Book report for Native American Religious Traditions by Suzanne J Essay

Book report for Native American Religious Traditions by Suzanne J. Crawford - Essay Example Due to their tradition, oral tradition is a way of passing down history, laws, and religion. For an example, the Lakota people tell Ehanni stories to explain creation, or how everything and the world was created. Ohunkakan stories give guidelines on good behavior. Ehanni Wicowoyake relates the stories of Lakota history. In Native American Religious Traditions, Crawford explains how the three tribes focused on for this book use oral tradition uniquely. An example would England and Russia both have literary history, but they way it is written or presented is different. Like with the oral tradition, the Lakota, Dine, and Coast Salish have diverse ceremonial practices. The Lakota has one of the most recognized ceremonial practices of the Sun Dance. The Sun Dance has been portrayed in different movies inaccurately as a ceremony an adolescent man is forced to dance around a pole with needles embedded in his body hooked by string to the pole. Crawford explains the Sun Dance better. The needles are actually bones, the strings are leather thongs, and the pole a tree that never touches the ground specially prepared for the event. After the pole is erected dancing begins at sunrise with the dancers looking at the sun. Anyone can dance with short breaks, but no food or water. This lasts four days. The self-sacrificers prepared during this time. Then male volunteers who wanted something like a cure for a sick relative, tribal purification, and so forth would be pierced in both sides by buffalo bones tied to leather straps. The goal is to get the bone from yo ur body by dancing around the pole. It is a purification ceremony. This and other ceremonies are explained in Crawford’s book. Finally, Crawford looks honestly at a shameful part of American history; the colonization of the Native Americans. All Native Americans encountering European settlers faced the civilization process of Christianity. The Europeans felt

Cultural acceptance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Cultural acceptance - Essay Example The dish is a blend of the American tradition and the Chinese heritage. This made her celebrate her mixed culture, despite her white complexion. She describes her identity, as ‘My very existence is a mark of progress and a symbol of my country’. Cultural diversity appreciation creates a sense of pride and personal belonging. Cultural diversity in America as presented by Fong in her article presents different pros and cons. The demise of Fong’s grandmother is a reminder of the cultural appreciation that the family embraced especially through the ‘Thanksgiving dish’. The dish was so special in integrating the American tradition and the Chinese heritage, Fong and her cousins always enjoyed the dish and the meal was a true source of their heritage, she describes it as ‘the feast she prepared was always much larger’. The Thanksgiving acted as a reminder of the grandmother’s eleven grandchildren who would gather for the feast. The thanksgiving feast reminded Fong of the grandmother’s delicacy and not other common American traditional beliefs and practices. Fong’s description of her mixed racial affiliation depicts her belonging. She describes herself, as ‘I’m half Asian, half Anglo and completely American’. Despite the earlier discrimin ation against cultural affiliations, the picture has continued to change. The current crop of people has come to a point of celebrating cultural diversity and has been viewed positively especially, because of what the young generation has been able to learn in school. The government could rarely provide for people of mixed cultures but now the picture appears different. Fong could always indicate that she was Asian despite her mixed affiliations. Full embrace of Chinese culture is something that never came to happen for Fong. The fact that her grandmother never taught her father the Cantonese language, ate using

