Kerry’s Comments (group member since Sep 06, 2011)

Kerry’s comments from the MHS AP Language group.

In chapters 2 to 3, we read about Ammaniti's views of parenting, in my opinion, Ammaniti feels that every parent has a different view on how to discipline their child, in the book, it seems that Michele's parents are very strict on him and his younger sister more so on him; but it seems like a typical parent where when the child has urgent and important news they seem to ignore and think little of it... In chapters 2 and 3, Michele goes back to the place he found the little boy that was claimed to be "dead", but he finds out that the boy is actually alive, and Michele's first reaction was to be scared, he runs away, gets home, tries to explain to his parents that he found a boy in a hole, but his parent's don't seem to really let him explain, because of his absence earlier the day. It seems to be that Ammaniti is presenting the idea of parenting.

In my opinion, Ammaniti claims that parents tend to be tough on their children to show them discipline, they may seem to be harsh on them, but in the long run it's for their best interest. In the book, Michelle's father talks to a barber and explains the consequences of disobeying his father, "He drove me up the wall yesterday. If he carries on like this I'm sending him to the friars."(54) An example of when Michele's father disciplines his child is when tells him to get out for not informing anyone of where he was, his father was worried about him, but in the end the father seemed to be fine after Michele did what he was told, coming back home, eating supper instead of roaming around.

Lesley wrote: "Throughout the first chapter in this novel the plot has really not developed yet. A few friends decide to go race up into the hills to go and place a dead chicken their as a symbol. They reached th..."

I liked how you connected how Melichetti might be the suspect for the boy that was in the hole, but my thoughts of that are... is the little boy really dead? and wasn't Michele in that hole too? how come he was able to get out, why couldn't the boy get out himself? there must have been a reason that the boy was there. Also, it's true that children weren't treated right, but it seems like all the other children were treated fine, it was just that ONE boy in the hole that was maltreated. It makes me wonder if Michele will eventually tell the neighborhood children that he found a boy in the hole when he was dared to go into the abandoned house, would he tell his parents?

In the book, I'm not scared by Niccolo Ammaniti,I felt like it was somewhat relatable to Freakonomics, because in Freakonomics, part of the book talked about parenting and the way children are raised, not just by the parent's but the surroundings. In the book I'm not scared, I found it disturbing to have children ages 5-12 go explore around dangerous areas, in the book, a nine-year old boy, Michele Amitrano is dared to go into an old and abandoned house; to have children fooling around daring a girl, Barbara, to show herself inappropriately. In the first chapter, there doesn't seem to have any claims or an argument, but I feel like Ammaniti tries to develop his claim by stating the mistreatment of humans and how children are just wondering around, clueless of what's around them.
In the first chapter, Ammaniti starts off with introducing these neighborhood children who fool around and play together, but they decide to race each other to the hills to find the mythical story of the "pigs that ate Melichetti's daughter's dachshund" and when the children go to confront Melinchetti about the story, being naive children believing Skull ( the leader and eldest of the group of kids )then this leads to the race-climbing over the hills, where whomever finished last would have to do a "forfeit" which seemed to have been decided by Skull, clearly he picks Barbara because she's a girl... this was where I thought was disturbing because of the 'forfeits' she was dared(forced) to follow through; just made me think of how young these children were and how knowledgeable/curious they were about the opposite sex. I found it strangely odd about the way Skull was portrayed in the book, "show my your tits or get lost." he seemed to be the most aware of these situations and making Barbara follow through the dares. It makes me wonder about how Skull was raised.

I thought that reading the last chapter of Freakonomics was really interesting, But I had to agree with the statement of how parents naming their children should reflect the way the child acts, but also tells people what kind of parent they are, and what kind of race, "people who can't be bothered to come up with a name for their child aren't likely to be the best parents either." (165), I feel that statement contradicts the statement that was said in the beginning of the chapter, how " any parent [who] wants to believe that she is making a big difference in the kind of person her child turns out to be." (163)I feel that Parents always think that they know what's best for their children, but their children always thinks that the parents don't know them as well as they believe they do. It's a little ironic how parents feel that way, when the parent of Temptress didn't know what 'Temptress' meant, and that relates to how culture plays a role in name choosing... At first, like what Alesandra said something about ' are names really that important?' I never really thought that deeply about names and what they really meant, it a name, you can change it whenever you want to whatever you want, I never really thought of how naming a child affects the way they are suppose to act or live up to their name, or how culture plays a role in name choosing. I didn't really find that the situation with DeShawn and Jake that shocking, because racism still continues, but it's now a days, it's more frowned upon then it was in the past, a company can get sued for discrimination,etc. But the overall part was that I found this chapter more interesting, how it all ties back to society and how something as small as naming children can be such a problematic issue, from parents not knowing what their children's name means to what the child is viewed as...

Lesley wrote: "In the final chapter of this book Levitt and Dubner continue on about what makes a perfect parent, but on the aspect of choosing a name. They first use the example about Robert Lane who decided to..."

