After reading Citizenship in the Home, write a paragraph on the following:
Wolff shows the impact a school environment has on an individual.
I await your responses with great anticipation.
Stathascope
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After reading Citizenship in the Home, write a paragraph on the following:
Wolff shows the impact a school environment has on an individual.
I await your responses with great anticipation.
Here is my brief response, not fully polished yet
In ‘This Boy’s Life’, Wolff recounts his journey through boyhood as he yearns for acceptance in an oppressive environment. Throughout his schooling years in particular, Jack doesn’t seem to fit in with the crowd and often feels alienated and like an outsider at Concrete High. Jack’s situation at Concrete High deprived him of the basic discipline and support to develop into a well-adjusted individual. The teachers were absorbed by their own self-interest and took advantage of the vulnerability of students, like Jack. Horseface Greeley, the shop teacher, persuaded students through fear to buy his “Tuff-Tops shoes”, possibly to earn commissions. Mr. Mitchell also exploited students by illegally holding “smokers… to showcase the boxing talent”. These highly illegal revenue-raising public displays of violence that “turned into brawls” accentuate the physically and mentally debilitating environment Jack was subjected to. Moreover, Jack was subjected to further physical and verbal abuse at home from Dwight. Jack’s sense of safety and wellbeing was compromised as a result and he “hated being alone with [Dwight]”. His hostile and harsh surroundings at home and school combined with his lack of social acceptance perpetuated his feelings of self-worthlessness. He conceded that he was not like the other boys who “tended not to see themselves as college material”, rather Jack relished in the fantasy of one day escaping the shackles of Chinook and making a name for himself. His path to success however was tainted by his history of delinquency as he “had fallen in with some notorious older boys from Concrete”. Wolff emphasises the lasting effects our schooling years has on our lives.
A well structured paragraph that encapsulates the key elements of his schooling. Jack’s lifeline is his brother Geoffrey who supports him to physically leave this oppressive environment although we see that the emotional scars that Jack has to deal with are enormous. Great work!
In moving to Chinook Jack must continue his education at a new school, Concrete High and forge new friendships. The adult author Wolff reconstructs the initial scene of Concrete “the streets, houses and cars were grey with cement dust” and recalls the “pall of dust” which “hung in the air”, a reference to the chocking and depressing atmosphere in which the adolescent Jack is subjected to grow up in. The harsh physical environment in which nothing stands out is symbolic of the attitude of the boys attending Concrete High who did “not see themselves as college material” highlighting the non-existant motivation to succeed. Similarly, students of the school are expected to follow the status quo and conform to the responses the teacher wished to hear such as “The Right to Bear Arms”, with students just like the features of the company town being disallowed to stand out. The girl who answered “Freedom of Speech” is the epitome of what happens to ambition as she was immediately ‘failed’. Furthermore, the ‘cracked cement’ and the ‘chicken wire’ are a reference to the weak and decaying situation in the home, foreshadowing Jack, Dwight’s and Rosemary’s continued relationship break down thereby leaving him isolated. Jack is presented with the stark reality od the fate of those who remain in Concrete through the promiscuous Veronica who ‘had the pert nose and bright blue eyes’ but possessed the ‘lesser Homecoming royalty she’d once been’. In spite of this dysfunctional environment, Jack resists his friends attempts to “fix [him] up” with some of these girls and maintains his individuality as he wanted to love a girl but for “it to be with the girl [he] loved”. Moreover the detrimental effects of such a rough atmosphere see Jack attempting to infiltrate the upper class and obtain a place in a prep school. The motif of lying plays itself out in the answers adolescent Wolff provides to his brother Geoffrey, claiming to have ‘Eagle’ status at scouts even though “Dwight refused to submit the papers” and alleging he was a ‘swimmer’ even though Concrete High did not have a swimming team. Jack emphasises his desperation to escape Chinook throughout the letters of recommendation to the prestigious prep schools he aspired to attend, presenting himself as a ‘gifted and upright boy’
Yes, we get a sense from his perspective, from THIS boy’s life, that school was a mentally desolate and soul destroying environment. A terrific response!