Growing up is a process each child goes through to accomplish being an adult. Imagine a hole in the ground; the hole is a child's youth. The fresh earth soil cradles the hole like a mother cradles her newborn. The seed is the most important; the dwelling of all the childhood experiences. If the seed is planted firmly, given love, and nurtured, an able-bodied, active, and promising adult will be transformed. Then there is the hole that has been abandoned; never given love or attention. The soil is hard, and crumbles instantly when touched. The seed is filled with poverty, humiliation, ethnic diversity and an absent parent. The abandoned hole represents an impassive, comatose adult. A neglected childhood challenges people to attain a healthy …show more content…
Zitkala-Sa encountered humiliation while on a train ride. Children of the palefaces pointed and stared at her moccasins shoes and blanket; making the author feel inadequate and ashamed (110). In addition, humiliation can make a child helpless, and unable to help others. Gregory belittles himself through his story of a wino, which walked into the dinner Gregory was eating dinner. The wino orders all kinds of food; only to have no funds for the meal ticket. The owner begins to assault the wino, when Gregory offers to pay for the wino's meal; the wino responds, "Thanks, sonny, but it's too late now. Why didn't you pay it before?" Gregory concludes the story on how torn up he was for not helping the wino in time (120). In conclusion, humiliation can turn a child into an adult who shudders from life, and all it has to offer, for fear of humiliation. Ethnic diversity adds turmoil to a child’s upbringing. Imagine a child put on display simply because of a different ethnic background. Many children go through this kind of turmoil in America. Zitkala-Sa points outs, while sitting on the train ride to her new home in the east children would gawk and point their small fingers. Adults inspected her under a microscope like a parasite; just for being a bronze face (110). Gregory describes how he longed for the attention of a classmate he grew to adore. When she would approach his street; he would
What this novel does not touch on is the harsh levels of discrimination that some Asian-American families faced during the 20th centuries, some people telling at them to go back to Vietnam, Korea, or wherever they came from, some refusing service, perhaps throwing them out for being different, similarly to how African-Americans were treated during that time, and similar to how some Muslims are being treated today. However, more insidious than moments of outright hostility, and maybe more powerful, are the constant weak reminders that you’re different, that you’re not one of them. The “sign at the Peking Express” (Ng 193), the “little boys on the playground, stretching their eyes to slits with their fingers” (Ng 193), you even “saw it when waitresses and policemen and bus drivers spoke slowly to you, in simple words, as if you might not understand” (Ng 193). All these tiny things, these little reminders that you’re not the same as everyone else around you, may have more impact on the people being discriminated against than blatant in-your-face
Within the confines of this paper, derived from an immensely valuable article, describing the impoverished young life of an 11-year-old girl named Dasani. A five-part article written in the New York Times turned out to be a masterpiece for learning, which published in 2013. Four different perspective theories were used to analyze young Dasani's personal life, Dasani's Homeless life, and Dasani's life in general. Furthermore, I will be assessing through, Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development, Control Theories, Behavior Settings Theories, and History, Social Structure, and Human Agency/Cultural Hegemony. Using the four different perspectives of theory afforded an exciting opportunity to attempt to understand her life from multiple angles a rather multifaceted approach. The process proves to be quite rewarding. Assuredly, many fresh perspectives were learned, with the paper this in-depth and broad scope allows the opportunity for a deeper learning experience. I learned, without a sound base in a young life that encompass, safety, food, shelter, and semi-functional parents, a child will have a difficult time getting a strong foothold in life. I learned this lesson from, in my opinion, the only way that will stick with you always, and will influence all decisions as well as thoughts. I lived it! Born into a mixed racial family that was devastated from no education. Abuse towards my brother James eight years old, my sister Felicia five years old and myself age of nine, was common to each day. Me being the
1.1 – Explain the factors that need to be taken into account when assessing development
When a reader opens their textbook to Alexie’s story, they immediately perceive the sections that are broken up by grade levels. Having Alexie use this method helps the reader understand how each grade level affected him as a person. Each grade level specifies a problematic situation Alexie encountered. For example, in the ninth grade, Alexie passed out “after a basketball game in an overheated gym” (Alexie 323). Alexie was diagnosed with diabetes. However, when the Chicano teacher ran up to Alexie, he stated, “What’s the boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian Kids. They start drinking real young” (Alexie 323). Alexie’s ethnicity made the teacher assume that he was drunk. Making this type assumption conveyed an act of direct racism. For each grade level, Alexie ends his story with an opinion-based sentence. For the ninth grade, Alexie expresses, “Sharing dark skin doesn’t necessarily make two men brothers” (Alexie 323).
