I started reading the chapter out of Rose’s book expecting to breeze through it in one sitting, but it was a little more difficult to do than I thought. Once I started reading I felt like I was getting through it at a good rate and I wasn’t really putting a dent into it. I decided the best thing to do was to take a quick break so I stopped about half way through the chapter to go and hang out with some friends who live across the hall from me. After talking with them for a while I went back and completed reading the chapter. Over all I think it took me about an hour and a half to read the whole chapter.
In this section of the chapter Rose explains the importance of his literacy moment in great detail. He shows us all of the important people involved in his story and what they did to influence his literacy moment. He tells us about one kid in his vocational education class and how something he said really stuck with Rose even up through his adulthood. That kid in his class, Ken Harvey, explains his views on school with one simple sentence; “I just wanna be average.” Ken says this in response to his teacher asking for his opinion on hard work. The reason this hit Rose so hard is because he couldn’t understand why anyone could just want to be average and he realizes that being average is not how he wants to live his own life. He now understands that is what people expect from the kids in Voc. Ed. because they weren’t smart enough to be in regular classes and eventually go into college so no body tried to help them improve. They were held at a lower standard and if they ended up being average then that’s all they were expected to be. Rose wants to show us that if we hold people to a lower standard then that’s all they can work towards and they won’t be able to improve.
Collreadwrit1a
