An Endeavor Of Obstacles Once upon a time there was a young man by the name of John Belford. john grew up with three sisters and one brother, Nessa, Katelyn, Shelbi, and Andrew. John was the youngest of them all. Nessa, and Katelyn were from California and Shelbi, Andrew, and John were from Kansas. His family was not the richest growing up but, they made do. Growing up the way he did, manners, chivalry, and not giving up were what he was thought that was important in life including many other things. John had a learning disability in reading, which caused him to get bullied all through elementary school. This lowered his self esteem by a lot. Most of the time John wished he was smarter because he was tired of being dumb, and wanted to move …show more content…
John was not the happiest that he moved away from his friends and family, but John was happy about the idea of starting over. He was an outgoing person, so making friends was not hard for him to do. He would try to make friends with anyone he would be around. John would make most of his friends doing sports, so when he heard that there was a football team at his school he tried out and made the team. Playing football in Kansas already before he wanted to play for Wallburg Lions where he was the starting middle linebacker for them for three years. Playing football was a get away from school, and showed his strengths in what he knew would make people proud of him. No one ever teased him or called him stupid on the field. Once John got in third grade he had a teacher named Ms. Melvin. Since he was not the smartest he had trouble keeping up in class, which caused him to fall behind. Ms. Melvin was a very old lady with skin as wrinkled as crumpled up piece of paper, and hair has grey as fog. Ms. Melvin was a belligerent person. She would make John cry everyday and made him feel bad about himself. At one point she called him stupid and sent him to a kidnergraner class and proceed to say that he belonged there. The sad thing is that John felt happy there, because he was wasn't getting called stupid and that when he helped, the teacher told him that he was
As you read the book Johnny Tremain from the front to the back you see a young boy change into a mature man. Although you cannot see into the future of Johnny Tremain, you know that he will be respected and make wise decisions as an adult because he learned from his many mistakes at a young age. He changes from being proud to humble, having a fiery temper to being understanding and calm, and from selfish to a very caring man. As all of these pieces fit together to get a mature young man. At the end of the story, a woman posed a question. “’How old are you Johnny’ she asked. ‘Sixteen.’ ‘And what's that-a boy or a man?’ He laughed. ‘A boy in time of peace and a man in time of war.’”
I cannot help but feel bad for the Brothers because with every challenge they faced, they still kept a positive outlook on life. Jay Macleod added this to one of findings and stated, “no matter how diligently they devote themselves to schools, they cannot escape the constraints of social class.” (p.150) The Brothers situation shows us that believing in achievement ideology does not mean you will automatically be successful in life. Even with hard work, they struggled to find a stable job that would help them reach the middle-class
Just as Johnny’s courage shines through so does his fast maturity from child to adult. His childhood was stolen away from him by his illness but instead of sulking he pulls himself together. He takes every difficulty in stride, and gets through them. Even when he is feeling down he hides it for he does not want anyone else to feel his pain. Being a seventeen year old boy he wants to do the things all other seventeen year old boys do.
The story begins with Jodee’s description of how she was victimized in a 4th grade Catholic grammar school; coming to the defense of deaf children that were being treated cruelly. She supplied the school officials with names and was labeled a “tattletale.” No one would talk to her, recess was spent in anguish, and she would find garbage and spoiled food in her book bag. As she progressed into 5th grade some of the social atmosphere began to shift in subtle but profound ways. Being accepted into a clique was all that mattered. Instead of being admired for class participation, as in earlier years she was laughed at and labeled as “teacher’s pet.” She said the rules were simple “shun or be shunned—if you weren’t willing to go along with the crowd, you would become the reject.”
Jolley uses characterization to individualize each character in a poverty stricken family. The son is referred to as a prince by his mother several times throughout the story even though he is a high school dropout. “Mother always called him Prince; she worried about him all the time. I couldn’t think why. He was only my brother and a drop out at that” (117). The author portrays the son to be someone with low self-esteem because he is poor and a drop out he lives a miserable life. His mother tries to provide him with as much, but is unable to do this because of her social status is society. “‘Sleeps the best thing he can have. I wish he’d eat!’ She watched me as I took bread and spread the butter thick, she was never mean about butter, when we didn’t have other things we always had plenty of butter” (117). Through this passage the author convincingly demonstrates that they are poor and cannot afford an assortment of thing...
