Survival Skills In South Central LA
While a majority of adults continually struggle to cope with the occurrence Of death, this Story tells a tale of children who have practically become accustomed to it. Beauty provides a distinct look at this urban school setting through her inside view of student emotions, evidence of pain within the kids, and the feelings that she evokes from the audience despite her straightforward tone. (simple) While first reading about Ms. Beauty and her inside story into this previously uncharted territory, sensed as though she was a woman who possessed a very intimate bond with the students.
In the story, when describing what occurred on days when the students mourned someone who was killed, Ms. Beauty notes that “boys lingered over handshakes and looked into my eyes solemnly. Girls threw their arms around me and wordlessly moved away. No one said enough. ” (Beauty; par. 5). A majority of her descriptions of students and events, as well as her diction, seem somewhat heartfelt yet a bit plainly stated on the surface; however, the cultural distance between Ms. Beauty and the students seemingly increases the more we observe how she interacts with them. When Ms.
Beauty discusses how the kids hugged her, the description actually makes her seem somewhat aloof. The way that the author words the sentence makes it seem as though the children approach her with emotions and she is simply present, receiving the actions. As a teacher, Beauty never necessarily makes a huge effort to help the student’s cope with these devastating loses, except in the case of Dander where Ms. Beauty does display some emotional involvement. On the day of this peculiar interaction between student and teacher, Beauty “was not prepared for the sight one day f Dander, standing alone behind the stairwell. (Beauty; par. 6). However, even in this case we see her as an outsider looking in: when a counselor arrives after a failed attempt to comfort her student, Ms. Beauty “watched them go with a mixture of relief and dread. Out of her hands. ” She obviously had worthy intentions to comfort Dander, but the situation seemed to be bigger than anything she could resolve. Ms. Beats trustworthiness becomes another important factor to focus our attention on and her illustration of events keys us into the devastation that sakes place in South Central Los Angels.
The story itself does not appear to include any influence of bias, but the author narrates from a personal point of view and therefore the article contains her opinions and viewpoints on the matter. Ms. Beauty gives credible information because she witnessed all of these hardships and events first-hand; she offers highly trust;rotor information in comparison to, for example, an internet news columnist who would write about different schools in Los Angels. When narrating, she delivers a subjective point of view that would not be attainable from an outside source.
The tone throughout the article delivers a sense of authority that is unmatched to anything Vive ever read before, somehow conveying emotion in such a nondescript manner. While describing the tale of events, Beauty utilizes fairly straight forward language. When recounting Dander’s story of false accusation, she gives evidence to the type of misfortune that falls upon the shoulders of young teens in this area. The story of Dander evokes both logic and sympathy because no child should have to suffer this type of harassment and blame, especially not in Dander’s case because he ad such good intentions of standing up for his sister.
Pathos lingers throughout this recap of Dander’s accusations When discussing the accusations, the Beauty says that Dander “was taken into custody, where he was told they already had evidence that he’d killed the boy and were just looking for a confession. The smartest thing he could do, they told him, was to confess, so they could get his sentence down to a few years. If he refused, he would get life. ” (Beauty; par. 16). This section of the story really resonated with me, and cannot imagine a person falsely accusing me of murder or coaxed into making reparations for a crime of which did not take part in.
Although it appears that Beauty lacks the same cultural background as the students, believe that she could have written her story with more conviction, urging readers to reach out to the hopeless children. Through researching, I found out about multiple organizations and charities that help motivate inner-city kids to graduate high school. When Beauty talked about her “heavy- footed student who looked too old for ninth grad’ (Beauty; par. 3), it made me realize that what some of these students needed was a ray of hope in heir violence-filled surroundings.
One charity called the I Have A Dream Foundation pledges college education funding for kids who graduate high school, and this would be a great thing for Beauty to have introduced into the school. Focusing their efforts into schoolwork and attempting to make something out of their lives might be just the spark that South Central Los Angels would need to eliminate teen violence. Beats emotional involvement with her students is never quite enough; her aloofness, insensitivity, and difference in cultural upbringing make it difficult for her to innocent on a deep level with her students.
