The Other Wes Moore (Blog Post Two––Up to page 97)
Please respond to each of the questions below. Responses should be at least one paragraph. Number your responses so that it is clear which question you are answering.
1. Outside of his family, who warned author Wes Moore about the bad path he was on? (police officer after he got caught tagging) Did Moore heed this warning? For how long? Why didn’t the change stick?
1. Outside of his family, who warned author Wes Moore about the bad path he was on? (police officer after he got caught tagging) Did Moore heed this warning? For how long? Why didn’t the change stick?
2. Author Wes Moore states, “Later in life I learned that the way many governors projected the numbers of beds they’d need for prison facilities was by examining the reading scores of third graders.” (p. 54) How did reading this make you feel? Why?
3. What allowed author Wes Moore to go to better schools than prisoner Wes Moore? (What kinds of sacrifices did his family make?)
4. How did Tony try to dissuade prisoner Wes Moore from following his illegal path? Why did it work or not work?
5. At the end of this part of the reading, Sargeant Austin gives author Wes Moore a map. Explain what the map is about, and how following the map turns out for the author. Finally, why do you think Sergeant Austin did what he did?
#1 The author Wes Moore lasted about a week, after the police officer warned him, until he went back to the spray painting walls. Originally he planned on never doing anything illegal again, but he couldn’t for too the long. I think that if he had actually gone to jail, he would have understood the intensity of doing illegal things. I also think that if his mother was called, and she exploded at him he would have acted differently afterwards. Wes was just too headstrong to fully comprehend what the policeman was saying.
ReplyDelete#2 It completely shocked me how the state thinks that if you aren’t good at academics in third grade, then you will never accomplish anything. Which really cuts deep, because when I was in third grade, I did and knew absolutely nothing, but now I’m getting honors. There are many professions that a person can be, without having perfect third grade reading scores. People can change completely between third grade and ninth grade.
#3 Author Wes Moore grandparents gave up all the money they had been saving to go live in Jamaica to his mother to pay for him to go to military school. Also all their family and friends pitched in money to help. Before that he went to a prep school and and mother worked as hard as humanly possible to pay for him being there.
#4 Tony told Prisoner Wes to stay in school, and to stay away from drugs. He would call him all the time, and ask him how was keeping his grades, and how he was preparing for school. Tony wanted Wes to live the life he never had, and it didn’t work. Wes was experiencing drugs on a daily basis. Wes didn’t have the money, for the cloths or shoes that he wanted, so he started working in the drug game. He started off small by just being a look out, and then he actually started dealing drugs.
#5 Sergeant Austin gave the author Wes Moore a fake map to the train station, because he wanted to leave military school. When Wes tries to follow the fake map he just gets put in the middle of the woods, and got lost. He began to cry, and then all of his troop came out of the woods, laughed at him, and then escorted him home. I think sergeant Austin did that to Wes to show him not to trust people, and that things may not be what they seem. He wanted to toughen Wes up, and prepare him for what will happen in his future.
I agree that Tony tried to dissuade Wes from dealing drugs. I think that part of Tony’s attempt to do so was him punching Wes when he found out that Wes was dealing drugs. I also think that Tony could have done a better job. Tony was Wes’s role model. If Tony dealt drugs, what is the likelihood of Wes following his path? Did Tony’s physical punishment help Wes or make things worse? Did Tony manage to do anything that would help Wes (even if it’s not enough)? I wonder if you considered these things. I think that it was very likely that Wes would end up following Tony’s path. I think that Tony’s punishment didn’t help Wes because all Wes did was move his home base. I think that Tony didn’t really manage to do anything significant to keep Wes out of the drug game. What about you?
Delete-Tate
1. When Wes was caught making graffiti in the bronx, the officers that apprehended him let him off with a warning. Wes vowed to never do that again, but he broke his vow in about a week. There are some things that are so addictive that, even if you pledge to stop, you cannot do it on your own, such as alcohol and other drugs. I do not know why Wes was addicted to making graffiti, but it’s clear that he was.