Parental behavior, socioeconomic status, and environment shapes up the life of an individual. Jay Belsky, a professor of human development thinks that ultimately those who grow up surrounded by harsh circumstances and environments are the ones who later on develop better living conditions/customs due to their experiences. Throughout Richard’s entire life he was treated harshly. For example, the time he was beaten because he burnt the house down. The beating Richard got was so intense that it gave him fevers. That specific moment traveled with him throughout his life. Since Richard didn't have a great childhood, that's what made him want to improve his life and be better. Richard always wanted to do his very best. Starting from writing his very first story that wasn't very good, to writing for the communists, and later publishing many of his own
The physical abuse is the root of his problems, affecting his self-esteem and self-image. He may be a genius, but he has thought of himself not to be worthy of anything including the praise of being an intellect. He runs away from the professor unwilling to be acknowledged for his intellect. He suffers from an inferior complex which he tries to counter by being the only one among his friends with a high intelligence to give him a superior status among them. His relationship is affected too when he tries to form one with Skylar. The young man also displays an impulsive nature which has gotten him in trouble in the past with the law which is why the judge was ready to be hard on him in the recent anger display. The same character flaw has been causing trouble for him in his relationship with Skylar which has been unstable. The moment she tells him she is leaving, the emotional mood swings and the explosive anger kick in and he pushes her away, and he even takes up a job to avoid confronting his fear of being abandoned. His fear of authority has made him humble and left him with no growth goal in his personal and work life. He wishes to remain hidden and unnoticeable. When this did not work he out rightly rebels against the authority figure like he did with the therapist he initially wanted to treat
Even though she was smarter than her brothers, she was discouraged from educating herself. But Lucy was unafraid of rebelling against her parents. Having watched her older brothers attend colle...
"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them." -Shakespeare Over the course of the book, Surviving the Applewhites, by Stephanie S. Tolan, Jake, a bad boy, achieved greatness with the help of the family he was living with, the Applewhites. Jake had burnt down his old school in Rhode Island and no other schools were willing to take him in, except the Applewhites. The Applewhites school is called the Creative Academy, which is run by the Applewhite adults. The children can learn or work on any project they want, and they are very unorganized. Jake is the outcast there, though, because he smokes, cusses, and hates not having a TV or video games. It is extremely hard for him to adjust. Jake was inspired to be great because of threats, opinions of his actions, and discovering his passion.
He spent his childhood in Rye, New York, as he was one out of ten children. John’s father was a successful trader of furs, wheat, timber, and other commodities. His mother decided to homeschool him until he was the age of eight, and then his
In the short story “Fighter” by Walter Dean Myers, the main character is experiencing a man vs. self-conflict. Billy, the main character, is having trouble deciding in his mind what is best in life for himself and his family’s morale and well-being. In the beginning of the story, Billy had a flashback of when he was in high school. However, Billy was a very poor student and was even expected to fail school. “Billy remembered standing in the back of the room at Junior High School 271, not being allowed to sit down until he had brought his mother in to see the teacher. ‘What are you wasting your time for?’ the guidance counselor asked him. ‘You think it’s going to be easy out there? That was the last day Billy had gone to school” (Myers 35).
Sometimes there are events in our lives that we cannot control. These events occur, more or less, due to our own actions. Sometimes, however, we must come to terms with our inability to handle certain situations and also to reach our goals. These events are facts of life everyone: some people can't run as fast, or lift as much, or write as well. It is during these times that we must focus on what we can do well, and try to direct our goals around those features that make us good at something. In David Mamet's Oleanna, John loses his job and his house due to Carol's ignorance, lack of self-confidence, and overall inability to come to terms with her own short-comings as a student. This play epitomizes an act of complete degradation based solely on one individual's failure to accept that she just might not be good at school--or at least John's class.
Allison obviously lacked the respect of others, for she had no friends whatsoever prior to her time spent in this detention. She also has nervous ticks, such chewing her nails, and played with her hair. Brian was another case of insecurity. The influence of self-concept was strong with Brian Johnson for he had no sense of self. He could not meet the standards of his desired self and was therefore unhappy with himself as a person.
Junior sometimes had to go to bed hungry, but that wasn’t the worst thing about being in poverty. He made a diary entry stating, “Poverty= empty refrigerator+empty stomach. And sure sometimes my family misses a meal…and hey, in a weird way, being hungry makes food taste better (8).” This really puts the diary reader in his shoes about how many times he had to go without food and starve while trying to go to sleep, simply because his family couldn’t afford it. But to Junior, being hungry wasn’t necessarily that bad. What he felt was the worst thing about his poverty was that there was no money to save his beloved animal Oscar. Oscar became really ill and Junior wanted to take the animal to the doctor, but the family couldn’t afford it. When it came down to it, his father had to put the dog out of misery, and decided to shoot him. Visualizing someone having to shoot your best animal friend is heart wrenching. Most people have been in Juniors shoes where they have a sick animal, however they never imagine having to shoot it. This comparison of being hungry and losing an animal, shows Junior’s great strength at a young age about going through poverty, and sometimes even hope...
Antwone Fisher was an individual that endured so many things. He faced a lot of challenges that may have seemed impossible to recover from. This story was an example of the many things that some children may experience. Antwone was not raised in an upper crust home. He did not grow up in a home in which his mother and father was present. Instead of having positive role models, he had to live with individuals that were abusive to him. When observing Antwone’s personality, one may refer to two different theorists such as Bandura and Rogers.