The Wild Child, By Dr. Gene Itard

The Book A Child Called “It” written by Dave Pelzer who survived one of the most severe child abuse cases in history. He wrote about his life from the beginning when family life was good, and throughout the abusive years, until he was finally rescued. Before kindergarten Dave remembers his life being happy. He stated in the book that, “"My family was the 'Brady Bunch ' of the 1960s. My two brothers and I were blessed with the perfect parents. Our every whim was fulfilled with love and care." But in the years after that he faced unimaginable pain and abuse mentally and physically.

Discuss how your investigation of the generic conventions of poetry has influenced your understanding of at least one poem that you have studied in this unit.

Dave Pelzer’s book, “A Child Called It” (1995), chronicled the unforgettable accounts of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California’s history. The book is an intriguing, yet intimidating journey through the torturing childhood of the author, himself. The child, Dave Pelzer¸ was emotionally and physically tormented by his unstable mother. He was the victim of abuse in his own home, a source of ridicule at his own school, and stripped of all existence. This book left me in suspense as I waited with anticipation for the end of this little boy’s struggle to live. Throughout this paper, I will focus on the events that took place in this book and discuss my personal feelings and the effects this story had on me.

In the excerpt “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell the narrator speaks as a half wolf half human mind set. She discusses the improvements and difficulties of living in captivity after being free and wild their entire lives. There are three (3) main characters, Mirabella (youngest), Claudette who is the middle child of the three (3) sisters, and last but certainly not least, Jeanette. These girls are few of an entire “pack” of half human half wolf. The pack is referred to as a whole throughout the duration of this excerpt. They experience difficulty in the transition of the “wolf-identity” into more of a “human-identity”. This short story exemplifies how the difficulty of change after being exposed to ones “tradition” for so long differs for each “person” wolf or not.

Julie Lythcott-Haims explains to us all what a perfect child is; straight A student, fabulous test scores, gets homework done without parents asking them to do it… She has the right idea, the right mindset of a parent, every parent wants their child to succeed in life. The way that parents are parenting their children is messing them up. They don’t have a chance to become themselves, they are too focused on whether they did good on that test that they were stressing about for a week, they are too worried about getting the best grade to be able to get accepted into the biggest name colleges around. The parents become too consumed with hovering over their children making sure that they are doing flawlessly in school, the parents are directing their every single move they make. The children then began to think that their parents love comes from the good grades. Then they start making this checklist; Good grades, what they want to be when they grow up, get accepted into good colleges, great SAT scores, the right GPA, the jock of the sports team.

Jonathan Kozol, in the chapter entitled “Other People’s Children, discusses and justifies the kinds of limitations placed on children who must attend poorly funded, educationally inferior school. Kozol argues that children in the inner-city schools are not fit to go to college and that they should be trained in schools for the jobs they will eventually hold, even though these jobs are less prestigious, lowest-level jobs in society. Kozol’s argument is based on the fact that students from the inner-city or rather from the societies that do not have enough job opportunities are not supposed to learn much because their society cannot accommodate most of the courses that are often found in the urban settings. For example, there is a point where Kozol cites one of the businessman’s statement which says, ‘It doesn’t make sense to offer something that most of these urban kids will never use.’ The businessman continues to argue, ‘no one expects these ghetto kids to go to college. Most of them are lucky if they are literate. If we can teach some useful skills, get them to stay in school and graduate, and maybe into jobs, we’re giving them the most that they can hope for’ (Kozol 376). This statement clearly indicate that the society should accept the inequalities and exercise the same inequalities even in education.

Questions have been raised on whether Chinese parenting raises more flourishing children than Western parenting. Despite what people think, in Amy Chua's essay “The Roar of the Tiger Mom”, she portrays the differences between the beliefs of Chinese parenting and Western parenting. Chua introduces the views of a Chinese parent compared to the views of a Western parent. The methods used by Chinese mothers in raising their children are drastically different from Western mothers. Each defends their methods and believes the other group is doing their job poorly. In the end, both types of parents just want one thing-- successful children.