ReplyDelete2. Reading this unnerved me. It is as if the government knew that a person’s destiny was decided once they reached third grade. It makes me sad that there is such a strong correlation between a poor education and going to prison. I think we as a society need to work to make sure that those governors’ projections are always way too high.
3. Wes’s mother spent weeks making tremendous sacrifices so she could send Wes to Riverdale. When Wes started to blow the money his mom had spent on his education, Wes’s mother sent him to military school. Valley Forge was even more expensive than Riverdale, and so Wes’s mother had to borrow money from everyone she could just to pay for Wes’s first year of tuition.
4. Tony told wes not to deal drugs like he did. Wes didn’t listen, so when Tony found out, he clocked Wes hard in the face. Tony used force as a method to deter Wes from following Tony’s illegal path, but it wasn’t effective. I think that punching Wes made Wes decide to be more secretive and hide his operations better. Sometimes, that’s what punishment does if the thing that you’re being punished for is too dear for you to let go. Wes was making a lot of money by dealing drugs, so that would explain why he didn’t stop.
5. Sargent Austin gave Wes a map to the train station so Wes could escape Valley Forge and return home. Austin’s map turned out to be fake and led Wes to the middle of the woods, where Austin found him and brought him back to school. I think austin did this to teach Wes that he cannot escape. Wes was a rebellious soul, and he didn’t like being imprisoned like this. Austin sabotaged Wes’s escape plan to teach him that sometimes you can’t get what you want in life and you just have to follow the rules other people made for you.
1. Author Wes Moore's best friend, Justin, tried to warn Wes about the bad path he was following. He told Wes that he needed to bring up his grades. Wes did not listen to him. Wes also did not listen to the police officer. The police man definitely left an impression on Wes, but did not end up making an actual difference in Wes' life because he started spray painting graffiti on buildings about a week after his run in with the police man. I think the change did not stick because Wes was almost constantly around bad influences such as friends who were drug dealers and crackheads.
ReplyDelete2. Reading this made me kind of upset. People should not be judged on how they preform in the third grade. Maybe the child has a bad teacher or a learning disability, or something else effecting their reading level. The reading level of a child should not determine the amount of prisoners that year. I just do not understand the correlation.
3. Unfortunately, author Wes Moore's family made many more sacrifices for the sake of their child's education. Prisoner Wes' mother just let Wes go to the public schools in and around Baltimore. Granted, the public schools in Baltimore may have been better than those of the Bronx, but still author Wes' familial sacrifices allowed him to have more opportunities, more discipline, and develop a greater respect for the people around him. His grandparents took out a mortgage so that he would be able to go to military school. His mother also worked at least three jobs to allow him to go to military school, and his siblings to go to private school.
4. Prisoner Wes' older brother Tony has been in the drug game a long time. He finds out that Wes has started dealing too and decides he needs to put an end to it. He beats Wes up in hope that he will understand how dangerous drug dealing is. This tactic did not work. It made Wes scared for sure, but did not convince him to get out of the drug game.
5. Sargent Austin gives author Wes a map that will supposedly lead him to a train station that will get him back home to the Bronx. Wes sets out at midnight to follow the map and go back home. He is disappointedly met with the reality that Sargent Austin did not make a real map and that now he was lost. Austin finds Wes lost in the forest and brings him back to the campus. I think Sargent Austin was partly trying to mess with Wes but also trying to teach him a lesson. That lesson being to not trust that people will always have your intentions in their mind.
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DeleteKiran,
DeleteI like how you mentioned that Justin was trying to get Wes to bring up his grades and become a better student. I like this because it made me make a connection to Prisoner Wes Moore and how his brother kept trying to get him to not fall into the drug dealing pit. I also liked how you brought up the fact that it does not make sense that third grader reading levels determine the number of beds that are in prisons. You said that there could be unmotivated teachers because the school does not have enough money to pay for good teachers. There might also be kids with learning disabilities that prohibit their ability to read well or consistently. I thought you made a really good point and agree that that rule is very absurd and shocking. I think that another point you could have proven was that when someone is in third grade they have just developed the English language and are now applying that to read a book. In third grade, you are not reading classics, you are reading books names “Watch Sally Run” and “Curious George Follows a Pigeon” not books that really reflect what you will amount to in life.
