Reflection for “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”

Reflection for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Abstract This essay consists of three sections. The origin section, a brief synopsis of the book I know why caged bird sings is presented. At the sustain part, three insights after reading the book argon come befored. That is, metaphor of caged bird, power of literacy, and power of silence. At the run section, discipline-specific knowledge that relevant to the main character of book is stated. Synopsis of the Text This autobiography is Maya Angelous culmination of age story, and follows Marguerites (called My or Maya by her brother) life history from the age of three to seventeen.In this story, Angelou as the storyteller, tells the consultation about her experiences as an Afri bottomland American girl living in the Southern United States and her struggles with racism and being raped at eight years old. The book reveals the process of how she overcomes these difficulties and trans practices into a self-possessed, dignified raw wo man, capable of responding to prejudice. Her maturity is mainly gained by her grand start, Momma, the power of literacy, and the love around her. The book starts with Marguerite at three years old.At three, she was sent to Stamps, Arkansas, with her older brother Bailey to live with her grand female pargonnt and crippled uncle. Momma owns a merchandise store in the Stamps, and her store is a center of the African American community. Church, school, and the store are main places that little Maya and her brother live around. They are acquainted with African American life in Stamps which is hopeful in the morning before they go to cut the cotton, then turns dissatisfied and disappointed in the evening when they return from the cotton field.Read also Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD).Stamps is a place where the blacken world and uncontaminating world is clearly distinctive. Segregation marques them feel solicitude and hatred towards the white race in Stamps. Maya and her brother s relatively peaceful lives are disturbed by their fathers appearance at Stamps. He takes them to St. Louis, Missouri, to live with their mother. Later, Maya was raped by her mothers boyfriend. After her mothers boyfriends death, Maya misconceives that her words lead him to his death, and then she refuses to speak.This make her mother feel helplessness, therefore she decides to send her sisterren to Stamps again. In Stamps, Maya meets Mrs. Bertha Flowers, who supplies her with books to encourage her love of reading and helps her to break through her shell. Later, Momma decides to send her grandchildren to their mother in San Francisco, California, to protect them from the dangers of racism in Stamps. Before Maya graduates, she becomes low African American female trolley conductor in San Francisco.During her final year of high school, she worries that she might be a lesbian and initiates informal intercourse with a teenage boy. Later, she finds out that she is pregnant. Maya giv es birth at the end of the book and begins her journey to due date by accepting her role as a mother. Insights You Obtained from Reading this Text Metaphor of Caged Bird In this text, the cage is used to imply many things. In young Mayas eyes, being black is desire living in a cage she al airs imagines she could escape from her black skin.In addition, her uncles handicapped ashes is his own cage. African American laborers in the Stamps cotton field are also being caged, because they are repeatedly doing the same labor work day after day, plainly their life does not depend to change. It is still very tough they are like the caged bird cannot go anywhere. When the powhitetrash girls ridicule Momma, Maya looks through the window and watches the whole process of Momma being ridiculed by these girls. She was angry and wanted to yell at them but she could not, like the caged bird.From reading this text, I could know the severer victimization from racism and the impacts of segregatio n on African American persons life at that time. When Maya firstly comes across the white community in Stamps, she feels fear and perceives the white people there are un-human. Segregation produces misunderstanding between the two groups and escalates the conflict. spring of Literacy Maya is panic-struck about the power of words after the death of Mr. Freeman, and refuses to speak. After she goes back to Stamps, Maya met Mrs. Flower, who encourages her reading of books.Books become a refuge in her bewildering childhood. Maya finds characters of a book to make sense of her bewildering world. She even uses books as a way of coping with her rape. From the literacy, Maya gets comfort literacy expands her thought and enables her to think independently without considering the unwritten rules of society at that time. Literacy also enhances Mayas ability of thinking it lets her have better understanding of herself, elaborates her thought, and makes her become a stronger person. In additio n, literacy inspires her to think what confessedly human dignity is.It is very lucky for Maya to find a way to coping, as McPherson says, if there is superstar stable element in Angelous youth it is a dependence upon books. (McPherson, 1990, pp. 215). I wonder what the close to dignified characteristic of a human being is. The answer I found from this book is not the color of skin, socioeconomic status, or power it is the self-determined ability to not allows others to decide the value of themselves, because everyone is equally dignified. Power of Silence Mayas grandmother is a quite successful African American woman in the African American community in Stamps.However, Momma and Mommas family frequently suffered from racist attacks. On one occasion, Momma is taunted by