Current Thouhgts on Poverty and Education

I volunteer in a 3rd grade class at an elementary school near my house. I was talking to the teacher of the class this morning and she told me that almost 75% of the students at the school are on free or reduced lunch. Because of this it really affects how they are able to teach the students since many of them do not always know when their next meal is.
I could not help but compare this statistic to The Absolutley True Diary of A Part Time Indian. Junior is very similar to many of the students because they are egar to learn but not always given the opportuity to succeed. Here is a quote that I though described the lunch situation very well: "I wish I were magical, but I am just a poor-ass reservation kid living with his poor-ass family on the poor-ass Spokane Indian Reservation. Do you know the worst thing about being poor? Oh, maybe you've done the math un your head and you figure: Poverty= empty refrigerator +empty stomach. And sure, sometimes my family misses a meal, and sleep is the only thing we have for dinner..." (Alexie 7-8).
This class is very motivated. Today we did grammar exersices with an online website and after have a few minor problems prompted by poor typing skills and not knowing how to spell 'grammar', they had they greatest time playing games on they website and one was so excited when he got 100% on a fourth grade level quiz. These kids have a wide range of skill levels but all are excited to learn and want to succeed and be recongized for their improvements, which I think is something Junior wants also.

Finished Reading Absoulutly True Diary of a Part Time Indian

Not exactly sure how to write this post. But I will start with how I really liked the book. Not sure how true it is, but I suppose someone with that level of poverty, who is willing to work his way out of it, could be anywhere on the planet (not only reservation). I do have to say the humor Sherman Alexie added to the book is what kept me reading. He made it interesting instead of it being just another sad story where some kid has a ton of issues to deal with.
One quote in this book that I think strongly represents the struggles Native Americans have had to face is: "'That's how we were taught to teach you. We were supposed to kill the Indian to save the child. 'You killed Indians?' 'No, no, it's just a saying. Ididn't literally kill Indians. We were supposzed to make you give up being Indian. Your songs and stories and language and dancing. Everything. We weren't trying to kill Indian people. We were trying to kill Indian culture'" (Alexie 35). To me this represents the hardships they had to face and overcome. It also tells how they were looked down upon and discriminated against just because they were not white.

Re: Inclusion does not mean belonging

My Response to mestelle:
Reading the post I thought of several things. First, was the Boarding School example of inclusion but not belonging. With Native Americans they were taken away from the families, and forced to conform to what was expected from the white society. This example reminds of a similar situation in Australia involving the Aboriginals. Their children too where also taken from their homes, forced to speak, act and behave in acceptable (white) way. Second, I recently learned more about Cherokee Trail of Tears and reading the post reminded me of this. The tribe fought to stay on the land they owned and even took their conflict with the state of Georgia to the Supreme Court. Where the court ruled in the Cherokee favor but because of the deep prejudice in the south the ruling was not enforced and as a result they where forced from their home land. They were moved to a place that included many of their own people but never fully belonged because families were split and people torn apart.


I think the idea of having people belong is much better then trying to just include them. This is because a person can be a member of a group but that does not mean that they feel like they are truly part of it and belong. For a person to feel comfortable and welcome that is when they belong.

Trying to figure out how to blog....

This is the first post! Need to figure how to do this..... there are too many options and buttons available to push.