Monday February 18, 2013 Essay An Education Problem Author Mary Sherry In the Praise of the F Word The author Mary Sherry is a school teacher and mother who believes in flunking students that are not motivated to master the basic skills in reading, writing and math. She thinks many high school students are cheated by the educational system that graduates them, lacking these basic skills. Also, she feels students should have these basic academic skills before they enter into the real world of college or employment. The author states the lack of not having the basic skills can lead to many social, educational and financial problems later down the road. She understands that people come from different environments and everyone can learn; they just need to be motivated.
Nichols “felt like a failure. [She] had disappointed [her] family and seriously let [herself] down.” Nichols became frustrated, and began to “hate” writing. Nichols self image of being a good writer strongly conflicts with her test scores, “I was smart and I knew it.” Nichols makes use of vivid details when stating, “After months of preparation and anxiety, the pressure was on.” She took this test seriously, studied hard, was concerned, and felt nervous. Nichols goes on to describe her feelings after failing the test for a second time, “That time I did cry, and even went to my English teacher, Mrs. Brown, and asked, “How can I get A’s in all my English classes but fail the writing part of the proficiency test twice? She couldn’t answer my question.
Not only is Jennifer dealing with daily hassle she has to deal with the fact that she doesn’t see her husband much and her husband’s parents are pressuring to have a child. According to our reading Daily hassles are routine sources of annoyance or aggravation that have a negative impact on health. Jennifer is dealing with both positive and negative life changing events that are making her stress. Jennifer’s is very organized at work but her body and mind are sending signals that she is stressed. Jennifer is even convince that she is handling everything okay.
On the other hand, Dottie’s sister Kit represented the “fear of failure” athlete. Kit’s character would break down under severe pressure, her ability to cope with emotions and moods rationally were uncontrollable. She always looked at the negative aspects instead of the positive ones by evaluating her
Madera’s desire to overcome her language barrier caused her to decide to go back to college and take English courses (79). Madera had taken her weakness into her own hands and decided to fix it by going back to school. She realizes that the way she speaks does not show the type of person that she, but her writing does (80). “The Bar of Gold” also talks about how the protagonist, Weeping John, is his own constraint, and because of that he is not able to move forward. In this folktale, Weeping John is constantly sick because he is worried about how his family will survive after his death (Gold 148).
Even her daughter as well as society later refers her mothers English as broken. And because of that in her younger years, Amy felt somewhat embarrassed by her mothers English. And felt that her view of her mother was legit because of instances as such in (3rd paragraph 507). “I had plenty of empirical evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear
He believed that we all reach a crisis within each of the life stages. Erikson may have believed that Maria is coming to the end of the Young Adulthood stage in life, a stage which he considered ‘Relationships’ to be the important event in this stage. Maria is a single parent, and Erikson may see this as failure in relationships, which results in isolation and loneliness. Maria is affected by work and home life, causing her behaviour towards colleagues and her children to be sharp and snappy most of the time. This is because she is mentally and physically exhausted and drained where she never gives herself a break.
Knowledge is not always power because the more you know does not necessarily mean you understand what you have learned. In the short story “Everyday Use”, education seemed to make a rift in the relationship not only between the mother and the daughter, but also between the sisters. Dee was one to always try and outsmart her family members always seeking answers knowing no one knew. It was mama who eventually got the community together to help send Dee to school so her daughter would be happy and satisfied. The values of heritage seem to have been lost with the gain of knowledge when Dee has gone to college.
Biff and Willy often find it very challenging to get along, and most of the time we see Linda trying to resolve their differences. Although while Linda is only trying to do good amongst her family by nurturing them with her advice, they usually do not take on board what she has said, and rather just ignore her completely. A feminist could argue that to Biff and Willy, they think that they’re putting her ‘in her place’. A place where perhaps her opinion does not matter. Linda occasionally argues her point across until she is yelling at members of the family and this may be because she is frustrated because she is never heard when she tries to give her opinion.
All these themes or can we call them questions or problems, are what the author tries to show us and maybe answer us trough the short story “The Sin Bin or Lucy’s Heart”. I’ve got the feeling, when I read the text that Lucy truly is a well behaviour girl; she’s a Grade A student and most of the times listen to her mother. But she’s weak and naive, she wants to be liked and to be cool, or maybe she’s just an easy target for group pressure. Her mother tells her not to smoke because it’s bad for her organs etc. Although she know it’s true she does it, because Bethan her popular but bad mannered best friend does it, and had told her that it keeps you skinny.