Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara
I truly enjoyed reading this story, it might be my favorite of the semester. It was simple to read, yet remained fruitful. I believe the gist of the story is a teacher takes her students on a trip downtown to F.A.O. Schwarz to teach them " a lesson". At first everyone is kind of timid and no one wants to go in first...then mercedes breaks the ice and goes in. Once the students are in the store they began to realise the price tags and how everything in their eyes in over priced, although from the window they seemed to want it. None of the students particularly like the teacher ms.moore, but i think at the end they have a bit of understanding. In the beginning sylvia goes on about how she has perfect speech and always dresses well, but she says it in away like shes annoyed. At the end of the story you can tell sugar has a slight change of heart and is interested in learning but sylvia is almost mad at her for it. Whats funny is sylvia herself goes and wants think about how the day went and you get the since she wants something better for herself.
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2 comments:
Yes--what is the lesson(s)? consider there may be more than one. Study Sylvia's change closely--this will tell you a lot about breadth and impace of the "lesson"
A lesson for Sylvia seems to be that it's okay for her to think, that she can be competitive with her peers in the realm of intellectual pursuit as well as that of physical and social activity. She feels so betrayed by Sugar for speaking up in front of Miss Moore but perhaps she is feeling jealous that she did not have the confidence to speak about her own views on the matter. She ends the story by resolving that she does not have to beat Sugar in a race because she wants to go off and think about the day, and that "ain't nobody gonna beat me at
nuthin." Optimistically, I'd like to read this as her deciding that she doesn't want to be beaten in learning again.
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