I agree with Lesley's comment, while reading the first couple of pages, all Levitt and Dubner talked about was the naming of children and how it foreshadows the future of the children. As Lesley and Alesandra said that culture played a major role in the naming in children, and as well as education. Most likely the more educated the parents were the better the name was. But in the example of Robert Lane naming his sons Winner and Loser, I agree with the idea someone brought up about how Loser wanted to be more and not really live up to his name or his fortune(?).

What caught my attention was in chapter 2, the Ku Klux Klan an Real-Estate Agents there seems to be discrimination of gender and race, about how "Asian man who is good-looking, rich, and well educated will receive fewer than 25%" less than men of a white race. (77) I felt that this was interesting because later in the book, like chapters 4 & 5 are about education and parenting, and how education is important, but gender and race plays a bigger role.
In chapter 3, it does mainly focus on how poverty and the lack of education is partly the rise of crime and drug dealing, I found it interesting when I read, "That's a fucking stupid question, 'cause as long as you been with us, you still don't understand that their families is our families. We can't just leave 'em out. We been knowing these folks our whole lives, man, so we grieve when they grieve. You got to respect the family." (91) relates to Chapter 5, "What makes a perfect parent?" parent's aren't always perfect, but they have sacrificed a lot to raise their children, they would risk everything and anything to get food and necessities that they would need to raise them; working long shifts or working late at night, what ever they would need to sacrifice just for the survival of themselves and their family. I just thought that quote fit well with that fact that a gang member, knowing what he's doing wrong, but regardless continues, to be able to respect his family without a second thought. Also in this chapter I found it interesting that, "Clearly, bad parenting matters a great deal. As the link between abortion and crime makes clear, unwanted children-- who are disproportionately subject to neglect and abuse-- have worse outcomes than children who were eagerly welcomed by their parents." (140) relates to the idea that someone mentioned earlier, about Nature vs. Nurture, because it really does matter how a parent raises there children, because they are the one that their children look up to, setting good examples, raising them in a better Environment, etc.

Matteo wrote: "Well, I think Karina summed up chapter 3 pretty well. Levitt structures his argument in a way that shows us the incentives that push people – even of gang/drug dealer status – on what to do. Often ..."

In Matteo's comment, I felt that in this situation, I believe that Morals and Incentives do play a role in selling drugs, and also how education relates to a lot of how children are raised and how parents teach their children. From reading Karina and Lesley's comments on the book, I feel that if parents were more educated in teaching their children what is right and what is wrong. Relating back to the comment about how some say that having a parent staying home, etc, would help develop better then having both parents working and neglecting the child, I feel that every child is different, and you can't really say that parents should do this and do that, cause they need to make a living, and some parents feel that the only option to get enough money to help raise a family is to rely on selling drugs. I feel that the demand for drugs, knowing that it is illegal, it is still a better income than working long hours and getting paid $3.50 an hour. Also referring to Lesely's post about how how people are less likely to break the laws because of the increasing punishments and more cruel punishments have been made, I would disagree, because people will and are still breaking the laws regardless of the punishment, I feel that in this world, to survive, people have to do what they have to do to support them and their family. I agree with what Karina said about how people do things only to benefit themselves.

Incentives are meant to be something that rewards a person, but if its misused it's not really considered to be a reward, in the book, Freakonomics, the authors bring up multiple topics about how incentives are being misused, and the definition of incentives is "something that incites or tends to incite to action or greater effort, as a reward offered for increased productivity." topics on how parents take advantage of money and pay for being late for pick-ups, teachers cheating to get more money, and wrestlers getting rigged for them to purposely win and get more money, and this goes back to the topic of how our class discussion how on television people change things around to make it more appealing and target it's audiences. Another incentive would be that people would take advantage of each other when a chance is give, for example, the issue of how a person comes in with bagels(reward),"The bagels had begun as a casual gesture: a boss treating his employees whenever they won a research contract. Then he made it a habit." (41) then having it become a habit, where people take advantage, and expect it to be something that is done constantly. The fact that incentives have turned into cheating and how such a small thing, like getting bagels, people still cheat. I feel that the authors' argues against, how incentives are used to corrupt society as a whole, and that people in society misuse them to their advantages for their own benefits. Just like the teachers trying to get extra money by cheating and people taking advantage over Feldman about the bagel situation.

Karina wrote: "As I read through the first three chapters (including introduction), I realized that the author mainly stresses on the role-play of incentives in our society. Incentives are the values that people ..."

I feel that the issue with the daycare is, that they didn't charge high enough for parents coming late, and I feel like it's all about the convenience of everything, like everyone is always moving and going places, and parents have work, and other responsibilities that they don't really have time for everything and it's like if they're going to be paying extra for every time they're late, might as well be late for a good reason.

Lesley wrote: "Throughout the first two chapters of the book I noticed that the authors talks about things that are just naturally built inside of us. We all want to be rewarded for doing well and avoid for being..."

Yeah, I agree with that, I also read that part about how the principle, or director of the school had to make sure that the teacher who were caught really the ones to cheat, because using the algorithm for the first testing didn't show enough evidence that was needed to actually fire the cheating teachers. I the end it was only a few teacher that were fired. & about the Sumo wrestlers it was as if Japan viewed it as someone's honor and now, its all about getting paid.

I think that this book was alright because it was a little confusing, but over all it was a good read.