Early Childhood Special Education Roots Essay Example for Free

Early Childhood Special Education Roots Essay Early childhood special education that is practiced today has a varied and sometimes hard won history. Its roots are entangled in cultural, economic, and idealistic influences; each facet tinged by the colored lens of the times and adding a little glint to modern day practices. The conglomeration of historical theories and practices, political actions and enacted laws has paved the way to modern early childhood special education practices and programming. Just like a child learns and builds on his knowledge and understanding of his environment, so too does the practice of early childhood special education. In its infancy ECSE was not labeled as such, and in fact was simply teaching. Throughout history, many educators have had differing perspectives and opinions on how best to educate children. Many of those ideas and practices have popularly endured, and some have become very small portions of our current systems, or faded into obscurity altogether. One of the earliest models on early childhood education was the Montessori model. The Montessori methods and tools are prevalent in classrooms today, from individualized and sensory programming to didactic learning materials. Other early educators realized that even very young children benefit from instruction. Jean Piaget identified stages of development from birth to adolescence that still assist educators in identifying appropriate modes of teaching. Others like Robert Owen, John Locke and Lev Semenovich Vygotsky theorized that a child’s environment had a profound influence on his/her development and education, giving a foundation for current early intervention strategies in impoverished, urban areas. Vygotsky also gifted to forward generations the theories of the Zone of Proximal Development, scaffolding and ideas about special needs students working in least restrictive environments. All the way from these LRE’s, are the ideas of institutions. The residential school model however is still useful in some ways today. Samuel Gridley Howe and Dorothea Dix implemented supportive, residential schools for children with disabilities, but when the First World War had its grips on the country, the schools deteriorated into holding cells that pervaded until throughout the depression era. Politics and societal situations have always been instigators of change for education. Post World War II, many war veterans returned home with disabilities changing the attitudes and urgency in servicing individuals with special needs, spurring a profusion of financial and program support. Moving into the mid-20th Century, civil rights opened a consciousness about not only race, but also a socioeconomic dichotomy. Project Head Start was federally funded compensatory program, with a focus on aiding the impoverished; it would later evolve into a more comprehensive program for seeking and aiding special needs children and families. Many other programs and studies aimed at supporting young children with disabilities and their families began to appear, including Early Head Start, the Carolina Abecedarian Project and the Perry Preschool Project, among others. These programs and research studies aimed at aiding and reinforcing the importance of early intervention for at risk children. Supporting and preemptively averting the struggles brought on by environmental disadvantages made the transition to special education support logical. With the social climate changing and an awareness of human rights, legislation regarding special needs populations was ripe. Perhaps the greatest catalyst to change was the enactment of PL 94-142 the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1975. The foundations of this public law and the following amendments are the backbone of all special education as we know it today. This law has 6 main areas of concern. First, the right to a free and appropriate public education is bestowed. Throughout the coming decades, interpretation of FAPE comes up in many court cases, each ruling setting precedence for the future. Second, children with disabilities are given the right to learn in the least restrictive environment (LRE) a practice from centuries prior, but with legal backing, changed the model of public schools in this country. An Individualized Education Plan was written into the body of the IDEA, giving specific protocol for supporting the learning of each individual student. This item is the true workhorse of special education classrooms, bringing the student’s goals, objectives and educational plan, the educators, parents and the other support staff together in one document. The fourth premise of the IDEA is the guarantee to guardians of procedural due process, retaining the guardian’s rights regarding notices, evaluations, placements and other educational plans. Unbiased and multiple assessment criteria is the 5th area addressed in the IDEA. Lastly, part of the legislation includes the parents of special needs students, by affording them access to related services that would benefit the student. Related services was and is an area for interpretation, and again, many court cases have been tried and decided creating standards for what qualifies as a related service. Aside from these six main points, the IDEA has outlined much more. IDEA has given us a universal structure for classifying disabilities, and in a 1991 amendment, ruled that an umbrella classification for preschool aged children was acceptable and malleable state to state. This meant that children would not have to be prematurely labeled or stigmatized, when proper assessment was yet to be exacted. This law gave rise to the term â€Å"developmentally delayed†. A preschooler and his/her family could receive services under the classification of developmentally delayed. IDEA has also given individual states the leeway to define and exact methods of determining what developmentally delayed means. While culturally and regionally more specific, this leaves a large range of differences in qualifications across the country. Since its inception, individuals with special needs have reaped many benefits from the laws and boundaries set by the IDEA, but it wasn’t until October 1986 that very young special needs children and their families could be guaranteed services. While grants and incentives for states to serve the preschool population were available, participation in those programs were completely voluntary. The Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments, or PL 99-457, passed in October 1986, mandated that all special needs preschoolers between the ages of three and five be provided with a FAPE . This law was enacted with the purpose of enabling early intervention and a cost effective preventative strategy to serving special populations. Part C of this law also makes services for infants, birth to age two voluntary. Adding preschoolers to the population of compulsory service made the use of IFSP or Individualized Family Service Plans prevalent. These plans are similar to IEP’s except that they comprehensively include the family and give leeway to assigning the role of the service provider, enabling professionals who are most capable of assisting each family to act. Unlike and IEP, the IFSP must be reviewed at least every 6 months, ensuring relevancy with a quickly growing and changing child. Related services including counseling and classes are now extended to family members. By sharing the process and improvement with the preschoolers’ guardians, we are able to see much greater progress with cooperative engagement. Along with the IFSP, PL 99-457 saw the requirement of an Individualized Transition Plan, aiding young adults in making the change into adulthood. Fast forward to 1997, and PL 105-17 made some important amendments to the IDEA. Related services are expanded, developmentally delayed category can be applied up until age nine, parameters and process around discipline is set. Functional Behavior Assessments or Behavior Intervention Plans must be enacted when providing discipline to special education children. Also, assessments for qualifying for special education are expanded, and Child Find reaches into private schools to deliver services to more children. Along with these changes also came a change in funding based on census data versus enrollment data. The percentages served translated to a fixed amount of funding, averting a glut of over qualifying students. Lack of English Language proficiency is excluded as an area of qualification for services. This is important with the rising populations of English language learners. With the number of children from non-english speaking families on the rise, achievement gaps were widening. The No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 was drawn to support impoverished, special needs and English language learners. This act is directly responsible for the Amendments to IDEA that came in 2004. One of the most important changes made was that of aligning the standards of highly qualified special education teachers to the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act. Inclusion of ECE teachers is yet to be enacted, however. The field and study of Early Childhood Special Education is a deeply diverse and ever evolving practice. Past experience has dictated that social climates, politics, events and laws all contribute to the programming of ECSE. The gains have been great, with dramatic increases in the numbers of children and families found and served, but as a nation, we certainly have some more distance to travel. With current legislation and social issues ranging from secure schools to better serving working families, subsidized healthcare, immigration policies or revamping teacher evaluations, the future of Early Childhood Education is unwritten and open to influence.

