Losing something can be one of the most frustrating things ever. It can throw your whole day off track. On the contrary, losing a half of a pair of socks. Everyone has this problem; matching socks is not everyone’s strong suit. Whether you look like an idiot with two different coloured socks or your big toe is sticking out of a hole, it can change your whole perspective of your day. You can totally rock it or you can let it bother you for the next 24 hours. Chip Martin allows his grief to possibly bother him for the rest of his life. In John Green’s award winning young adult novel, “Looking for Alaska” the main character Chip “the Colonel” Martin meets his new roommate, Miles “Pudge” Halter. The Colonel is the best friend of the enticing Alaska Young, which Pudge has fallen deeply in love with. At Culver Creek Preparatory School, it does not seem like much goes on beyond the gates; Alaska, the Colonel and Pudge discover things they probably want to forget. Alaska and Pudge share moments and the Colonel make sure that his friends are aware of the problems. Pudge learns more and more of Alaska, and when all is going well, the worst is not expected, death. The Colonel and Pudge are left to pick up the remaining pieces of their friend’s passing. This leads to the destruction of the Colonel. Being Alaska Young’s best friend, it reminds him you never truly realize what you have lost until it is gone. The Colonel opens up, as he is not just the buff, over-confident guy, but a sentimental and sensitive person. Due to the fact, he comes from an underprivileged family, which makes him a genuine family person. It also allows him to be a strong-hearted man for his single mother. Chip displays his loyalty to his mother and all his friends. He ...
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...feelings of wealthy people. “Well, now you get why I hate rich people’” (Green 91). As many would think he is the stereotypical arrogant jock, you thought wrong. Once, you are able to learn about Chip Martin and become his friend, his kinder and sentimental side shines through. The author shows the reality of poverty, single parents and the strength of teens in our society. Families in Canada are very lucky, but living in a great country makes us blind-sided to everything around us. The Colonel’s friends never saw where he was from, and when they do they realize how lucky they really are.
Works Cited
"11 Facts About Education and Poverty in America." Do Something. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. .
Green, John. Looking for Alaska: A Novel. New York: Dutton Children's, 2005. Print.
After feeling ostracised by the township, the alienated Brennan family are driven to leave the town of Mumbilli at 4:30am. With hardly any peer support, Tom begins to lose his sense of security, resulting in his transformation into an unconfident teen who is afraid of public opinion. It is no wonder that Tom is unable to move on in his new town as he is being held back in fear of revealing his past. Burke tactfully illustrates Tom’s emotional kaleidoscope through phrases such as “I felt the knot snap” and “my guts landing at my feet” (Burke, pg 172) when reflecting on the accident. On the contrary, with encouragement from family members, Tom begins to step out of his comfort zone and face the future that is to come.
It’s considered a rarity now days to walk down a major city street and not come across a single person who is fighting to survive poverty. The constant question is why don’t they go get help, or what did they do to become like this? The question that should be asked is how will America fix this? Over the past year, Americans who completed high school earned fifteen point five percent more per hour than that of dropouts (Bernstein, Is Education the Cure to Poverty). According to Jared Bernstein, in his article “Is Education the Cure to Poverty”, he argues that not only do the poor need to receive a higher education, but to also maximize their skill levels to fill in where work is needed (Is Education the Cure to Poverty). Counter to Bernstein’s argument Robert Reich expresses that instead of attempting to achieve a higher education, high school seniors need to find another way into the American middle class. Reich goes on to say “the emerging economy will need platoons of technicians able to install, service, and repair all the high-tech machinery filling up hospitals, offices, and factories” (Reich, Why College Isn’t (and Shouldn’t Have to be) for Everyone). Danielle Paquette, though, offers an alternative view on higher education. Paquette gives view that it doesn’t matter on the person, rather it’s the type of school and amount of time in school that will determine a person’s
The author stereotyped the rich people by saying the dad of Red Chief will not care about getting Red Chief back because he cares to much about his job and getting money. The author also stereotyped the rich people by having the dad write to Bill and Sam and say “ Return by boy and pay 250 dollars and i'll take him off your hands. Finally, the author stereotyped rich people by having the dad not worry about Red Chief. The dad didn't even bother to look for his son. That's how the author stereotyped rich people for only caring about their
Basic education is mandatory for all kids in the United States. There are laws with minimum and maximum age limits for required free education, but this does not make all education equal. The minimum age varies from four to five to begin kindergarten, while most students graduate high school by age of eighteen or nineteen. However, there are kids that begin their education much earlier. Bell Hooks’ “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”, Jonathan Kozol’s “From Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid”, and Barbara Ehrenreich’s “How I Discovered the Truth About Poverty” have a common topic, “poverty”. Moreover, each of these readings has a different perspective with a different agenda attached, but “poverty”
A key to ending the cycle of poverty, is educational equity. In America today, public education is unequal racially and socioeconomically (Honda 11). Internationally, America is not excelling academically. When looking closely at American student’s Program for
Education is now more important than it has ever been. Because it is the law that every child receives an education, most people believe that all children are getting an equal education. But, that is not the truth; low-income children are receiving poorer quality education than middle-class children. These children also experience racial inequality, and they live in an unbreakable low-income cycle, all of which are things that have an effect of the quality of education a child is receiving. As stated by Brooks and Duncan (1997), "How does the relative lack of income influence children 's day-to-day lives? It is through inadequate nutrition; fewer learning experiences; instability of residence; lower quality of schools;
For decades, the United States educational system has provided opportunity for millions of Americans to attend school. However, the gap between the lower income and middle-class students continue to narrow in terms of who will drop out and who would succeed. The articles I chose speak both of issues regarding education and inequality and the growing gap of educational success between the haves and the have nots. In addition, how race and lower class play a large factor on those who succeed and those who do not.The articles also bring to life possible factors such as funding towards a child’s education, in particular the early years, parent involvement and race.