In The Natural by Bernard Malamud, Malamud displays the magnitude of how an individual’s decisions can influence their life. Malamud’s main protagonist, Roy Hobbs, is the leading example of this idea, as Hobbs continually faces both his internal struggles stemming from his desire for success, and external struggles attributed to his roller-coaster of a professional baseball career. Malamud uses Hobbs and the sport of baseball as a metaphor for typical American life by depicting Hobbs’ struggles as similar to any average American. Therefore, through the life of Roy Hobbs, Malamud alludes to the average American and explains how moral attitude can lead to a person’s success or downfall.

4) Who is the current Tribal Chairperson for the Muwekma, and why is this person considered controversial?

In order to write a successful essay, a author must research and use appropriate and reliable sources. The book series “Ranger's Apprentice” by John Flanagan is about the fictional country Araluen and a key part of the country, the Rangers. England, an island country of Europe, has many sources about it, but the one sourced in this essay comes from the “BBC”, it is written by Professor Tom James. The “BBC” source is about England during its middle ages. This essay compares and contrasts England and Araluen to determine which would be a better place to live.

In Meredith Small’s article Our Babies, Ourselves she focuses on people’s social and psychological development through examining the different cultural aspects of raising a child. During this process she compares the American perspective of treating babies, to those of the Gusii and the Dutch. Throughout her examination many points are made that I believe can give the reader’s a valuable understanding of the impact of different means of parenthood on a child’s future development.

The case of “Genie” is a tragic look at the effects of child abuse and neglect on childhood development. Genie’s case was particularly extreme, as she lived the first 13 years of her life in isolation and confinement. With little to no human interaction throughout her entire life, she developed no language skills. Researchers were extremely interested in this case, as it gave them a chance to explore two theories of language development. One theory is Noam Chomsky’s view that children are born with an innate ability to learn and understand language. Chomsky termed this structure in our brain the “Language Acquisition Device” (LAD). An alternate theory by Eric Lenneberg stated that language development is a result of our environment, and stressed the importance of critical periods. Lenneberg believed that the critical period for language development only lasted until around 12 years of age, and inability to develop language during these critical periods would result in major deficits.

Although Jim did learn speech it became noticeably odd to others around him as he had developed his own, unique grammatical characteristics and his poor articulation meant he didn’t acquire normal language skills (Sachs et al 1981). Bruner suggests that this was due to lack of social interaction in his learning of speech, which again highlights the importance of nurture in promoting a child’s language development.

I do agree with you that socialization is very important to learn speak and function normally in society. After watching the video again, I can't help thinking about the question posed to us. Are Genie's socialization problems due to isolation or biological problems? In both in Victor and Genie's case, these individuals were isolated from social contact for many years of their life. They missed out on socialization during the crucial early developmental years. In our reading, it discusses some typical stages that that happen in our lives. Genie was in isolation for 12 years and missed out on such as things as social interaction, since her contact with other people was limited she did not develop how to interact and respond to others. Her isolation did not allow her to establish rules that would guide her on in how to behave and be treated in social settings. Hence, when Genie would erupt in silent storms of rage, tugging and tearing her body.

Genie’s language skills support both nativist and behaviorist perspectives in different but significant ways. The evidence that supports the behavior is the theory that when Genie was found she knew a very limited amount of words and could not form sentences of more than two words. Behaviorists attribute her lack of linguistic development at the time of her rescue to her lack of social experience because after time spent with other people in normal conditions, she started to socialize and her demeanor changed visibly. She developed incredible nonverbal skills and was successfully able to communicate with other people. Behaviorists attribute her lack of ability of her native language to the lack of exposure to human interaction and language. The development of language relies on education received during one’s formative years. Before a child can begin to speak, they first start by listening to the sounds in their environment for the first years of their life. Children will take the modeling component of skinner’s theory of language acquisition in which children learn to speak by copying the utterances heard around them.