One Child essay

A detailed Summary of One Child essay

One Child is a book about a violent, out of control six year old girl named Sheila who has been raised in a world of abuse, hostility, and anger, and how one brilliant teacher named Torey reached out to her. Sheila was abandoned by her mother when she was four, and she lives with her father who is an alcoholic who constantly abuses and torments her. There are many issues I've learned in the text book, that I read about in One Child and learned more from the experiences both Shelia and Torey faced. Topics I read in the book included child abuse, Peer Relations, neglectful parenting, developmental consequences of abuse, and poverty.

Most of One Child takes place in Torey's classroom better known as the "garbage class." Her classroom was for the kids who defied classification. Her class was the last stop before institution. One Child is directly focused on one particular child. Shelia, who burned a little boy in November of that year, was put in Torey's class because there were no openings at the state hospital and her classroom was the only option for Shelia until a spot opened up. When Sheila arrived, she would not speak and she would not participate in anything Torey and the rest of the children were doing. It w

as always a constant battle for Torey to try to get Sheila to do work and participate in class activities. There was something about Sheila that made Torey not want to give up on her. Torey knew that a state hospital was not a place Sheila should be put into, and that institution would not help Sheila at all which Torey felt was not fair for a 6-year old girl.

Sheila was a brilliant child. Shelia was smarter than any other child Torey has ever worked with. Torey could not figure out how a child who came from such a horrific environment as Sheila did, with no one to teach her anything, was so brilliant and had such a high IQ. On the IQ test Sheila had taken, she topped out, earning the highest score possible. Sheila read and comprehended on a 5th grade level, despite the fact that no one had ever taught her to read. The school psychologist was determined to find a test that could measure her IQ.

Sheila was a believer of imminent justice. Imminent justice is the concept that, if a rule is broken, punishment will be meted out immediately. The young child believes that the violation is connected in some automatic way to the punishment. (Santrock, 2003, p.316). Sheila felt if she did something wrong, that she was going to get beaten. When Torey got upset with Sheila for what she did to Mrs. Holmes room, Sheila asked Torey if she was going to whip her. When Torey responded by saying no, she doesn't whip children, Sheila then asked why and Torey told her she doesn't whip kids because it doesn't help anything. Sheila responded by saying, "It helps me. My pa, he says it be the only way to make me decent. He whips me and I must be betterer, 'cause he ain't never leaved me on no highway like my mama done." Sheila feels that her father beating her is the only way to make her better. Sheila also could

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Approximate Word count = 1229
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English