Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers at Anti Essays

EDF 3201 Diversity of Human Experience
April 18, 2008

A Child Called It
While in this class, I had the chance to do a book report from a reading list. I saw the Dave Pelzer book A Child Called It. I had heard of this book on previous occasions but never really thought about reading it. I’m very glad that I did read it; this book gave me a completely different view on the extent of child abuse and how it can be overcome.
This book starts out with the author telling us about how his rescue came about. He tells us that it was his substitute teacher that made sure that the police were informed and that they would do something about it. The next chapter consists of the time before the abuse, it shows the audience the perfect life that the author had. It talks about their great family life, outings and all the love that they shared. He stated that his family was like the “Brady Bunch”. This gives way for the third, fourth, and fifth chapter where the majority of the abuse takes place. Chapter six and seven focus more on the role of the father, or lack thereof, and his loss of hope for freedom.
This book was very helpful in understanding what a student might be going through outside of school, and a big part of a student’s behavior might be a cause of this. For example, in the book, when the teachers first saw Dave stealing food from other students they thought that this was because he was behaving badly. What was really happening is that his mother had denied him of food for so long that this was his only choice. This book really makes you as an educator think twice before judging a student.
In conclusion, this book was not very long but it was hard to read. It was very depressing knowing that this actually took place here, in the US; I would suggest that anybody going into education read this. This will help develop a better understanding for students and their needs.