During this school year, we read two stories called “A Walk to the Jetty” by Jamaica Kincaid and “Marita Bargain“ by Alexander Gladwell. The story, “A Walk to the Jetty”, is about a seventeen year old girl named, Annie John who lives on a small island in Antigua. She is on her way to board a ship to England to become a nurse and to discover her own person. The other story, Marita Bargain is about a middle school in New York City called KIPP. It is in a poor neighborhood, and its students are largely from financially disadvantaged families and members of racial minorities. But KIPP has, against what has become the general expectation regarding the quality of low-income schools, become one of the most desirable middle schools in the city. …show more content…
There are people like Annie John in “A Walk to the Jetty” ’ who left her home and family in order to learn things.
There are also people like Marita from “Marita’s Bargain” who are willing to give up personal relationships to do good in school. Sacrifices are sometimes necessary to do well in school. So comes forth the question how much are people willing to give up or willing to do for success? People are willing to sacrifice time, personal life, sleep, health, and things like their sanity for success. Both stories explain to us the lengths the characters Annie and Marita went through just to achieve their goal of success and the sacrifices they make to do so. Annie and Marita have some differences as well which are some things like how Annie moved away from her mother and rest of her family to pursue schooling for becoming a nurse. Marita, in the other hand, got to stay with her family but The story states “My mother and father-I was leaving them
forever.” Like Kincaid herself, the protagonist is emotionally affected from her mother at a young age. Kincaid revisits this theme often in her works. She also expresses her abhorrence of British colonial rule in Antigua, most notably in the nonfiction work A Small Place, which excited controversy for its deeply angry tone.“Marita’s Bargain” An essay by Malcolm Gladwell contrasting the difference between KIPP students and Public school students.Annie John’s experience is very similar to Marita Bargain’s experience. Annie John is a young seventeen years old who is emotionally not stable. The struggle her parents had to go through before making her travel was not seen by Annie. Annie always thought she was not loved by her parents especially thinking her mother hated Annie John’s experience is similar to the story of Marita’s as both of them have an important ethnic background. Although they are just growings girls, Annie is a complex figure. They also both wants a better world , like Marita said To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success—the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history—with a society that provides opportunities for all.” In conclusion , they both had a hard life , but they succeed at it. They love school and want to be the best at it.
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.
In order to understand Mike Rose, and his book Lives on the Boundary, you must first understand where Mike is coming from and examine his past. Mike was born to a first generation immigrant family, originally from Italy. He spent his early childhood in the mid-west and then in his latter childhood, parents not knowing any better, in East Los Angeles. Mike’s father suffered from arteriosclerosis. Neither Mike’s mother nor his father had completed high school and no one in his family had ever attended college. This is the setting, background, and characters of Mike’s tale of “struggles and achievements of America’s educationally underprepared” . Through this book Mike constantly is emphasizing three main themes. First, the importance of an educational mentor; later in this treatise we will examine several of Mike’s mentors. Second, social injustices in the American education system; specifically the lack of funding and bureaucracy’s affect on the public educational system. Third and lastly, specific teaching methods that Mike has used to reach out to kids on the boundary.
Despite the adversity that plagued the children of South Boston throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Southie native Michael Patrick MacDonald often remarked that he grew up in “the best place in the world,” suggesting that while adversity can be crippling, it does not guarantee a bad life. Throughout his childhood, MacDonald and his family suffered from extreme poverty, experienced the effects of drugs on the family structure, and felt the poor educational effects in a struggling neighborhood. Through his memoir, All Souls, readers gain an in-depth perspective of Michael Patrick MacDonald’s life, especially his childhood. Because readers are able to see MacDonald as both a child and an adult, it is possible to see how the circumstances of his childhood
The Girl with the Brown Crayon tells a simple personal story of a teacher and a child, interweaving the themes of race, identity, gender, and the essential human needs to create, and to belong. With these characteristic charms, and wonder, Paley discovers how the unexplored territory unfolding before her and Reeny comes to mark the very essence of school, a common core of reference, something to ponder deeply and expand on extravagantly. The child, Reeny, meets a writer of books and story-teller, is introduced to his fictional characters, and debates, with other children, their virtues and weaknesses.