With the growth of income inequality since the 1970s, there has been a growth in education inequality. According to Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane in Growing income inequality threatens American education, before the 1970s American families with low incomes generally had opportunities to work their way to success. However, “computer-driven technological changes favoring highly educated workers… have produced sharply growing income gaps among families”. Education decline has “accompanied the
Otis sat at his tattered corner booth, the pale pink and teal upholstery ripped and worn by all those who had rested there before him. His charcoal-grey hair was oily and unkept as if he hadn’t known the pleasure of a shower or a comb since his early days in the war. His once green army jacket, faded to a light grey, covered the untucked, torn, and sweat-stained Goodwill T-shirt under it. He wore an old pair of denim blue jeans that were shredded in the knees and rested three inches above his boney ankles; exposing the charity he depended upon. His eyes, filled with loneliness and despair as if he had realized a lack of purpose in his life, were set in bags of black and purple rings two layers deep. His long, slender nose was set above a full crooked mouth with little lines at the corners giving his face the character of someone who used to smile often, but the firm set of his square jaw revealed a portrait of a man who knew only failure.
Throughout the nation, education inequality affects many minority students that have low-income which reinforces the disparity between the rich and the poor. The amount of children that have a socioeconomic background of poverty in the United States is estimated to be 32.4 million (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2011). Since many of these children are from
Education is a major component in an individual’s future success in today’s society. The traditional model that we are taught to follow is to achieve good grades in High School so that we are able to get accepted to a good college in order to obtain a good high paying job. However, if the major building blocks of our education are somehow hindered by sociological influences, it would be correct to assume that our future success would also be affected. An example of a situation in which sociological aspects impact that education system can be found right here in the city of Lowell. According to the United States Census Bureau, the median household income for the year 2012 was about $51,714 annually compared with the average income throughout Massachusetts which was about $66,658 annually. Additionally in the year 2012, the statistics for the persons below the poverty level was 17.3 percent, significantly higher than Massachusetts average of 11.0 percent. Lowell is known as an urban environment and a city full of many different and diverse types of people. However, the city of Lowell does contain a large population that are, by today’s standards, considered to be living below the poverty line. ("U.S Census Bureau")
Looking for Alaska is a book ,written by John Green. The main theme of the book is “Looking for the Great Perhaps.” In the first three chapters of the book, the main characters, Miles “Pudge” Halter, Chip “Colonel” Martin, and Alaska Young are introduced. Looking for Alaska is a story about a guy named Miles Halter who recently switched to a boarding in school in Alabama in order to find out who he really is as a person. At the boarding school, Miles becomes very close friends with his roommate, The Colonel, and a girl named Alaska Young. The Colonel is a very confident guy who’s pretty poor in money, but he’s rich in love and appreciation for people. Alaska is a very beautiful, yet strange girl who is fascinated with death and isn't afraid
Reardon, Sean F. "The Widening Academic Achievement Gap between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations."Center for Education Policy Analysis at Stanford University. Stanford University, 2011. Web. 27 Feb. 2012. .
Living in poverty exposes children to disadvantages that influence many aspects in their life that are linked to their ability to do well in school. In the United States of America there are an estimated 16.4 million children under the age of 18 living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). “The longer a child lives in poverty, the lower the educational attainment” (Kerbo, 2012). Children who are raised in low-income households are at risk of failing out before graduating high school (Black & Engle, 2008). U.S. children living in poverty face obstacles that interfere with their educational achievement. Recognizing the problems of living in poverty can help people reduce the consequences that prevent children from reaching their educational potential.
Currently, relatively few urban poor students go past the ninth grade. The graduation rates in large comprehensive inner-city schools are abysmally low. In fourteen such New York City Schools, for example, only 10 percent to 20 percent of ninth graders in 1996 graduated four years later. Despite the fact that low-income individuals desperately need a college degree to find decent employment, only 7 percent obtain a bachelors degree by age twenty-six. So, in relation to ...