First Grader Themes

1. What are the main themes, politically and socially, that are portrayed in the film?

There was a great question asked by numerous individuals in the eighteenth century with what happens to people’s lives when their country is a colony of another country. This was very important to Americans when they were being ruled by Great Britain, and even to this day it remains important when countries find themselves controlled by more powerful outsiders. But what is colonialism? Colonialism occurs when one nation takes control of another. Kenya’s experience as a colony of Great Britain gives us more of an idea of what being colonized meant both to the people being controlled and to those who control them. Although it seems hard to believe, Kenya was created by the Europeans and generally this had a positive on effect on Kenyans because it began development.

“The Boys of Baraka” is a documentary following four boys living in Baltimore who are living in a society in which a good education is difficult to achieve. They are offered to go to the Baraka school in Africa to get an education so they can continue to high school. When the boys are living in Baltimore, the things they see and hear growing up affect the way they perceive education negatively. For example, they hear very often from an authoritative figure that they will either grow up and go to school, or go to jail. However, when they are living in Africa at the Baraka school, they are encouraged to learn and the boys are overall more kind to each other and willing to learn. Two experiments that help explain the way the boys react in different social circumstances are the Asch and Zimbardo experiments. They demonstrate how the environment a person or group of people are in can influence their decisions, which can be seen in the “Boys of Baraka”. The surroundings the boys are in and the way people affect them play a major part in determining the way they view their educations.

One of hardest parts of helping the people was not being to provide everything the people needed or watching young children die of malaria and starvation. There were robberies and the outbreak of the Somali War in 1992 that caused an increase in violence between tribes. Even when talking about the low points, they are not detrimental, just bumps in the journey. The time spent in Kenya is not scared by these, but rather revealed the Kenyans personalities. She explained they were filled with kindness and hospitality, always helping each other. For people having so little, they were so giving she explained. “If a grandma down the road needed help, a family would send a child to go take care of her,” giving an example of the unfathomable kindness. Through these trials, it showed Henrietta how to “reach out to others and be aware of their needs.” It was through the trying times that a greater appreciation was generated for the Kenyans.

A Lesson Before Dying is a very deep, meaningful movie. It’s many themes, characters, and lessons can really impact a viewer. Set in Louisiana in 1948, you can expect a lot of racism going on, and that is why one of the main characters got in trouble. Jefferson, a young African-American man got convicted for murder for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In court, his lawyer calls him a “hog” to tell the jury his life is meaningless, and they shouldn’t kill him. However, Jefferson is sentenced to death, and his Godmother, Miss Emma is very upset. She calls in Jefferson’s former teacher, Grant Wiggins, and asks him to visit Jefferson in jail and teach him how to die like a man and not a hog. Grant, resisting at first, finally

Based in the late 1940s in Louisiana, Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying is an intriguingly complex novel that explores numerous themes of immense historic value. However, it is undeniable that the novel’s back-bone is structured by one, all-pervasive theme: that racism is a detriment to any society. It is also successful at conveying that in an ignorant society where racism thrives, demoralization against coloured people will always be rampant. Gaines’ extensive use of setting highly develops the theme for the reader, ultimately making this novel an extremely powerful thought provoking piece of literature.

As a person of color, it is hard to find television that I can easily identify with. There are not a lot of shows that I can identify with and I believe that these shows are needed to promote growth of people of color in varying career fields. This disparity is because of societal norms that are profitable in television, and the open acceptance of people of color being in either well off conditions or in the hip-hop industry. Representation is important in both the job market and in media, because personal limitations are mostly drawn from the imagery that is the most acceptable.

Education is very important in this day and age. It is “the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life”. Marita’s Bargain expresses the fundamentals of going to KIPP Academy. Malcom Gladwell, English-born Canadian journalist, author, and speaker. He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. Paul Tough, editor and chief of “Open Letters”, and online magazine. “Kewuana’s Ambition”, excerpt from his book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, shows the passion and drive one can have. Kewuana and Marita fought the same battles for many reasons, some of which were the same and some different.

Europeans westernized all parts of Kenya. Europeans tried to make Kenya into a hierarchal government. However, this was a huge problem for the Kikuyu people. The Queen or King is equivalent to a Chief, but the Kikuyu people don’t have chiefs. Therefore, the British chose a leader for them. This created great problems for them and destabilize their country. The Kikuyu people refused to work for money especially from the British, until the British created taxes which forced Kenyans to search for work. While the fathers searched for work the children and mothers went off to school created by the British. The Europeans made the Kenyans learn to read and turned them into missionaries once this was accomplish and required them to spread the word of the bible.

There were many issues and concepts that were arisen with this film. What seemed to be the major theme that predominated throughout the film was that being older does not mean that life ends. There are different issues that are dealt with when aging, but

The key themes and issues can be a criticism of the Australian society’s actions against Aboriginals. It can be about prejudice, simplistic generalization, racism, race supremacy and assimilation. For the most part, the film’s theme and key issues circles around how the Lost Generation of Aboriginal children were treated through the film, how they were neglected, threatened, spoken of and forced into the Australian society as servants and maids.

The British colonization of Kenya destroyed the culture and economy of the native people, but it established a democratic government and left Kenya a more modernized country.[1] During the 1880’s through 1914, the start of WWI, was an age of imperialism. One place that felt victim to this imperialism was Africa. At this time Africa was a wholly unmodernized continent. The reason the Europeans went after Africa was the introduction of the idea of social Darwinism and the “white man’s burden”. Social Darwinism is the belief that only the strongest and the most cunning can make it to the top of the social ladder, and it was the White Man’s Burden to step in for these undeveloped countries

The characters in the film Father, Mother and the two sons are in high conflict, low resolution with very fragile system with having children compelled to take sides with parents who they are identifying and idolizing. This leads to obvious developmental immobility in children in all the areas of their functioning; school life and peers, interpersonal relationship skills, identification, appropriate expression of their feelings and emotions etc.

In the past when I would think of Kenya I would think of wild animals, African tribes, and AIDS. When I met Wanjiku an international student from Kenya she told me many things about the culture of her country. I know from talking and working with her that they value friendship and believe in hard work.

The paper seeks to understand the political, social and cultural variables that have thrown Kenya into the geo-political limelight insofar as the so-called ‘War on Terrorism’ is