Paul Toughs Book Whatever It Takes - Essay Example

Tough’s portrayal of Geoffrey Canada’s passion to change the prevailing perspective that I share with millions of other people in America made me sit up in awe, curious to find out if his grand plans for Harlem’s children will work. His promising idea begins with very early interventions, even as early as from the womb, and to empower parents with the right skills to raise their children well.  Canada is interested in combining educational, social, and medical services to help all children to grow up with the right foundations regardless of their family’s socio-economic status (4). He envisions that the only way to solve the problem of poverty in America is to “transform every aspect of the environment that poor children were growing up in; to change the way their families raised them and the way their schools taught them as well as the character of the neighborhood that surrounded them” (19-20). It would seem like a tall order, but come to think of it, it does make sense to start fresh with people who are appropriately trained to combat poverty as they grow up to be intelligent, compassionate and productive citizens.

My mindset before reading this book was that it is society’s fault that poverty is so widespread. The cause of the deterioration of morals is mainly due to people’s need to acquire their basic needs from a society that does not give them enough opportunities to live a high quality of life just because they are poor and uneducated.

This book has caused in me a paradigm shift that problems should be addressed from the grassroots level, in this case, from childhood or earlier on. To be dependent on society or government would only be setting oneself for failure if one does not do anything out of his own initiative. Children should develop their skills early on so they can be self-reliant.  Tough echoes this: “Skill begets skill; learning begets learning. Early disadvantage, if left untreated, leads to academic and social difficulties in later years. Advantages accumulate; so do disadvantages” (193).  After all, today’s children will be tomorrow’s leaders. Here’s hoping they turn out to be better leaders than what we have right now.

Canada’s vision may be too idealistic for some, but it seems that he has a definite plan for action that is worth executing. Tough is hopeful that the rather high expectations for children may have realistic possibilities. “Expectations will be set very high for your children. If we try to reach the stars, we will land on the moon.” (172). 

In this course, I have learned much about writing to help me enhance my skills.  At the beginning of the semester, I was not confident about my writing skills because I found it difficult to organize the many ideas that swim inside my head. I was very conscious of style and format that I could not set my ideas free on print. I was reluctant to make any mistakes and was holding on to “rules” in writing good essays.  However, as I learned to brainstorm my ideas and liberated them in drafts, it greatly helped me see the whole picture without losing the details I wanted to include.  In creating several drafts, I learned to organize and follow appropriate formatting for my work.  I learned to write citations well depending on the format indicated. 

When I learned to do this, I was more confident in writing stronger theses and abandoned the weak and safe ones that I started out with.  In reading several texts and being exposed to a variety of writing styles, I learned how to grab the readers’ attention with the use of colorful language in the beginnings and endings of my work. Of course, I had to sustain it throughout the body of my work. I learned to choose appropriate words and edit out those that are unnecessary or redundant.  This newfound confidence and competence inspired me to write more pages because I allow my ideas to flow within the confines of appropriate writing styles and formats.

 I know one semester is not enough to make me a great writer. I know I have a long way to go. However, taking the first steps towards my goal of being a better writer is rewarding enough as it is. Such a feeling of fulfillment pushes me further to unravel more possibilities towards greatness.