Social Issues in The Glass Castle

There were so many social issues presented in The Glass Castle but I'd like to focus on one. Education, or the lack of. Jeannette and her siblings were denied a proper education because of her parents' life style. They were constantly moving around because of her father and don't even get me started on their Bi Polar mother. It just wasn't fair to these kids the way their parents moved around so much that they never got a proper education.

I think parents involvement in their children's education has a big influence on the outcome. If a parent is involved, asks about their child's homework, how their day was, etc., the child will do better in school because their parent actually cares. On the flip side, if a parent never shows interest in their child's school work, the child may feel that they don't have to try as hard because the parent won't care about the outcome. But this can also work the other way. A child may feel driven to make a better life for themselves despite what their parents care about.

Another negative affect on the Walls children is what would happen to them if they had to take a Standardized Test? They have been moved around so much that they are learning different things and for a very short amount of time. I'm sure there were even places that they lived when their parents didn't even sign them up for school. It's lucky for the Walls children that they were all smart for their ages. They were able to help their mother grade papers when she didn't want to and got into one of her moods when she hated being a teacher and didn't want to do anything.

One of the times that the Walls children suffer in school because of their constant moving around is when their mom takes Jeannette and Brian to sign them up for school and she tells the principal how smart her children are, but they can't understand what he is saying because of his accent. He puts them into the slow classes because he feels that they are dumb, but really they just can't understand him. How unfair is that? Because the parents are moving around all the time their children are denied a proper education.

I'm so glad that Jeannette and her siblings are able to escape their past and turn their lives into something good. Yes, she does sometimes feel guilty that she lives in a fancy apartment while her parents lived on the street, but those are the lives they have all chosen for themselves. Jeannette was able to overcome her past and her lack of education as a child to become successful. That should be the result of children whose parents don't care about their education, but unfortunately many children fall into a routine of falling in their parents' footsteps.