1. The warnings that Wes Moore was given did not have much effect. Many people tried to prevent him from following the life of a gangster. I think that in a way Wes’ teachers were trying to warn him and his mother about the path he could be going down. The way they warned him was different from what other people in his life said though. They tried to prevent him by telling his mother he needed to get his grades up. The teachers knew the neighborhood that he was living in and the effects it could have on him. I thought Wes would take these warnings to heart but he didn’t.
ReplyDelete2. When I read this I was utterly shocked. The fact that the governor of a state determined the amount of capacity a prison would need by third grade reading levels is mind blowing. I think that there is some pieces of this process that may work but on the other hand a person can change and adapt after third grade. A third grader can change so much throughout the course of their schooling years.
3. The sacrifices that author Wes Moore’s family made to send him to better schools is massive. His grandparents literally sold the thing that meant the most to them just so he could get away from the toxic environment of his neighborhood. That sacrifice changed the path of his life. Prisoner Wes Moore’s family did not give up hardly anything or try to improve the everyday environment he was in. This made a detrimental impact on the path of his future.
4. Tony is essentially Wes’ idol. He looks up to Tony and pictures him as a father figure that always looks out for him. Tony is somewhat aggressive and when he finds out that Wes is getting into his nasty business he is aggravated. He goes so far that he actually beats up Wes and tries to stomp out the light of drugs in his life. He doesn’t want Wes to go down the same road as him and wants a better future for Wes and his family. Wes is just so independent he doesn’t want to listen. It is only a matter of time before his dangerous job catches up with him.
5. The map that Sergeant Austin gives to Wes is an escape route. Little does Wes know is that the map is a fake. The route will lead him to the middle of the woods where the leaders will be awaiting for him. Wes is extremely disappointed when he finds out how he has been tricked. He wanted so bad to escape and go home to see his mother. I think Sergeant Austin wanted to teach Wes a lesson about honesty and how sometimes you have to be the follower and not always lead. They want to bring his ego down and form him into a gentleman.
1. At first, Wes Moore took the warning to heart and said that he was never going to do it again and end up in that same position, but that didn’t last. About a week later he was back to tagging. I think the warning he received, didn’t have a big enough impact on him. I think if he had gotten a larger punishment or even had his mother get involved, he would have realized he should stop, but he probably thought that since he just got a warning, he could get away with doing it again or being more careful the next time around.
ReplyDelete2. Reading this passage honestly shocked me. Just because a third grader has a low reading ability, does not mean they are going to end up on a bad path in life. There are so many things that can affect reading levels whether it be a learning disability, teacher, or something else. When you’re in third grade, you’re still so young and there is so much time to change and learn more things.
3. Author Wes Moore’s family made so many sacrifices for him to go to good schools. Author Wes Moore’s mother works multiple jobs in order to get the money to send him and his siblings to Riverdale. His grandparents also gave up their savings and mortgage payments in order to help pay for Wes’s first year of military school. Prisoner Wes Moore wasn’t as fortunate, and was left to go to the more run down public school and didn’t receive the benefits of a better schooling environment.
4. Tony catches on to Wes dealing drugs, and is furious because he’s told Wes multiple times to not get involved. Tony gets physical with Wes to try and knock some sense into him. This however doesn’t work though, because Wes decides to become more secretive about his dealing instead of stopping. I think he might decide to keep doing it rather than stopping because he makes such good money, but also maybe partially because he’s being influenced by Tony. Wes looks up to Tony and wants to be like him, so the fact that Tony is still involved with drug dealing might make Wes wonder why he should stop.
5. The map was a path with clear directions on how to get to the train station. Wes tries following the map but just ends up lost in the middle of the woods. He soon learns that the map was fake as Sergeant Austin emerges from the forest laughing. I think Sergeant Austin did this to know Wes down a few pegs and to try and teach him that he can’t always have everything he wants handed to him. To teach him that he’s going to have to work for things and listen to other people and their commands, and that he can’t always be the leader.
