The reasons for Philip’s attitude problems are not fully explored in Nothing But the Truth. Philip compartmentalizes his life, not acknowledging how the different areas are interrelated. He excels at athletics and will not or cannot understand that his academic performance is the basis on which participation in sports is allowed. It may be that he has a learning disability that affects his performance in English class. For whatever reason, he does not do even the minimum on his English assignments and blames his poor performance on the teacher’s personal opinion of him. When his low grades cause his removal from the track team, he lies to his parents. (For some reason, the coach does not contact the parents about this matter but merely speaks with the child.) Rather than facing the situation, Philip begins to hum in class specifically to annoy his teacher. He does not look ahead to the consequences of his actions, and soon the situation snowballs out of control.
No comments:
Post a Comment