This theme of forgiveness is imperative for educators to recognize, especially for understanding student with a low socioeconomic status. To support the whole child, an educator should be mindful of the fact that loyalty and forgiveness will impede the child’s willingness to speak out about unmet needs. Jeannette and her siblings did not act out in school, but they most certainly were dealing with the extreme hardships of poverty. Educators cannot allow these children to suffer alone. Supportive teaching means understanding that, “the secret is to provide the services that reduce their distraction and stressors and strengthen their ability to learn and succeed” (Jensen, 2009, p. 70). By providing much needed services to students such as food and safety, schools will support the overall success of students living in poverty. Educators should be proactive and vigilant in supporting the needs of their least advantaged learners. Such a support could be simply providing a quiet place to take test or complete homework. As a sensitive teacher who is in tune with the emotional needs of my students, I can every day buffer the stressors that low-SES kids experience.
Theme Three: Nonconformity
The Glass Castle is laced throughout with the theme of nonconformity. Rex and Rose Mary Walls defy authority, scoff at social norms, and encourage their children to live carefree while in the grasp of poverty. Nonconformity was simultaneously a blessing and a curse. Rose Mary refused to conform to holding a teaching job to support her family, but she also teaches her children the beauty in not altering who they were to conform to society. When Jeannette has a plan to aright the sideways Joshua tree, her mother quickly dismisses the idea. Walls recall...
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...l manifest themselves adversely in individual students. However academic success does not have to ride on the shoulders of socio economic status. As educators we are called to help poverty stricken children rise above the predicted outcomes for their lives. First, we must start with a willingness of change ourselves. Educators, “most stop using low IQ as an excuse for giving up on children and instead provide positive, enriching experiences that build academic operating systems” (Jensen, 2009, p. 65). To support the whole child, we must believe that change is possible. By being a catalyst for change, educators will provide their students with a belief that every person can succeed every day. Frank McCourt said it most eloquently in his memoir Angela’s Ashes, “You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace” (McCourt, 1996, p. 208).
In the novel, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls recounts her childhood as a tale of harsh struggle and of conflicting viewpoints. The set of ideals which she developed as an individual along with those instilled within her by her parents seemingly rival those purported by society and the developed world, creating an internal struggle greater than any of her physical conflicts. Examples of such conflicts involve the abstract areas of race, wealth versus poverty, and idealism versus realism.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir told in the perspective of a young girl (the author) who goes through an extremely hard childhood. Jeannette writes about the foodless days and homeless nights, however Jeannette uses determination, positivity, sets goals, and saves money, because of this she overcame her struggles.
The Glass Castle is a memoir of the writer Jeannette Walls life. Her family consists of her father Rex Walls, her mother Rose Mary Walls, her older sister Lori Walls, her younger brother Brian Walls and her younger sister Maureen Walls. Jeannette Walls grew up with a lot of hardships with her dad being an alcoholic and they never seemed to have any money. Throughout Jeanette’s childhood, there are three things that symbolize something to Jeannette, they are fire, New York City and the Glass Castle, which shows that symbolism gives meanings to writing.
The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls about her family. In this story she tells about her adventurous and dangerous childhood that shaped her to be the person she is today. Which is a strong, optimistic, responsible woman who knows how to roll with the burns and the punches literally. Brian, who is younger than Jeannette was her partner in crime in all her childhood memories. Maureen was the youngest she was not too close with the family and if I had one way to describe her it would be lost. Lori was oldest sibling and the total opposite. She was more reserved and very into her art. Which she took after their mother, RoseMary. RoseMary was a selfish woman, she would constantly put herself first. She was also, very weak and
In the book, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls there were many conflicts throughout the book, and the people in the situations made different decisions and actions depending on how they were involved in the conflict. The title of the book itself is a metaphor that signifies false promises and hopes. The author uses Mary literary devices to show adversity. The person that stood out the most in how he dealt with things was Rex Walls, since he’s the one who took different actions and decisions when a problem came their way. Jeannette Walls uses a lot of literary devices to show the adversity of building a family and how people’s actions and decisions depend on the conflict.
The novel The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, brings to the surface many of the the struggles and darker aspects of American life through the perspective of a growing girl who is raised in a family with difficulties financially and otherwise. This book is written as a memoir. Jeannette begins as what she remembers as her first memory and fills in important details of her life up to around the present time. She tells stories about her family life that at times can seem to be exaggerated but seemed normal enough to her at the time. Her parents are portrayed to have raised Jeannette and her three siblings in an unconventional manner. She touches on aspects of poverty, family dynamics, alcoholism, mental illness, and sexual abuse from
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir about Jeannette’s childhood experiencing many difficult situations. It is an excellent example of contemporary literature that reflects society. This story connects with social issues relevant to our time period, such as unstable home life, alcoholism, and poverty. Many of these issues, as well as others, are also themes of the story. One major theme of the story is overcoming obstacles, which is demonstrated by Jeannette, the Walls’ kids, and Rex and Mary Walls.