Task-Centred Anti-Discriminatory Practice in Social Work

Task-Centred Anti-Discriminatory Practice in Social Work Demonstrate your understanding of the main principles of TASK CENTRED PRACTICE. Consider the strengths and weaknesses of the theory in its application to anti discriminatory practice. Introduction The International Federation of Social Work states that: â€Å"The social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human  relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being.  Utilising theories of human behaviour and social systems, social work intervenes at the  points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human rights and  social justice are fundamental to social work†[1]. The best kind of social work is that which places the client or service user at the centre of everything it does. This is a core principle of task based social work, rather than working with a set of preconceived ideas the social worker has to negotiate the legal framework within which she/he is obliged to operate in order to achieve the best results for the service user. Task based social work is therefore first and foremost ethical and anti-oppressive social work which takes as its foundation the Human Rights Act of 1998 that each person should be dealt with in terms of the concept of the inherent worth of the individual. This assignment will first give some definition of the role and responsibilities of the social worker. From within this framework it will then look at the main principles of task centred practice and will use imaginary scenarios to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the theory and its application to anti-discriminatory practice. Social Work People looking for a career as a social worker usually have more luck if they have had some experience of dealing with individuals in the community. This could involve work placements or being involved with voluntary work, both of which seen as good practice and background to engage in social work practice. Prior community involvement is seen as a valuable asset for anyone wishing to become a social worker. Social services is set against a background of voluntary charity work in the late nineteenth century and people who get involved in community work are seen to have the right kind of spirit, or an interest in social justice that is a valuable part of social work (Moore, 2002). Tasks and Roles Within the Legal Framework The social worker’s role is outlined by what was the personal social services. The overall aim of social workers is a concern with individuals and the care they may need. Under Government legislation and the Code of Practice, social workers have to act in accordance with the 1998 Human Rights Act, the 1990 NHS and Care in the Community Act (a result of the 1988 Griffiths Report), the Chronically Sick and Disabled Person’s Act of 1970 and the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act. More recently social workers are legally required to be involved in partnership working with other agencies (ref) and this has been extended to include the service user/service provider relationship. There is, arguably, some truth in the fact that this takes what is at heart a charitable search for social justice and puts it on a par with businesses and at the mercy of market forces. The primary work behind task centred practice is the identification of social systems, what they might be and what they do. Thus the properly qualified social worker needs a good deal of sociological knowledge with regard to things like class, gender, race and religion. He/she would also need to be aware of Parson’s work on social systems and socialisation because this gives an insight into the boundaries from which a service user may be operating (Payne, 1991). Once social workers are aware of social systems and how they operate then it is possible to be able to define any imbalances within a working relationship (Payne ibid). This last is a necessary part of anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice, however, we shall see that task centred practice can be a two edged sword for the social worker. Payne’s (1991) systems analysis is essential to task centred practice because it provides the social worker with a conceptual basis to start breaking a problem and its solution into manageable pieces.Task centred practice is based on the idea that people learn by doing and that when they have a success this then improves their performance (Hanvey, 1994). Task centred theory is further premised on the view that tasks are a series of steps that a professional would take in order to help a service user achieve a goal. This goal would need to take into account the rights and responsibilities of others as well as those of the service user. There are three key parts of task centred practice the first part of this process focuses on the problem or situation that the social worker is faced with, for example a young mother who has been hospitalised with mental health problems and now wishes to look after her child herself. In this situation the social worker would have to break the problem down for example what might the risks to the child be if it was left unsupervised with a mother from a difficult client group? The social worker would begin by looking at the whole picture and then focus on particular aspects of the situation that could be problematic. Added to this as the social worker investigates the problem further he/she may find the shape and scope of the problem changing (Hanvey, ibid). Thus the social worker has to establish certain parameters e.g. the urgency of the problem and the chances of failure or success as well as any support the service user may have. In the case of a young mother with mental health iss ues for example the following problem might occur: If the social worker needs to make a visit and the service user refuses to allow entry this could cause problems with regards to any future assessment, something which is required by the legal framework. According to the terms of the Community Care Act of 1990 (circular LAC (92) 12, any needs assessment would have to take into account that persons current living situation, any help or support from friends and relatives and what she herself hopes to gain from the assessment. Because of mental health needs this client would be entitled to a specific type of assessment.