burden to them. If it was not for the Ms. Issabelle’s effort, Juanita would have failed the 6th grade, and possibly fell through the cracks of the education system.
Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s “School of Hate” is about a young girls experience growing up in a deeply conservative American state. Brittany Geldert has to endure the bullying that is unleashed upon her. No matter how traumatic the experience, it is ignored by the teachers. They betray Brittany by turning the other way on these issues. The wrong religious mindset appears to take paramount no matter how scandalous the ¨Bullying on LGBT¨ issues is in a modern day America. This is a great injustice to the people who have to endure this.
Mrs. Brown, the first schoolteacher on the island, most clearly demonstrates the theme of national ignorance. Mrs. Brown focuses on old-fashioned, and worthless teaching methods to educate her students. She very strictly follows the curriculum of the government, regardless of whether the students understand the content at all. She lacks caring and belief that the students will succeed. She just continues teaching her class according to the law, which in itself has ...
It is ironic that the person who has been enlisted to help Donny and who supposedly has “considerable psychological training” winds up being the person who leads to Donny’s grades and behavior getting even worse, and due to his influence leads to Donny being expelled from school (11). With the character of Cal, Tyler demonstrates further irony in that while he should be setting rules for Donny and adding structure to his life, he instead sets rules for Donny’s parents. Cal encourages Donny to have more freedom and tells Daisy and Matt that Donny doesn’t feel trusted, and so in turn instead of Daisy and Matt enforcing rules, they become more lax about the rules. They let him stay out later, attend parties, and don’t ask questions about what he is getting up to (42). Here the roles have been reversed and instead of Donny following rules, his parents are the ones following rules; “They were not allowed any questions at all about any aspect of school, nor were they to speak with his teachers” (look up para #).
Raquel and Melanie are two poverty stricken students that attended University Height’s High School in the South Bronx, because their school was not federal funded, it lacked resources; so it does not come as a surprise, perspective students like Melanie and Raquel have more of a ...
In the short story “River of Names” by Dorothy Allison, violence replaces education. The family in the story, which represents uneducated and poor lower class citizens, continues through a cycle of death and abuse throughout generations. Without proper education, improper actions and thoughts are hard to overcome. For example, the narrator’s sister, Billie, promised herself that she “wasn’t going to be like that” (Allison 170). The narrator and Billie swore they would break away from the pattern of violence within their family; however, their natural instincts leaned toward violent actions. Billie expressed violence towards her child’s cries while the narrator expressed her violence towards Jesse. The narrator of this story had more experience with educated people and therefore had more control over her actions by distinguishing right from wrong. Education aids in the use of moral sense. Although some lower class citizens have access to education, it is not the same quality education the upper class receives. In the short story “The Stolen Party,” Liliana Heker creates a scene of comparison between the education of different classes. Rosaura, the maid’s daughter, and Luciana, the daughter of the high class employer, worked on their homework together every day after school. Rosaura thought she was “a friend of Luciana” because of this; however, Luciana’s friends looked down upon Rosaura because she did not attend the same school as Luciana (150). The lower class faces discrimination due to the elite education of the upper class. The refinement and delicacy of higher class education provides them with knowledge of how to prepare their future generations for greatness instead of violence or
Melinda was an outcast and loner in high school who was overwhelmed, fearful, and confused with her life and her environment at school. She was always silent in class and afraid to speak in front of people. Many students today might feel the need to fit in with other people so they wouldn’t have to be looked down upon. As we take a look at Melinda’s life we’ll be able to see how she handles her daily conflicts. In the book, Speak, Melinda Sordino, an incoming freshman at Merryweather High, starts her year off with a terrible start. She’s stuck with a mean history teacher, by who she calls Mr. Neck and a whole bunch of other weird teachers like her English teacher of who she calls, Hairwomen, because of her crazy, uncombed hair. Her favorite teacher would seem to be her art teacher, Mr. Freeman, because he seems to be the nicest and most reasonable. Every student, even her ex-best friend, Rachel Bruin, gives her nasty looks and treats her rudely. All this trouble started when Melinda called the cops at an end-of-summer party. Everybody thinks she did that just to bust them and get all the people in trouble but instead, she called the cops for something more terrifying. During the night of that party, she was raped by a senior who goes to Merryweather High, Andy Evans, by who she calls IT or Andy Beast. She was too scared and didn’t know what to do so she called the cops. Because of this, now everyone in school is disgusted and hateful of her. Though most of the students didn’t like her, she did become sort of “distant” friends with Heather, Ivy, and her science lab partner, David Petrakis. With all the drama, sadness, and conflict involved in Melinda’s life, she still seems to manage and finish the school year without ...
