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The Cruelty of Children (final response)
I enjoyed listening to the program and felt that it helped me visualize the different strategies of reading and writing that we’ve been exploring in class. We see the methods of Narrative and Description used on the first account by David Sedaris as well as the second story about the man in the well; on both, the authors recall events from their childhood. The third piece is about an experiment conducted by a teacher to observe how cruelty is played out among children in the classroom; I could see the method of Example being used to illustrate the point that the teacher was making. A common thread uniting the three pieces was the issue of violence or aggression perpetrated by children toward their own peers.
The very funny David Sedaris uses self-deprecating humor to great effect in his narrative of growing up gay and dealing with bullies. I believe most gay men will relate to his account of a hostile school environment where “the worst thing one could possibly be was a sissy.” He talks about the pressure of having to hide his sexuality and worse: having to join in with the perpetrators lest he himself be found out to be queer. That climate of persecution and fear was breeding ground for self-loathing and the pernicious belief that gay boys were not okay because of their sexual orientation.
The second narrative tells of a group of kids who come across a man trapped inside a well in an abandoned farm lot. The man can’t get out and begs the kids for help. The children’s initial reaction is to help and at the man’s request they go get a latter. On their way to get help they change their minds and instead go back to the well to tease the man. My feeling in listening to the story was that some kind of cruel desire to play with the man’s hopelessness struck the children. It only made matters worse when one of the kids called another by name accidentally revealing his identity. After this, the kids fear what might happen to them if they allow the man to escape. In the end they leave the man there to die.
The program closes with a teacher being interviewed about an experiment she conducted with kindergarten children. The teacher was puzzled observing how some children in the classroom had a tendency to reject kids they felt were unacceptable; she referred to this as “a hidden curriculum of cruelty”. The experiment laid rules that said kids could no longer bar other kids from playing on a whim; she called the experiment “You Can’t Say You Can’t Play.” Although the children initially resist the experiment, it proves to be helpful and they end up appreciating it.
By the end of the program we’re left asking ourselves if there is a natural tendency for children to be cruel. On the other hand the teacher’s experiment and its relative success seem to indicate that at a very young age these tendencies can be at least partially reversed.

Cruelty of Children SHEJLA POLLOZI
The topic really caught my attention and it was interesting, fun and informative listening to ti. Even though, the main idea of the three parts of the program is about bullying,taunting others,being afraid to take a certain step, or just neglecting people you don't want to be with, the fact that there are three stories told by different people in different circumstances makes the whole idea so varying. The first narrative story of David Sedaris,now part of his book, would be the most common situation when it comes to homosexuality and struggling with the fact of understanding and accepting it at a very young age. Also the experiment led from the kinder-garden teacher about not saying "You can't play" was interesting about the fact that it helped certain kids, with some unbelievable thoughts and attitudes of selfishness, change their mind. But what I really liked was the second part, about the man in the well. It's just amazing to even dare to think why the kids wouldn't help him, because of being afraid of their own old friends, of themselves after all, not being able to go in the light so the man wouldn't see them, not being able to speak names out loud so the man wouldn't recognize them. All this sacrifice, just don't take that man out of the well. Until somebody makes a mistake. It's really intriguing to see cruelty turned into weakness and fear, from someone who needed their help, not from someone who was compelling them to do anything.

The Cruelty of Children (initial response)
I enjoyed listening to the program and felt that it helped me visualize the different strategies of reading and writing that we’ve been exploring in class. We see the methods of Narrative and Description used on the first account by David Sedaris as well as the second story about the man in the well; on both the authors recall events from their childhood. The third piece is about an experiment conducted by a teacher to observe how cruelty is played out among children in the classroom; I could see the method of Example being used to illustrate the point that the teacher was making. A common thread uniting the three pieces was the issue of violence or aggression perpetrated by children toward their own peers.
The very funny David Sedaris uses self-deprecating humor to great effect in his narrative of growing up gay and dealing with bullies. (to be continued)