In “The Glass Castle”, the author Jeanette Walls describes her childhood and what motivated her to chase her education and move out to New York City with her siblings and leave their parents behind in West Virginia. The main struggle Jeanette and her siblings had was the conflicting point of view that they had with their mother on parenting. Despite their father Rex Walls being an alcoholic, constantly facing unemployment, and being a source of hope for his children, Rose Mary Walls had her list of attributes that shaped her children’s life. Rose Mary had a very interesting view on parenting in Jeanette Wall’s memoir and this perspective of parenting influenced her children both positively and negatively.
...life living with yet loving parents and siblings just to stay alive. Rosemary and Rex Walls had great intelligence, but did not use it very wisely. In the book The Glass Castle, author Jeanette Walls discovers the idea that a conservative education may possibly not always be the best education due to the fact that the Walls children were taught more from the experiences their parents gave them than any regular school or textbook could give them. In this novel readers are able to get an indication of how the parents Rex and Rosemary Walls, choose to educate and give life lessons to their children to see the better side of their daily struggles. Showing that it does not matter what life throws at us we can take it. Rosemary and Rex Walls may not have been the number one parents in the world however they were capable in turning their children into well-educated adults.
Jeannette Walls reluctantly wrote Glass Castle in an attempt to show that even those with very different backgrounds and cultures really aren't all that different after all. Walls wrote of ridiculous situations and her experiences while growing up with a family that lacked the regular structural culture of other families, which included qualities such as morality, integrity, and a basic knowledge and feeling of obligation to follow the law of the land. Her parents both held values that were unique to each one of them as they lived their lives strongly expressing, through actions and words, that the normal values of other people simply weren’t right. Jeanette’s parents, though unconventional, were just as loving, if not more loving towards their kids as other parents. I think the reason the family was so strange, was simply because of the parents’ values that they taught their kids. The values your parents raise you with can greatly affect your future, and who you become as a person; this is what I can relate to. I’ve become conscious of how the values I grew up on evolved into more of a belief system, if not a stubborn pride-driven ability to deny handouts or help from people. Add this characteristic of mine to the fact that my parents wouldn’t allow me to drive until I turned eighteen, the fact that I lived on an isolated
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a harrowing and heartbreaking yet an inspiring memoir of a young girl named Jeannette who was deprived of her childhood by her dysfunctional and unorthodox parents, Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Forced to grow up, Walls stumbled upon coping with of her impractical “free-spirited” mother and her intellectual but alcoholic father, which became her asylum from the real world, spinning her uncontrollably. Walls uses pathos, imagery, and narrative coherence to illustrate that sometimes one needs to go through the hardships of life in order to find the determination to become a better individual.
In many low income communities, there are teachers that are careless and provide their students with poor quality education. These teachers are there just to make sure that they keep receiving their monthly paychecks and act in this way because they believe that low income students do not have the drive, the passion, or the potential to be able to make something of themselves and one day be in a better place than they are now. Anyon reveals that in working class schools student’s “Work is often evaluated not according to whether it is right or wrong but according to whether the children followed the right steps.” (3). This is important because it demonstrates that low income students are being taught in a very basic way. These children are being negatively affected by this because if they are always being taught in this way then they will never be challenged academically, which can play a huge role in their futures. This argument can also be seen in other articles. In the New York Times
It can be argued that the academic performance of children has nothing to do with their socioeconomic status, because there have been many cases of children from very poor families who have excelled greatly in academics (APA, 2017). Furthermore, many predominantly high-end schools have posted poor results when compared to school with poorer backgrounds. This is despite the fact children from lower socioeconomic classes do not have access to the best forms of learning materials. The high performance of children from poor backgrounds is often attributed to the fact that they are not preoccupied with many activities which would otherwise hinder them from concentrating on their studies (Sacerdote, 2002). Therefore, some believe it is false to say that poor performance is associated with children who come from low socioeconomic classes. Rather, they believe academic achievement is genetic (Sacerdote, 2002).
Forgiveness is the act of releasing an offender of any wrong or hurt they may have caused you whether they deserve it or not. It is a decision to let go of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group of people. When we choose to forgive, we’re wiping the slate clean, cancelling a debt, or as I love to say, “Letting it go.” In the Bible, the Greek word for forgiveness literally means to “let it go.” This concept, “forgiveness,” is easier said than done. Majority of people find it very difficult to let go of offenses and hurts caused by others. I really do believe that most people desire to let it go, but we lack the knowledge of how to do it. As believers, we are instructed by God maintain an attitude of forgiveness.
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.