Maggie A Girl Of The Streets Analysis
Imagine what it's like to go to school poor. No alarm clock to set, clothes are too small, no breakfast available, the supplies needed to finish homework are too expensive, and the constant worry if there will be food on the table tonight. Research conducted by The Board on Children, Youth, and Families, the Center for the Study of Reading, as well as published research in the Journal of Nutrition shows the difficulty for people born into poverty to achieve an education and earn a living wage. Parental education and family income are both strong influences on children’s educational success. This is especially true for the character Jimmy in the story “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets”, he was born into a low income family with uneducated
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Parents with higher education are more likely to engage children with questions and dialogue, while parents in poverty often lack the time and energy for anything more than simple commands as evidenced in the short story, “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets”. Jimmy had gotten into a fight with some other children, and his father was bringing him home with his rag torn clothes, and cuts from the conflict. Upon sight of her boy when the two entered, the mother scolded, “Eh, what? Been fightin’ agin, by Gawd!” (2.16). Throughout the short story the parents do not engage in a conversation with the children, but complain and insult them. In addition, the lack of proper language usage by Jimmy’s mom, dad, and the whole neighborhood shows the limited exposure that happens within uneducated households. Two researchers named Betty Hart, and Todd Risley set out to examine language development in young children and the effects of home experiences. According to their study entitled, “Meaningful DIfferences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children”, “Children from low income families hear as many as 30 million …show more content…
They do not feel they belong beginning with the first day of school, and this lack of belonging will likely cause them to drop out of school. This will begin a poverty cycle, as they ultimately start their own families. These children begin school with an insufficient vocabulary and limited exposure to books. The lack of stability also causes them to have erratic attendance and lower academic performances. Their home environment is not conducive to learning and many times the supplies and resources needed are unavailable. Poverty places limits on the materials these children are able to have to complete assignments at their house, sometimes even a kitchen table. For all the above reasons, these children believe they do not belong in a school environment, and will drop out, putting their own children in the same exact position of the poverty cycle. To this day, education remains the key to escaping poverty, but nonetheless poverty is the biggest obstacle towards education.
Works Cited
Anderson, R. C., Hiebert, E., Scott, J., & Wilkinson, I. (1985). Becoming a nation of readers: The report of the Commission on reading. Champaign, IL: Center for the Study of Reading.
Diana, F., Jyoti, Edward A., Frongillo, Sonya J. Jones, Food insecurity affects school children’s academic performance, weight gain, and social skills. Journal of Nutrition 2005 Dec, 135(12):
Parents with higher education are more likely to engage children with questions and dialogue, while parents in poverty often lack the time and energy for anything more than simple commands as evidenced in the short story, “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets”. Jimmy had gotten into a fight with some other children, and his father was bringing him home with his rag torn clothes, and cuts from the conflict. Upon sight of her boy when the two entered, the mother scolded, “Eh, what? Been fightin’ agin, by Gawd!” (2.16). Throughout the short story the parents do not engage in a conversation with the children, but complain and insult them. In addition, the lack of proper language usage by Jimmy’s mom, dad, and the whole neighborhood shows the limited exposure that happens within uneducated households. Two researchers named Betty Hart, and Todd Risley set out to examine language development in young children and the effects of home experiences. According to their study entitled, “Meaningful DIfferences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children”, “Children from low income families hear as many as 30 million …show more content…
They do not feel they belong beginning with the first day of school, and this lack of belonging will likely cause them to drop out of school. This will begin a poverty cycle, as they ultimately start their own families. These children begin school with an insufficient vocabulary and limited exposure to books. The lack of stability also causes them to have erratic attendance and lower academic performances. Their home environment is not conducive to learning and many times the supplies and resources needed are unavailable. Poverty places limits on the materials these children are able to have to complete assignments at their house, sometimes even a kitchen table. For all the above reasons, these children believe they do not belong in a school environment, and will drop out, putting their own children in the same exact position of the poverty cycle. To this day, education remains the key to escaping poverty, but nonetheless poverty is the biggest obstacle towards education.
Works Cited
Anderson, R. C., Hiebert, E., Scott, J., & Wilkinson, I. (1985). Becoming a nation of readers: The report of the Commission on reading. Champaign, IL: Center for the Study of Reading.
Diana, F., Jyoti, Edward A., Frongillo, Sonya J. Jones, Food insecurity affects school children’s academic performance, weight gain, and social skills. Journal of Nutrition 2005 Dec, 135(12):