powhithetrash girls. Maya awaits Momma through the window coping with ignorance while being dignified. When these girls go to leave, Momma says to them Bye, Miz. After seeing how Momma fights with racism, Maya re alizes racism can be fought without impudence, but instead with dignity. On the another occasion, Momma hides Uncle Willies in a vegetable bin to protect him from Ku Klux Klan raiders, because at that time, it was hard for a black man get protection from the police.Momma chooses very realistic ways to protect her family and shows to little Maya what accuracy dignity is. Discipline-Specific Knowledge that You Think is Relevant to this Main Character If Maya is a client, what should a practitioner do with Maya? At first, the guidance needs to decide the time that Maya come to see him or her. Maya has come to see the counselling after she has been raped. As described in the book, after this incident, Maya refused to speak and closed herself to the outside world. Therefore, it can be assumed that this period is the first crisis in Mayas life.At the beginning of the counseling session, establishing a ingenuous relationship is very important. Sexual abuse involves betrayal of the chil ds trust. The effect of such fashion makes a child who survives knowledgeable abuse feel that it is difficult for them to trust others. Therefore, the counselor needs to make a tremendous effort to build a good rapport with Maya. We can utilize the things that Maya likes in the beginning of the session. As known from the text, Mrs. Bertha Flowers introduces books to Maya and encourage her love of reading books.Therefore, we can talk about characters or authors of books, or whatever can bring her interest. After establishing a good relationship with Maya and making for certain that she is ready to talk, the counselor will do assessment. Through talking with Maya, the counselor can comprehend Mayas feelings, her coping behaviors, her perceptions about the incident, her developmental tasks, and her ecosystem. At the end of the assessment, two main supplys might emerge. That is, trauma from sexual abuse and racism-related issues, including obsession with race and an identity issue.I t is said that counselors are ethically and legally mandated to report suspicions of child sexual abuse to authorities (Miller, Dove, & Miller, 2007). Therefore, documenting and reporting the suspected sexual abuse of Maya is the counselors first job. In the specific counseling session, the counselor needs to consider that treatment issues for child victims of rape typically includes many symptoms. Some of these symptoms include anger, trust issues, social withdrawal, self-blame, emotional dysregulation, dissociation, eating disorders, self-injury, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Budrionis & Jongsma, 2003).Previous enquiry suggests cognitive-behavioural approaches reduce the impact of (child) sexual abuse (Berliner & Elliot, 2002), and are more effective than supportive therapy in promoting improvements in childrens knowledge about body safety skills (Deblinger, Stauffer, & Steer, 2001). The counselor could apply cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to signalize distorted thinkin g, like how Maya thought being raped and Mr. Freemans death were caused by her spay beliefs facilitate relating to others in different ways and changes Mayas behaviors associated with her trauma.Next, the counselor needs to deal with the racism-related issues that Maya is experiencing. bollix mannikin of psychological nigrescense (the process of becoming sorry)(Cross, 1971, 1991, 1995Hall & Cross, & Freedle, 1972) indicated that the evolution from the pre-encounter to the internalization stage reflects a movement form psychological dysfunction to psychological health. Evidence from the book supports an assumption that Maya is in her pre-encounter stage, where individuals consciously or unconsciously devalue their own causticness and concurrently value White set and ways.This can be seen when Maya ofttimes imagines that one day she will escapes from her black skin and become a blond and blue-eyed white girl. African Americans at pre-encounter stage evidence self-hate, low self- esteem, and poor mental health (Vandiver. 2001), whereas African Americans with the sterling(prenominal) internalization of racial identity report the highest self esteem (Pierre & Mahalik, 2005). It seems that accepting who you are and being steep of yourself are fundamental for African American to maintain mental health. However, long journey needs to be gone through in order to make changes.For changing the perception of herself and her perceptions towards African Americans, the counselor could introduce Maya with some movies or books of outstanding African Americans. Facing racism, Neal-Barnette and Crowther (2000) found that parents who focusing on human values and ignoring the role of race more likely generate childrens higher levels of social anxiety, particularly with African American peers. It means, for African Americans, it is crucial for parents actively prevent racism by admitting existence of racism, putting this issue on the table, and guiding their children to conf ront racism.In Mayas case, the counselor could refer to Sue and Sue (2007)s recommendation. That is, the counselor can employ family and community support systems. Specifically, members of the family and other important individuals (brother, Momma, uncle, teacher, etc. ) in Mayas life could be asked to meet together in Mommas home, and then all the members could share breeding about their struggles and search for identity. Sue and Sue (2007) indicated that, use of these techniques, derived from African American experience, can lead to ain empowerment. Reference Angelou, M. 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