A Hope in the Unseen

We are reading the book, A Hope in the Unseen in my language arts class. We were asked a question about the book and we are supposed to blog about what we feel the answer is. So to start this off I will tell you a little bit about the book.
The main character's name is Cedric, he is a junior in High School. The setting of the book is Ballou High School in Washington D.C, which is a school that the majority of the students are underprivileged. Cedric is at the top of his class which makes him a target at school. A lot of the kids give him a hard time because he cares about school and does very well. He tries to be proud of his grades but it is hard for him because of the way that the other kids treat him. For example, at this school they award kids with $100 for having straight A's for a trimester. There is a school wide assembly to award these kids but it does not go over well with the rest of the school. Cedric doesn't even attend the Assembly because he didn't want all of that negative attention from his whole school. So that is a little background about this book, hopefully that will help you understand what I am talking about.

My teacher asked us to compare the way that bight students learn to be unnoticed at Cedric's school and how things are at my school. I go to Kennedy High School which is a big school in a pretty good neighborhood. There are some underprivileged kids that go to my school but in no way is that the majority of students. I can relate to Cedric's situation because I have been on both ends of award receiving. I have been recognized for my academic successes but I have also been that kid that didn't get a T-shirt at the assembly and it doesn't feel very good. At my school people make fun of kids that get straight A's but from my experience it is either out of jealousy or they are joking. There is no yelling or bullying compared to Cedric's school. I think that there is so much of a difference between Cedric's School and the school that I go to because of the amount of people that get awards and the types of students at our schools. Due to the fact that my school is really big, there are a lot of kids that get awards and recognition for good grades. I don't think that students at my school are ashamed or scared to accept an award like in Cedric's situation.

So, if you go to a school like the one that I go to or one like Cedric's you should still be proud of yourself and don't be afraid of recognition for your hard work. I understand that not all schools are as nice as mine is, in that some kids can be putting themselves in danger by standing out but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't work hard. Thanks for reading! :)