In the United States early history, Native Americans, Africans and Europeans were marginalized by White People, and categorized as the minorities because they were seen as the inferior race. For nearly three centuries, the criteria for membership in these groups were similar, comprising a person's appearance, their social circle (how they lived), and their known non-White ancestry. History played a major part, as persons with known slave ancestors were assumed to be African (or, in later usage, black), regardless of whether they also had European ancestry. Most often these minorities face significant discrimination in various forms whether through voting, law policy, unequal pay, or even implicit racism, minorities of all kinds have been and still are being put down today. The book Between the World and Me is a letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s fifteen-year-old son, Samori. He weaves his personal, historical, and intellectual development into his ruminations on how to live in a black body in America. Not only does Coates give his personal experience in how he experience in first hand discrimination, racism, marginalization but he also gives vivid images on how he lived multiple worlds and how those experiences changed him. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua exposes her feelings about social and cultural difficulties that Mexican immigrants face when being raised in the United States. She establishes comparisons among English, Spanish and their variations on how
MU 2.9 1.1 Explain why working in partnership with others is important for children and young people
Ethnicity, race, and other diverse characteristics play very important roles in today's society. James Bank believes that “social science specialists in ethnic relations have abundantly documented the fact that ethnicity and ethnic cultures are integral parts of our social system” (pg 5). What children learn in elementary school about social studies and the history of their country and heritages will help determine what kind of citizen they will be to society when they are
Many of these children and youth reach this age faced with a daunting future, with limited options and resources for support. This is a social injustice, especially when compared to those children who have remained in their family of origin, who on reaching adulthood at age nineteen, continue to be supported emotionally and financially by their parents and extended families. Many youths who age-out of the care system or Out of Home Care, often find themselves abandoned, then lost with little to no support and doomed for
From this lesson, I would like to know the meaning of social construction of childhood. I am very familiar with the history of psychology and children’s literature. My grandmother used to live with us when I was a young, and she told me many stories of the past. For this reason, I am able to link the materials I study to the real world. The social construction of childhood is somehow new to me. Especially the way Postman (1999) expresses social construction of childhood. For example, he stated, “In the twentieth century, childhood began to unravel, and by the twenty-first, may be lost altogether- unless there is some serious interest in retaining it”. (p. 116). This lesson inspired me to express my point of view of social construction of
Additional considerations may arise when the child’s ethnic identity is being developed by parents who come from two different cultures [or different from their biological family]. The child then has to face integrating these two cultures... The child’s struggle to adjust, and desire, to belong… can place them at odds with being different from their family members. (p.
If you live in America your life should be better, fuller and richer for everyone, but if you belong in the working class or the poor class, this might still be impossible. You might be able to have a job, a place to live, but you will not be able to have all the other resources the upper class has. For example, time off from work, vacations, education, or even afford you own house, this might be the biggest struggles for working families. This paper will examine how minorities in, “The Lesson “and “Volar” deal with the difficult effects of socioeconomic class. In “Volar,” Judith Cofer presents us with the image of the little girl dreaming about changing her appearance.
The Foundation Of Childhood Life can be described as a skyscraper. When childhood morality builds a strong foundation, one can reach great heights. However, when built with a weak, unstable foundation, life’s obstacles undermine the building, causing it to crumble to the ground.
Social constructionism gives meaning to phenomenon in social context and connections between culture and society build up realities in their circumstances. The studies of this idea have been conducted more than thirty years by a number of North American, British and continental writers (Burr, 1995). However, in childhood studies this notion appears later on. It is mostly held universally, childhood is a stage that biologically existing in human life in early years. It should be considered this childhood is constructed in the society. As a social being, it brings into the mind the relationship between society and child, inevitably. However, the dominant understanding of childhood attributes biological and social
A child’s upbringing lays the foundations for their social skills and the way they interact with other ethnic groups.
My earliest memory I remember as a child is around the age of two years old. My Mother would put me in the playpen but I refused to stay. I was able to climb out of it. I remembered my Mother’s face expression that let me know that I better not climb out of the playpen again. This was one of my earliest memories of her setting her boundaries. When I got older, my Mother told me about the situation. She needed to clean and/or cook so she had to put me in the playpen. At the age of two years old, I just wanted to explore and didn’t want to stay in the playpen. This set the tone between us moving forward.