Toni Bambara The Lesson

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Toni Cade Bambara wrote the short story “The Lesson”, and in this story she writes about a teacher who not only teaches her students educational things, but she also teaches them the ways of life. Or another way to put it, she teaches them that they must get a good education in order to make something out of themselves. The class that the story is based on is mainly poor children and some wealthy children. Miss Moore is the teacher and she takes the class to a “rich people” toy store, and she lets the children walk around the store. When the children find something that interest them, Miss Moore will teach them accordingly to what the item is. The theme woven throughout the story is life lessons, particularly about how school relates to the world around the children, how money does not define them, and how society uses money in the wrong manners.
In the short story “The Lesson”, Toni Bambara wrote about how school relates to the world, and Miss Moore teaches the students that anything can relate back to school subjects. Miss Moore takes the students to a toy story where she then teaches the …show more content…

Miss Moore lives in the same neighborhood as her students, yet she tries to teach them lessons that shows her wealth compared to theirs. What she is showing them is that no matter where they come from they can go out and get a good education and they can make something out of themselves one day. Cartwright wrote “Implicitly, the children do not simply need to learn one lesson: they need an education.” (507) The children think that Miss Moore is just telling them useless information when they are at the toy store about how much each item cost, when in reality she is trying to teach the children how the ‘real world’ works and how they are going to have to get a good education so they will be able to go out and buy the stuff that they

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