Pat Conroy's 'Passage: The Water Is Wide'

Micharus Neely
3/11/2014
EDU 260

Water Is Wide Journal Entries

Section 1 (chapter 1-2)
Passage: The Water is Wide is about Pat Conroy’s experiences he had while teaching for two years and the local school on the island of Yamacraw off the coast of South Carolina. The book starts with Pat Conroy meeting with Henry Piedmont, the Superintendent of the Beaufort school districts, about his interest in teaching at Yamacraw Island. Pat admits to the reader that he was racist as a child because of his upbringing in the South in the 1960s. Once Pat arrives at the school he meets the Principal, Mrs. Brown. Pat notices that Mrs. Brown is very strict and regularly ridicules the students. She also threatens the children with beatings. On his
He finds that the books in the library are not suitable for children. The library also irrelevant because no one goes there because most people of the island do not read. Pat later introduces music to his classroom starting with a performer the children are familiar with, James Brown. He then introduced the children to classical music. He also made sure the children kept up with current events by tuning into the Savannah radio station every morning. After a month, the children progressed to being able to spell and read. Pat struggled with common life on the island. He found difficulty being befriend by locals that are curbed by racial prejudice. He finds himself missing life in Beaufort with his wife and her
This helps understand why the respective locals act the way they do and gave you an insight on how they generally think. It is important to find a common ground with the district to help teach the students.

Section (chapter 5-6)
Passage: Pat is encouraged to teach the children life lessons when he noticed the children's cruelty to animals. They chopped a frog's legs off and killed each other’s dogs for the fun of it. At the end of October, Pat plans to take the children to Beaufort, the mainland, for Halloween. The parents of the children and Mrs. Brown firmly denied his proposition. He eventually persuades the residents to let the children go on the trip. Later, Pat realizes that he needs to interject himself into the cycle of the parents in order to make a significant difference in the children's lives.

Reaction: One of the important things to note about Conroy is his sense of humor. He engages the children by making them laugh both at himself and at themselves in order to break the invisible barrier between his life and theirs. He also understood that the children learn more from their parents than him. He learned that he is a influence on their lives and teaching life lessons is an important part of the job as a teacher.
Section (Chapter