When I began reading Joe Amato's Family Values, it was exactly what I had expected. What I was expecting was another story of the struggles of a working class American, whose family immigrated from another country, and how he's the only one in his family who broke through their struggles and made something more of himself. And indeed, this is what his essay was about. This type of literature does not peak my interest because I just can't relate. I feel that Joe talked way too much about his family, and it was out of context to the other material of the essay. I understand that your family and your heritage influences how you speak, write, and think, but I just don't need to know about every detail of his aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas, cousins, etc. Because of all the uninteresting detail he shared about his family, I veered off from the piece often simply out of boredom. Everybody has a life story, but what made him think that his was so interesting?
However, as I read over the reading again, I realized that all the reasons for his, what I thought, useless details, actually tied into the whole essay. He explains the fact that our backgrounds and upbringings can tie into how we develop educationally. After reading again, I liked the details that he included, and I actually did relate to some of the things he was saying. I realized that some families, my family included, don’t have certain opportunities and resources to get a “top of the line” education. After realizing this, I have changed my point of view and I am inspired by Amato’s telling of his family and their influences on him educationally.
Amato’s point of technology influencing our generation caught my attention immediately. I agree with him completely. The way we learn, research, communicate, and even meet people has definitely changed, and is changing day by day. One example that I thought of was Sparknotes.com. I feel this site has completely changed the effort and interest in literature for all students. I saw a lot of this in high school when we were reading a book in class. The teacher would assign various chapters to read, and most of my friends and peers (not me!) didn’t read the chapters! They would just go on spark notes and print out the information that only applied to the class. They may be getting little bits of information to help them pass a test, but really they are not getting a full look and appreciation of a book. Whereas when my mother was young, they had no other option but to read and comprehend an entire book, without the help of a silly website.
With that being said, it is not just social networking sites that are changing just the way we interact with people. The internet and technology in general is completely changing our appreciation for learning and knowledge. Maybe if our society looked back to people like Joe Amato’s family they will realize that education and learning should be something to be appreciated. Joe Amato and his family struggled to just put food on their table or pay their rent, due to the fact they didn’t have an equal opportunity for an education or even a steady job for that matter. I think technology has taught us to take our education for granted. I even hear some people say- “Why learn it in class? I can just find it on the internet.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I feel that i disagree with what was said. i think that the reason he goes into his family alot is because this is the story of his life,nd he should go into detail about his family because his family all have accents and speak broken english which is what we have mostly been reading about this semester. If a person wants to tell u a story about his life in the u.s with his italian family and how they lived in our civilization then hes obviously going into more detail than just the reason why his life is able to be written in a book. People have freedom to write what they want and boring or not he still told a good story and kept me reading for a bit.
ReplyDeleteI understand what you mean by it can get a lil boring but thats part of the story and without that he wouldnt have been able to write and tell the story to people in the same situations. The reason im backin him up is because like amato i too shared a similar experience. I was born in a different country and had to adapt to life somewhere else so for me its a lil easier to relate when u can say uve lived a similar life.
Melissa, i liked how you expressed yourself in your opening paragraph and how you thought it was boring along with ur expectations. I also liked how you found his meaning of why he wrote about his family and then you talk about your own family. Good Job!
ReplyDelete