[2] A task centred approach involves looking at what the service user wants (in this case to have parental rights and control of her child), what the problems might be. If an earlier assessment has shown that family and friends would be able to offer little in the way of help and a young child is involved then the social worker has a duty to search for alternatives. If the mother’s care of the child is erratic and she is posing a problem for other people around then it would be the social worker’s duty to call in the medical officer of health who then has to obtain an order from the magistrates’ court. This would allow the social worker to gain entry and to assess the situation and the needs of the child, however, this could bring the social worker into a value conflict situation (this, I think is one of the problems with the task centred approach). Task centred social work means that once the social worker has defined the problem and the hoped for outcome, he/she then has to decide whether the outcome is really attainable and what the consequences might be if it were achieved. With the imagined scenario used here achieving what the client wants could involve the social worker in a variety of problematic situations. Ethically speaking the interests of the service user should take priority. However the social worker has a duty to bear in mind the BASW guidelines on ethical practice, Boulton (2003) has said of this: In exceptional circumstances where the priority of the service users interest is outweighed by the need to protect others or by legal requirements, make service users aware that their interests may be overridden (Boulton, 2003 p.10).[3] Where it has been estimated that a child may be at risk then a social worker has a duty of care under the 1989 Children’s Act. At the same time there is a requirement to act within a framework that is informed by the Human Rights Act of 1998 and the rights of the mother have to be taken into consideration. There is a dilemma here for the social worker because a wrong decision could result in harm occasioned either to the child or to the mother as a result of her own actions. In such circumstances a social worker is bound to make an assessment of risk, and also probable harm. If harm is occasioned then the social worker could be held to account. The (system we are in now is almost ready to treat every death as chargeable to someone’s account, every accident as caused by someone’s criminal negligence, every sickness a threatened prosecution. Whose fault? Is the first question (Douglas, 1992:15-16).[4] Clearly this situation needs a multi-agency approach including the social worker, his/her immediate superior, someone from the child protection scheme, the mother’s GP, the health visitor and the mother. Putting the child on the child protection register with regular reviews may help alleviate the situation and is in line with the requirements of the 1989 Children’s Act. This could therefore become a case where the service user’s rights will be overridden because the primary duty is to the child. This is where a social worker would be faced with a conflict of ethics and values which may lead to a practice situation where, as a practitioner, the social worker cannot be right. The final part of a task centred approach is to define just how long a social worker can give to a particular case and this is almost impossible to define, particularly in the imagined scenario above. A case like this could go on for years with different levels of professional involvement. Conclusion Task centred theory, I believe is a good starting point for social workers as it provides some sort of framework for dealing with some of the problems service users may present. While the theory is meant to support anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice, this relies on a thorough understanding of social systems and how they operate. On the other hand there are some situations where a social worker has to weigh the needs of one person against another and this can result in apparent oppression and neglect of a service user’s human rights. The fact of the matter is that there will always be cases where someone is the loser and this is a sad fact of social work experience. Bibliography http://www.gscc.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/30BC32F2-20B2-4D90-ABAB-3666D5BB44EB/0/Rolesandtasksconsultationpaper.pdf accessed 31st March 2007 Boulton, J 2003 Code of Ethics for Social Work available at http://www.basw.co.uk/articles.php?articleId=2page=14 Hanvey, C and Philpot, T. 1994 Practicing Social Work New York, Routledge Kemshall, 2002 Kemshall, H. 2002. Risk, Social Policy and Welfare Buckingham, Open University Press p.9 Payne, M. 1991 Modern Social Work Theory. A Critical Introduction, London: Macmillan. The Care Programme Approach Policy: towards integrated care programme approach and care management (2000) South London and Maudsley NHS Trust 1 [1] http://www.gscc.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/30BC32F2-20B2-4D90-ABAB-3666D5BB44EB/0/Rolesandtasksconsultationpaper.pdf accessed 31st March 2007 [2] The Care Programme Approach Policy: towards integrated care programme approach and care management (2000) South London and Maudsley NHS Trust [3] Boulton, J 2003 Code of Ethics for Social Work available at http://www.basw.co.uk/articles.php?articleId=2page=14 [4] Quoted in Kemshall, 2002 Kemshall, H. 2002. Risk, Social Policy and Welfare Buckingham, Open University Press p.9

