Introduction A Chance in the World is an astounding book that portrays the true life story of a man named Steve Pemberton. At the tender age of three, Steve had already experienced the life of poverty, maltreatment, and neglect without the actual realization of its existence. Due to the conditions in which he was subjected to, he was removed from his Mother’s care and placed in departmental foster care. Throughout his childhood and into adolescence, Steve found himself a prisoner of an abusive foster family, failed by the system whose job it was to protect him. Accepting the life he was left to endure, his main focus was escaping this harsh reality through reading books and fueling the idea of eventual freedom through academic success.
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Resilience is commonly defined as the capability in which an individual overcomes life’s hardships and is able to successfully bounce back from those hardships and thrive (Bynner & Schoon, 2003). Steve Pemberton is a good example of a resilient individual as he endured many adversities as a young child to include loss of identity, maltreatment, growing up in foster, etc., and was able to cope and overcome these traumatic experiences by achieving educational success, obtaining a career, and building and maintaining a relationship strong enough to result in …show more content…
Despite the Robinson’s leather belt beatings and being called ugly and stupid, Steve was able to overcome these adversities through his own competency, faith in God, and the self-worth, people such as Mrs. Levin and Mr. Sykes, made him realize even more. According to Hines, Merdinger, & Wyatt (2005), educational systems serve as a safe haven or a place of escape for children that lived in foster care. This was something experienced by Steve as excelled in high school with the help of Upward Bound and was accepted to Boston College. He had escaped the imbedded idea so often told to him by the Robinson’s that he wouldn’t make anything of
Resilience is commonly defined as the capability in which an individual overcomes life’s hardships and is able to successfully bounce back from those hardships and thrive (Bynner & Schoon, 2003). Steve Pemberton is a good example of a resilient individual as he endured many adversities as a young child to include loss of identity, maltreatment, growing up in foster, etc., and was able to cope and overcome these traumatic experiences by achieving educational success, obtaining a career, and building and maintaining a relationship strong enough to result in …show more content…
Despite the Robinson’s leather belt beatings and being called ugly and stupid, Steve was able to overcome these adversities through his own competency, faith in God, and the self-worth, people such as Mrs. Levin and Mr. Sykes, made him realize even more. According to Hines, Merdinger, & Wyatt (2005), educational systems serve as a safe haven or a place of escape for children that lived in foster care. This was something experienced by Steve as excelled in high school with the help of Upward Bound and was accepted to Boston College. He had escaped the imbedded idea so often told to him by the Robinson’s that he wouldn’t make anything of