In the short story of “The Lesson” (1972) written by, Toni Cade Bambara a writer, teacher, editor, social activist, community organizer, and "product of the nineteen-sixties spirit" was born in 1939 and died of colon cancer in 1995” (Casmier). Bambara herself would have learned growing up during the 1940s and 1950s in New York City 's Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant communities. (Heller)Sylvia gives a sassy narration from a twelve year old on a learning experience that Miss Moore took a few kids from the Harlem ghetto neighborhood on a trip to FAO Swartz in downtown Manhattan. To show them there is more outside the ghetto and wealth wasn’t distributed out evenly. It was a hot summer day in Harlem when Miss Moore a fancy well educated teacher
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She like to give back to her community by doing different things with the children in the neighborhood. She is stopping the children from having good time with the teaching them with real life situations. Like when she had them use their math skills. “Then she hustle half the crew in with her and hands me a five-dollar bill and tells me to calculate 10 percent tip for the driver”( Bambara, 340). They begin to have fun as they riding along trying figure out what they were going spend the money on. Once they arrived they couldn’t figure out what the tip was so the driver was mad and drove off. As they stood they look around and saw they were “on Fifth Avenue and everybody was dressed up in stockings. One lady in a fur coat, hot as it is. White folks crazy” (Bambara, 340). They knew they were no longer in their hood cause of the way people were dressing and they had on fur coats when it was very hot out. When they arrived Miss Moore presented the store like it was museum. They stand outside and look in and see all the nice stuff. Some begin to point to things they want to buy, as they look closer they see the price tags on items. Microscope that Big Butt saw he wanted it. It had a $300 price tag on it. Knowing that it would take a longtime for Big Butt to save up his allowance she let them know that it’s a learning instrument. It well worth the $300 to spend on the item because it will be worth the
She like to give back to her community by doing different things with the children in the neighborhood. She is stopping the children from having good time with the teaching them with real life situations. Like when she had them use their math skills. “Then she hustle half the crew in with her and hands me a five-dollar bill and tells me to calculate 10 percent tip for the driver”( Bambara, 340). They begin to have fun as they riding along trying figure out what they were going spend the money on. Once they arrived they couldn’t figure out what the tip was so the driver was mad and drove off. As they stood they look around and saw they were “on Fifth Avenue and everybody was dressed up in stockings. One lady in a fur coat, hot as it is. White folks crazy” (Bambara, 340). They knew they were no longer in their hood cause of the way people were dressing and they had on fur coats when it was very hot out. When they arrived Miss Moore presented the store like it was museum. They stand outside and look in and see all the nice stuff. Some begin to point to things they want to buy, as they look closer they see the price tags on items. Microscope that Big Butt saw he wanted it. It had a $300 price tag on it. Knowing that it would take a longtime for Big Butt to save up his allowance she let them know that it’s a learning instrument. It well worth the $300 to spend on the item because it will be worth the