Canada grew up in Harlem, so he knows the type of environment and what is needed for the area to improve. He has an emotional connection to the project which allows for him to put more effort into fixing the issues there. His goal is to improve the poverty issues in Harlem starting with the children in schools. He wanted a place that gave these children the resources at a young age so they could better their lives in the future. “It wasn’t enough to help out in just one part of a child’s life: the project would need to combine educational, social, and medical services” (Whatever it takes: The Lottery, 4). Canada wanted to provide for these children so they had support throughout school, that way they could not fall behind. Graduating high school and college were goals Canada had for all the students at his school. Since he is so emotional about this project turning away students was a hard part for choosing students to go to the school. During the lottery he wished everyone could have been chosen because the students that were not picked, he could see their hopes wiped from their faces.
During the speech Canada gives at the lottery he states, “If your child is in our school, we will guarantee that child succeeds. There will be no excuses. We’re not going to say, ‘The child failed because they came from a home with only one parent.’ We’re not going to say, ‘The child failed because they’re new immigrants into the country.’ If your child gets into our school, that child is going to succeed” (Whatever it takes: the Lottery, 12). By saying this, it shows that he genuinely cares about the students and he really does want them to succeed no matter what their background. He understands it is hard to come from a background with one parent or immigrants. He had personal experience with that himself. It was hard for Canada to not accept everyone, “They understand that if the school is good, the odds that your child is going to have a good life just increase exponentially. So now they just feel, ‘Well, there go my child’s chances’” (Whatever it takes: The lottery, 18).
When Paul Tough was explaining many of the different point of views of why poor people are in fact, poor, it was interesting to see how the government plays an important part in poverty with all the social programs. Some views believe that American poverty is created by the poor people’s poor decisions, “If this theory is correct, what the poor people need is not handout, but moral guidance and strict rules” (Whatever it takes: Unequal Childhoods, 24). This does make some sense. I do not believe giving handouts is the best way to help someone. You may be helping at that very moment, but that is not helping their overall problem. Programs from the government should not be just handouts but should be ways of helping them get jobs easier so they can support their families. Handouts will just cause a lifetime of handouts and no responsibility on the person to fix their own situation but to be expecting someone to help them out all the time. Another interesting study showed the different parenting types of middle class and poorer classes and how it affected their children’s learning, “They were able to conclude that the size of each child’s vocabulary correlated most closely to one simple factor: the number of words the parents spoke to the child. And that varied greatly across the homes they had visited, and it varied by class. In the professional homes, parents directed an average of 487 “utterances’ – anything from a one-word command to a full soliloquy—to their child each hour. In welfare homes, the children heard 178 utterances per hour” (Whatever it takes: Unequal Childhoods, 42). Most of the utterances were negative coming from the welfare homes which leads to believe this attitude and low vocabulary continues a person in a poverty stricken life. I found this interesting because this demonstrates how different each environment is that a child lives in and if a child does come from poverty then the school should focus on helping the child from an early age.
I took many pictures of the murals on Balmy alley and the ones that stood out to me the most were the ones that were most colorful with many different ideas all brought together. I enjoyed the one with the blue heart with the face on it and the nig eyes with hands reaching in. The bright blue really captured my attention and the eyes felt like they were just looking at me which was pretty cool. Most of the murals brought an idea of coming together as one. I also liked the mural with the butterfly, a woman praying, a man, and a dragon looking animal. This mural was full of vibrant colors and there was so much going on that I didn’t want to look away.
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