A well-educated woman living in a poor New York neighborhood takes a reluctant group of local children on day trips to teach them about the world. The Lesson in this Toni Cade Bambara story involves an excursion to Manhattan’s up-market FAO Schwarz toy store. The children soon realize that nothing in the store is in their family’s price range. The young narrator is disturbed by not only the point of the lesson (economic inequality), but also the condescending way the woman talks about their neighborhood and the people living in it. Themes include education, social class, inequality, ostentation, patronization, resentment.
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