Cohabitation and its Effect on Marital Stability in the US Essay

Cohabitation and its Effect on Marital Stability in the US Unmarried heterosexual cohabitation has increased sharply in the recent years in the United States. It has in fact become so prevalent that the majority of marriages and remarriages now begin as cohabiting relationships, and most young men and women cohabit at some point in their lives. It has become quite clear that understanding and incorporating cohabitation into sociological analyses and thinking, is crucial for evaluating family patterns, people’s lifestyles, children’s wellbeing and social changes more broadly. This essay presents some common explanation for cohabitation’s dramatic rise and identifies some analytic questions as to how cohabitation is increasingly a major barrier in the marital stability in the United States. Cohabitation, over the last two decades has gone from being a relatively uncommon social phenomenon to a commonplace one and has achieved this prominence quite quickly. A few sets of numbers convey both the change and its rapidity. The percentage of marriages preceded by cohabitation rose from about 10% for those marrying between 1965 and 1974 to over 50% for those marrying between 1990 and 1994 (Bumpass and Lu 1999, Bumpass & Sweet 1989); the percentage is even higher for remarriages. Secondly, the percentage of women in their late 30s who report having cohabited at least once rose from 30% in 1987 to 48% in 1995. Given a mere eight year tome window, this is a striking increase. Finally, the proportion of all first unions (including both marriages and cohabitation) that begin as cohabitations rose from 46% for unions formed between 1980 and 1984 to almost 60% for those formed between 1990 and 1994 (Bumpass and Lu 1999). Various aspe... ... stepfamilies: implications of cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing. Demography 32:425 36 Bumpass LL, Sweet JA. 1989. National estimates of cohabitation. Demography 26:615 25 Bumpass LL, Sweet JA, Cherlin A. 1991. The role of cohabitation in declining rates of marriage. Demography 53:913 27 Goode WJ. 1963. World Revolution and Family Patterns. New York: Free Manning WD, Smock PJ. 1997. Children's living arrangements in unmarried-mother families. J. Fam. Issues 18:526 44 Nock SL. 1995. A comparison of marriages and cohabiting relationships. J. Fam. Issues 16:53 76 Rindfuss RR, VandenHeuvel A. 1990. Cohabitation: a precursor to marriage or an alternative to being single? Pop. Dev. Rev. 16:703 26 Thornton A. 1991. Influence of the marital history of parents on the marital and cohabitation experiences of children. Am. J. Sociol. 96:868 94