Jonathan Kozol's book, Amazing Grace, analyzes the lives of the people living in the dilapidated district of South Bronx, New York. Kozol spends time touring the streets with children, talking to parents, and discussing the appalling living conditions and safety concerns that plague the residents in the inner cities of New York. In great detail, he describes the harsh lifestyles that the poverty stricken families are forced into; day in and day out. Disease, hunger, crime, and drugs are of the few everyday problems that the people in Kozol's book face; however, many of these people continue to maintain a very religious and positive outlook on life. Jonathan Kozol's investigation on the lifestyle of these people, shows the side to poverty that most of the privileged class in America does not get to see. Kozol wishes to persuade the readers to sympathize with his book and consider the condition in which these people live. The inequality issues mentioned are major factors in affecting the main concerns of Kozol: educational problems, healthcare obstacles, and the everyday struggles of a South Bronx child.
In this book, the children speak openly and honestly about feeling 'abandoned', 'hidden' or 'forgotten' by our nation, one that is blind to their problems. Studying the people themselves would only get us so far in understanding what their community is really like and why they feel this way. Jonathan Kozol really got to know the people individually. We can take his knowledge and stories to try for a better understanding of the environment in which they live. By doing this, we can explore the many reasons why the people have problems, what some levels of intervention could be, and possibly find some solutions to making the South Bronx a healthier and safer place for these children and others to live.
She filled her thoughts with the better education she would be receiving, as well as the huge step she would be taking in making sure all people of color would eventually receive a better education. She wondered about the white friends she would soon be making. Above all, she felt proud, knowing that she deserved this chance at a better life. Even before she stepped foot in the hallways of Central High, however, Melba’s sense of excitement and anticipation began to subside and was replaced with fear and frustration. As she went through her first few months at Central, she was plagued with a daily fear for her own personal safety.
In conclusion, in Conley’s memoir he focuses on his experience of switching schools, while in the third grade, from a predominantly African American and Latino school to a predominantly caucasian elementary school. His memoir focuses on the differences in his experiences at each school and how race and class further separated the similarities between his two schools. Conley focuses equally on race and class and how they both influenced and shaped his life, but class was the primary influence on Conley’s
In the story Jubilee by Kirstin Valdez Quade A young very bright Latin American woman, Andrea, struggles with feeling like she’s been accepted in today’s society despite all of her achievements. These feelings tend to peak and turn negative whenever she’s around the family of her father’s lifelong employer, the Lowells, and in particularly their daughter Parker. Although the Lowells, as a whole seem to love Andrea and her family, she finds that their success and good fortune directly correlates to her family’s second rate citizenship. This story reveals that obsession with being accepted as an equal can be an ever increasing stressor that can severely damage a child’s identity, social skills and ultimately lead to misplaced resentment and
Instead of loving and caring for her baby, and forgetting about Danny, she became worse than him. Rodriguez presents many aspects of the minority class that live in the United States, specifically the South Bronx. Even though the cases presented in Rodriguez’s short stories are difficult to mellow with, they are a reality that is constant in many lives. Everyday someone goes through life suffering, due to lack of responsibility, lack of knowledge, submission to another entity or just lack of wanting to have a better life. People that go through these situations are people who have not finished studying, so they have fewer opportunities in life.
In modern society, the rules for school are simple and straightforward. To do well in school means to do well later in all aspects of life and guaranteed success will come. Sadly however, this is not the case for Ken Harvey or Mike Rose. Author Mike Rose goes to Our Lady of Mercy, a small school located deep in Southern Los Angeles where he meets other troubled students. Being accidentally placed in the vocational track for the school, Rose scuttles the deep pond with other troubled youths. Dealt with incompetent, lazy and often uninvolved teachers, the mix of different students ‘s attention and imagination run wild. Rose then describes his classmates, most of them trying to gasp for air in the dead school environment. On a normal day in religion
The use of Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy in this story is very thought-provoking. While we are presented with the image of a young Richard Rodriguez and his struggle to deal with his education and family life. We are also presented Hoggart’s image of the “Scholarship boy” the student who has ...
Drugs, violence, prostitution, pollution, infestation, and sickness of all kinds are present in South Bronx, New York. Unfortunately, children are surrounded and involved in all these problems and more. In Jonathan Kozol’s novel Amazing Grace, an evil reality full of racial segregation and alienation affect the people living in the ghetto. The personalities of these children are changed forever due to the existence of discrimination.
The main character of this book is Sylvia Barret she is a recent college graduate, and works as a high school English teacher. Sylvia would like to work in a nice private school, like so many of her friends. Instead Sylvia takes a job with the board of education, in a nieve attempt to reach out to the under privileged inner-city children in public schools. Sylvia battles with so many choices in this book. In the end she makes the right ones.
Carroll, Jamuna. America's Youth. New York: The Gale Group, 2008. Dryfoos, Joy G. Safe Passage. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.