Home For The Heart And The Education Of Frank Mccourt

Social justice and equity are concepts that affect everybody throughout their entire lives. In the 1800s, the Irish faced the two constantly. The poem “No Irish Need Apply,” The exhibit “Home for the Heart,” and the article “The Education of Frank McCourt” discuss the struggles of the Irish with poverty and discrimination. Frank McCourt, an Irishman himself, fights through all the problems and obstacles of social justice and equity he faces to become successful in life. Social justice and equity affect all people of all places. From the 1700s to the 1800s, the Irish were engaged in a battle against social injustice and inequity. From being denied jobs to being given little to no government support, millions of Irish people went up against
Born into poverty, he had three siblings die young in age, and a father who’s problem with alcoholism prevented him from being able to support his family, and eventually led him to abandon them. McCourt had to work hard and make sacrifices throughout his life to support his family. The article “The Education of Frank McCourt” by Barbara Sande describes how McCourt “had to quit (high school) at age 14 to help support his family.” McCourt could not receive a proper high school education due to the need to protect his family in their hard times of poverty. As McCourt grew up and started teaching, he found that his students, whom he thought may judge him for what he has gone through, tought him over the years more than he had taught them. The article states McCourts thoughts about his students' possibly discriminating him for not having an education from high school: “If I tell them the truth, they’ll (students) feel superior to me.” McCourts past experiences led him to believe he would be judged by high school students as he had faced so much inequity and injustice earlier on in his life. McCourt comes to realize that he is able to put all of his difficulties and tough memories on paper and express them out to other people. Negativity is not the only thing that comes from social justice and equity, there is also the positive
Last school year I was in the school’s drumline. During one of our first few practices, we were asked to play a relatively simple drum exercise. In the middle of playing the exercise, a freshman messed up, our instructor, Dave, stopped us and told us to start doing pushups. We were all confused, as we finished up the pushups, Dave told us to restart the drumming exercise. Mess up after mess up, we were stopped over and over again, being told to do crunches, planks, pushups, and more. As we were all about to play once again, frustrated and exhausted, Dave stopped us and said “you are all missing the point, you all responsible for each other, if you mess up, not only are you ruining it for yourself, but for the entire drumline.” What Dave said got the whole drumline to realize that all of us, who come from different places and have different stories, barely knowing each other, completely depend on each other to succeed, knowing we have treat each other with respect and help one another rather than getting mad at each other. The very next attempt we made at playing the exercise was perfect. With a smile on our instructor’s face came an important message he said : ”you play together, you face the consequences together, you fail or succeed together.” The lesson that I learned that will go along with me as an adult will be that when it comes to teamwork,