Witchcraft, Murder and Ghosts in Macbeth Essay examples -- Macbeth ess

Witchcraft, Murder and Ghosts in Macbeth       A notable point within Shakespeare’s play Macbeth is the use of the three witches in the opening scene.   The number of witches for a contemporary audience can go unnoticed.   However in the time that Shakespeare the symbolic meaning of the number three was important, as it symbolized unluckiness and when remembering the fear of the unnatural and being unlucky (epitomized by such historical events as the rage of witch trials within Britain).   This is not the only symbolism within the play, the use of the disparity between light and dark is an important concept.   We can perhaps see the parallel between the horror movies of today, and the images of witchcraft, murder and ghosts of the past.    Firstly in the initial scene of Act IV there are a number of references to the number three.    First Witch: "Thrice the brinded cat hath mew.d" (1) Second Witch: "Thrice and once the hedge-pig whin'd" (2) First Witch: "Days and nights hast thirty-one" (7) First Witch: "Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten Her nine farrow;" (65)    All of these examples refer to the number three, or the denominator of nice.   The final example of the number three used is within the fourth act with Macbeth... ... of Shakespeare enjoy an aura of immortality because we see in Shakespeare the mirror of the human condition with which we may all identify and gain a sense that in some strange way his plays are a reflection of our souls.       Bibliography The Tragedy of Macbeth New Haven: Yale University Press Revised 1994 Shakespeare's Macbeth Total Study Edition Coles Editorial Board 1990 Holinshed R. Historie of Scotland (2nd Ed. Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland 1587) "Historie of Scotland" Paul. Henry N. The Royal Play of Macbeth 1950 pp. 213-17 Bradley A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy 1912 pp. 468-9   

“Night demonstrates the potential of man’s inhumanity to man” Essay

Elie Weisels â€Å"night â€Å" gives us a clear insight into the levels of inhumane behaviour which existed in the times of Nazi Germany from the Germans and even the Jews themselves. Elie also makes clear the great malice shown by some people, during a time where discrimination was a trend created by German propaganda – a situation which made any act of inhumanity acceptable. Nonetheless Night also shows us the way in which people are willing to sacrifice, purely for the survival of others. â€Å"Night† also demonstrates the nature of the human qualities by showing that even in the most inhuman and cruel circumstances, we can survive something like â€Å"hell on earth† Concentration camps showed us inhumanity on a scale previously unimagined. However the setting in place of such inhumane behaviour began some years before with the systematic dehumanising of the Jews by breaking down social structures and relationships and taking away their place in civil society. The novel shows that there is great inhumanity displayed from this personal journey of Elie Wiesel. The Jews were tortured every day for no reason at all other than for the SS officers’ own amusement. The SS officers treated the men as if they were animals, making them fight for food. Women, babies, old, sick, and handicapped were put into the crematoriums as soon as they arrived at the camps. The Germans stripped the Jews to nothing and took away everything close to them, separation from loved ones, isolation, transportation and the ruthless, cold actions towards them in the camps such as starvation and selections of the fittest. They killed people for no reason, with no remorse whatsoever. Tortures, being treated like animals, and being burned alive or killed were all things that led to the Jews feeling as if they were not human. As the treatment of the Jews gets worse, so do their own actions. After their time at Birkenau, the prisoners were in very bad shape. All were starving, but some more than others. At this point, one of the young men kills his own father for his ration of bread and is then promptly surrounded and killed by some of the more disgusted Jews who had seen the crime. While the justice administered by the other Jews is a sign of humanity hanging by a thread in the minds and hearts of the prisoners, the young man who killed his own father signifies as much of a tendency in the opposite direction. While some would argue that the  goal of survival could possibly justify the means, the effect the Nazis are having on the minds of the Jews cannot be ignored. Despite the relenting bleakness and horror of life in the camps, Elie Weisel survives with his emo tional insanity and survival remarkably intact. The critical things that helped people to survive in to camps included human connections, such as friendships and family relationships, hearing and making music and random acts of kindness from strangers. By doing whatever he needed to so he could survive, Wiesel’s identity had truly changed in the concentration camps. Elie survived the concentration camps for nearly two years. Even though he often claims that he wanted to give up, that he wished he would die, he still fought against death. He writes â€Å"our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions. We thought only of that. Not of revenge, not of our families. Nothing but bread.† This quote shows that, though Elie has lost his identity so much that he is almost like a wild animal, he has still managed to keep the instinct to survive. This endurance showed that he never was able to fully give up on life. He somehow pushed past the Nazi cruelty to live through malnutrition, torture, and sorrow. Even as his emotions shut down to the point where he could not cry for his dead father, he was shutting down so he could survive the experience of the death camps.