“Sandy wasn’t expecting such a comment, and was surprised at the stabbing pain she felt at hearing it.” pg 18 After hearing her mother say this, Sandy feels downcast by her older sister Marianne, and younger brother Lawrence. Sandy is also controlled by the people surrounding her. She is controlled by her father, Frank, by not wanting to put a foot out of line in fear of being punished. She listens and abides by everything that he says, because of the control he has over her and her siblings. “”I want you kids in bed in an hour.” “Yes, Dad,” Sandy and Marianne said at the same time.” pg.
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. Bethan isn’t only just bad mannered, she also hangs with older boys who has been in prison, and got her sister pregnant. We get the impression that Bethan doesn’t come from a loving and worried family like Lucy’s. Lucy’s mother doesn’t want her to wear make-up, but what will Bethan think if she didn’t? Lucy even hits her old best friend Penny, to show Bethan that they are the new and popular best friend couple.
In “The Lesson,” Toni Cade Bambara writes about Sylvia, a young poor black female learning that life isn’t what it seems. A group of black children meet a lady named Miss Moore, a role model of the kids who is not a typical black lady in the neighborhood. Miss Moore has “proper speech” and is college educated. When Miss Moore brings the children from the ghetto to an upperclass toy store they are surprised at what they find. “Handcrafted sailboat of fiberglass at one-thousand-one-hundred-ninety-five dollars” make the children feel like for “that much money it should last forever.” Sylvia does not like how Miss Moore is always teaching them lessons and how she is getting them to see that they are so poor.
Richard says in this short story “I feel guilty representing a non-academic cultural tradition that I had willingly abandoned.” So to me it seems like he feels bad leaving his culture but at the same time he knows it’s going to benefit him more if he keeps moving forward. Later on Richard notices that classes seem to be getting tough. The students and faculty members now saw him as a Chicano not for his cultural background, but for his skin color. I think for this reason is why Richard lost the respect of being called a Chicano. Either Richard started to think that it started to become a joke to people or he didn’t think of himself as a Chicano anymore just for the fact that he didn’t have the cultural background of a true Mexican.
This is how he can rationalize cheating on his wife several times and still be angry with her for even seeing another man without him knowing. Sigge’s behavior with his family can also be explained using the frustration-aggression
Lucy’s parents weren’t the traditional parents that Lucy thought they were supposed to be. Grealy says “Seeing my parents act so much like…parents…surprised me(35)”. It’s sad because she’s used to seeing her mom sad and having family drama so she tries not to believe that her family is normal. She had the support from the people from the hospital to cheer her up and keep her company. Lucy was in chemo and she had to wear wigs because her hair was falling out.
Early in the essay the writer explains how she could not be involved socially at school because of her chores. Once she was finally allowed to join the basketball team, she learned time management skills because she was still responsible for doing her chores. She was rewarded for her hard work, but also given a chance to prove she is capable of more. She found it difficult but not impossible to do what she enjoys and complete her chores. The author writes about her times in high school as she became even more involved and was eventually elected class president.
Men are always looking at women as the inferior sex and think that women are supposed to submit in all relationships, whether if it is romantically or on the job. I personally have a problem with that myself. I think that women should be treated as equals now because we have earned the right to. We do the same things that they do and sometimes we can do it better. Men are physically stronger than women but anatomy but stronger does not mean better all the time.
Coach Carter made the boys that were on the team sign a contract saying that they will attend all of their classes, sit in front of those classes, get at least a 2.3 GPA, and to wear something nice on the day of their games. With them signing that contract, they got a 16-0 record compared to the year before where they only won four games. One way that the Richmond Oilers succeeded was that Coach Carter told them that you can do anything that you set your mind to. The reason why this is a major lesson in the movie is because Coach Carter improved a team that wasn’t the best at basketball to being one of the best in their league. Coach Carter got that team to become amazing and really think about the choices that they made from then on.
Awhile back I spoke to a fellow student in a gym class. She seemed frustrated because she was forced to miss out on her art class due to her need to retake a math class, but she was still allowed to go to gym. She mentioned how unfair it was that it was gym that took priority over other classes like band and art, and it got me thinking. Why should gym be a required course? There are more important class than one that requires students run around for an hour, and the fact that all students are put into one class, rather than being separated by physical level of fitness and skill in sports, only makes it all the more unfair.