...eral topic of school. The sister strives to graduate and go to school even though she is poor while her brother blames the school for him dropping out and not graduating. “I got out my social studies. Hot legs has this idea of a test every Wednesday” (118). This demonstrates that she is driven to study for class and get good grades while her brother tries to convince her that school is worth nothing and that there is no point in attending. “‘Why don’t you get out before they chuck you out. That’s all crap,’ he said, knocking the books across the floor. ‘You’ll only fail your exam and they don’t want failures, spoils their bloody numbers. They’ll ask you to leave, see if they don’t’” (118). The brother tries to convince his sister that school is not a necessity and that living the way he does, being a drop out living in a poverty stricken family is the best thing.
When life becomes overwhelming during adolescence, a child’s first response is to withdraw from the confinement of what is considered socially correct. Individuality then replaces the desire to meet social expectations, and thus the spiral into social non-conformity begins. During the course of Susanna’s high school career, she is different from the other kids. Susanna:
For the spring term, the faculty made changes and Philip got assigned to Miss Narwin’s homeroom class. Things got worse when Philip was assigned to her homeroom as if being in her English class wasn’t bad enough. When Philip got back to school he found out he was assigned to counseling. Philip was furious and still wanted to get out of Miss Narwin’s English class.
...and walked home.” Collins contrasts the students’ misbehavior with the teacher’s ignorance, thus implying a relationship between the history teacher’s inability to teach his students and their ensuing misbehavior.
...ne in the community warns Baby Suggs family that Schoolteacher is coming. They have all eaten of the ‘fruit’ but it has not brought knowledge, it has dulled it. Stamp paid had “…always believed it wasn’t the exhaustion from a long day’s gorging that dulled them, but some other thing---like, well, like meanness—…” (157). The community will soon confront evil personified by the people’s anger and the Schoolteacher’s hate that has arrived at 124.
This story takes place in a New York City school in Manhattan, in the nineteen- sixties. The book covers the span of one school semester form September to February.
My eagerness to embrace life in high school squashed when I came face to face with extreme mean behavior at the hands of kids my own age. My grades started falling, from an honors student I had turned into someone who just hated school. From sulking, to rebelling to being remorseful, had become my permanent demeanor.
We listened as Mrs. DeCostia enumerated the names of those involved. “Kat, Tara, Kelly, Alexis, Rob, Joe, Matt, and John.” She announced with annoyance. How is it that all my friends got in trouble for the greatest prank in Fairfield’s 75 year history, but my name was left off that prestigious list? I watched my friend’s proud faces as they walked to the front of the room and I laughed as I heard Matt say “So you caught the people, who perfectly reconstructed your room on the roof of the school, but you will never know who the genius behind it was, and as long as that stays a secret, we’ve done our job.” Then Mrs. DeCostia grabbed him by the shirt collar and dragged him outside. Soon there was a wave of people standing and clapping for their hero, the only person to show Mrs. DeCostia what a horrible person she really was. Apparently since my name had been left off the list, they had no intention of revealing it. But still I got the greatest prize of all, even better than being called up there with them: knowing that it was my idea to take every item out of her room and put it on the roof. There was a loud slamming of the door and soon the classroom fell silent. “Whose idea was it?” shouted Mrs. DeCostia. She was answered by silence. “I’ll ask one more time: Whose idea was it?” She said, speaking ever so slowly to ensure he understood. This time she was answered by a deep voice that could only be recognized as John’s. “You’re never gonna know so you might as well give up now.” “Oh, I will find out and when I do that person will be expelled! Now who is it?” Then in a voice that always seemed to say “What are you looking at?” Kat said “Listen lady, I don’t know who you think your dealing with but you’re never gonna know. We’re like...