Response to Mr. Harvey

In this story Mr. Harvey was an English teacher for Lovey and her other classmates. They were located in Hawaii where all the students speak pidgin; which is a English/Hawaiian Creole mix. Mr. Harvey teaches the 5th grade which Lovey is in. He is a very strict teacher and has very unpleasant teaching styles, most of the time in a verbally abusive way to the students. He talks to his students as if they were brought up was wrong and they can never change. He says how they talk is low class and very uneducated. This makes Lovey and guaranteed the other students very ashamed of how they grew up. Lovey is ashamed of where they live, her background, and most of all her family, because of the comments that Mr. Harvey has made to her, making her feel very small and below other students. She talks about wishing her name would be Betty Smith or Debbie Cole, because these were hoalies, which she wishes she was. Hoalie is a term Hawaiians use for white people. One day in class they all have to stand up and say their name and what they want to do when They get older in standard English in front of the class. Jerry gets up and is very nervous and talks very slow but gets through it, now its Loveys turn and Mr. Harvey is rushing her telling her to “cut the crap and stop playing these goddamn plantation games.” Lovey gets up and says “ my name is Lovey…I going be what I like be and nobody better say nothing about it or I kill um.” Mr. Harvey was furious. He tells the class all of them were terrible and they will never stop practicing till they are perfect little Americans. He says “…you need me more than I need you.” Right there he just puts the students down and makes them feel like they are nothing. But in the end Lovey deep down really does think that Mr. Harvey doesn’t try to be mean to them and really wants them to be Americans.
My responses to Mr. Harvey are very negative because I feel like I have had to deal with teachers like him in my past school years. I must say I was a very rebellious kid in high school and had to transfer to a continuation school. Being at that continuation school for 3 years really made me grow up. I had to deal with teachers that already thought we were bad and worthless kids. But dealing with that really made me a stronger person and I feel like this story really relates to me in a lot of ways.