"We're changing the world!" (163)

In this section we come to see how bad things have become between Erin and her husband. "...our relationship had slipped into a series of passive-aggressive stunts that would make any therapist wince." (141). This reality is intensified by the silence that awaits Erin when she returns from her solo trip to Europe and when her husband is too tired to bring the flowers to the celebration.

These issues are intensified when you read of Erin's husband's girlfriend and Charlie and Ramiro's plan to jack his car. This leads me to believe that the student-teacher dynamic boarders on inappropriate. Sometimes I wonder if Erin uses the journal writing project in her classroom so much because she needs that sort of personal connection. She has a lot going on in her life and journaling helps her, and it seems that, having her students do personal writing is cathartic for everyone. Things like "writing will help you deal with your pain" (149) are very borderline therapist behaviors, something Erin says she knows she is not trained to do but seems to fall into anyways.

Again, everything in this story seems to be based on luck. They are all luck to receive the computers. They are lucky to be able to write a book. They are lucky to be able to go to Washington D.C. as a class and have such a good time. Erin is lucky to make news and be on the cover of newspapers. She's lucky to have Primetime contact her and she's lucky to have the customers at the Marriott whip out their checkbooks to help. Luck seems to be what takes her often overzealous plans and her good intentions and turns them into actions. These students are lucky. They aren't let down by Erin because people come through and put together the pieces she couldn't fix on her own. What she does is great, but it comes at a price for her, her students and the very institution of education.