1. After the police officer told Wes Moore to stop spray painting he lasted a week before having to go back. I think that Wes did heed this warning but went back to it after about a week. I don’t think the change stuck because Wes was going to a private school and was being teased by his friends from the Bronx and so Graffiti was his way of being edgy like his friends.
ReplyDelete2. I was appalled when I read this. I think that this idea is outrageous because people change significantly between third grade and the rest of their life. I think that this does not make sense because the kids in Wes Moore’s school have the potential to be very intelligent but the cities don’t have the resources to keep up a good, healthy school system.
3. In order to go to a better school than prisoner Wes Moore, Author Wes Moore and his family had to make sacrifices. The mother had to work multiple jobs to pay for just one year tuition and Wes had to sacrifice his friendship with people in the Bronx because they made fun of him for going to “White boy school”.
4. Tony is a successful drug dealer and even though he is making a lot of money he does not want Wes to fall into the pit of drug warfare that he is in. He talks with Wes and asking about grades and checks to see if he is on the right track to success. However, once Tony figures out that Wes is dealing drugs, he is very frustrated and angry. This anger makes him do things to Wes that under other circumstances, he most likely would not do. Tony telling Wes to stop dealing drugs makes Wes want to deal more.
5. While Wes is in the military academy, Sargent Austin gives him a map to the train station. After Wes leaves, he comes to the realization that he is not on his way to the train station and the map is a fake. He starts to worry and becomes sad. Soon Sargent Austin comes along and rescues Wes from his fears of being lost. I think that Austin did this to Wes not just for a good laugh but because he wanted to show Wes how he must accept his fate in the academy.
Fritz,
DeleteI totally agree with your second paragraph. I too was disgusted by the fact that third graders determined the amount of beds in the prison facilities. Kids are too impressionable and change too often when they are around the third grade. I also agree with you about children having the potential to be intelligent and very hard workers, but this cannot be determined by how they behave when they are in the third grade. For example, when I was in third grade I did not try at all and did not really care about school or how I performed in it, but now I try much harder and put lots more effort into my academics. Although I agree with you, I have a hard time thinking of other ways or ages to determine how many beds should be used in prison facilities. I think teenagers still change very much, so that would not be a valid option. One possible solution would be to just base it off of how many people were arrested in the previous year. I am not sure that this is still the method used to figure out the amount of beds in prisons, I really hope it is not.
#1
ReplyDeleteAuthor Wes Moore listened to the officer for a week. It made an impression on him but clearly not one important to him. Author Wes Moore was constantly around people who were bad influences and he gave no care. He still continued to do things despite getting in trouble for them.
#2
This made me feel terrible. There are a lot of people who weren’t able to be at a third grade reading level in third grade and it’s not fair to them. Basing something like the number of beds in a prison off of the reading level of some third graders isn't acceptable. It isn’t their fault they aren’t as advanced, they’re just kids.
#3
Both families made sacrifices, but author Wes Moore’s made more. His grandparents gave up their savings for him to go to military school, his mother worked three jobs everyday so that her kids could have food and a good living situation, she tried her best. All her kids attended private schools and made sure they got there everyday. Prisoner Wes Moore’s education wasn't the best, he went to public schools that were better than the ones in the Bronx but not much better.
#4
Tony tried to help steer prisoner Wes Moore away from the path that many of his friends were following. He told Wes to stay away from drugs and do well in school. Unfortunately Wes didn’t listen which was a mistake. Once Tony finds out he beats him up which was not an effective way and led Wes to go into secrecy about his drug game.
#5
I think that Sargent Austin gave him the fake map to teach author Wes Moore a lesson about trust. He gives Wes a map that supposedly leads him to the train station. Wes leaves in the middle of the night and ends up realizing the map was fake. Sargent Austin was trying to teach him that you shouldn't always trust people and also you shouldn't expect everything to go your way.