Fiction, Fantasy, Myth

Mr. Gatto became a teacher 26 years ago because he had nothing better to do so he decided to try schoolteaching.  He claims that his certified license states that he is a english and a literature teacher but he does not teach either but instead teaches school.  I feel like what he means by this is that he is teaching lessons to the student for their future.  I can conclude this because the seven lessons he teaches all state rules for the children which will benefit them when they are older.  The first of the seven lesson states that he teaches confusion.  He writes that he was the students to find the meaning in the content that is being taught even though it may be out of order.  The second lesson he teaches is the class position.  He teaches them that everyone has a position in the class and that you could never get out of the class.  The third lesson is the one of indifference, which states that the students should go from one topic to the next and should not take into consideration that much.  The fourth lesson is labeled as emotional dependency.  In this he claims that the students do not have rights in school.  The fifth lesson which i kind of agree with is the one of intellectual dependency which states that we can’t make decisions without taking advice from people who are smarter than us.  He writes “Successful children do the thinking i assign thjem with a minimum of resistance and a decent show of enthusiasm” (176).  I agree with this because without having any knowledge, one can not succeed and the best place to get your knowledge would be from someone that knows what they are talking from.  The sixth lesson he teaches is provisional self-esteem.   I think that this means that a child should base their self-respect on what the experts state about him/her.  The final lesson he teaches is that one cannot hide.  In this lesson he is trying to tell the reader that there is no such thing as privacy. 

He feels that school is a system that provides a social order.  I agree with this because as kids attend school they learn the do’s and don’ts of their society which forms the structure.  He further states that there is no such thing as a national curriculum because the seven lessons he has presented in his essay are part of the curriculum.

            This article that we had to read talks about certain myths that most people have about Islam, which is always portrayed through the media. The way the media showcases Islam gives it only two kinds of meaning and that is “unacceptable and impoverishing.” Because of the media’s constant portrayal of Islam in this manner, that is how most people perceive Islam to be. Said tries to prove in the article that Islam has more to it besides the two meanings that the media always gives it. Said states that people do not know the Islamic world and he talks about two examples in which the rest of the world tries to learn more about the Islamic world. The first example he uses is an old one and in this he talks about the time in the 1800’s when France occupied Algeria and in 1798 when Napoleon captured Egypt for a short while. The contemporary example he uses is with the United States. He talks about how the U.S. is so involved in the Islamic world that it actually “domesticated” the Islamic world. He goes on further to say that the U.S. looks at the Islamic world “either as oil suppliers or potential terrorists.”

            I agree with Said about the fact that because of the media, Islam is viewed unfairly by the Western world. Most people associate Islam as being “anti-human, antidemocratic, anti-Semitic and antirational.” Because of these long held beliefs about the Islamic world, most people are thus reluctant to be sympathetic to the Muslim world. However, people still prefer to listen to the media about Islam because it makes things simpler and easier for them to understand. Said comes up with some solutions, which I agree with, will help bring a better understanding about the Islamic world. One of his suggestions is that people should always make a distinction between serious considerations about the Islamic world and everything that passes for Islam in the media. And as for his suggestions to the Arab world, he tells them to “write a new form of history, in which there is a genuine seriousness of purpose and a love of truth.”

Said argues the media has formed two definitions of Islam, one being a threat to society and the other as having a defensive nature. Islam is called the Orient, “different” whereas our world is called Occidental, or the West. The Orients are seen as wicked and malevolent, treated with “a very special hostility and fear”. Islam is distinguished as antihuman, antidemocratic, anti-Semitic, and antirational. The generalization of these issues in the media have clouded Western nations’ thoughts because mass media perception of Islam. This is shown in Harold and Kumar when an elderly woman imagines Kumar as a terrorist. She linked the negative events that happened in the part to a person who just looked the part. Said encourages people to look beyond the media and get the more complicated side of Islam. As for the Islamic world they must let go of the hostility toward the West.

Towards the end of the book, we see how the Reservation attitude changes toward the band. They strongly dislike them, because even though they did not want them to go to New York the band went to New York. Father Arnold leaves the reservation, in a way he wanted to escape the problems that he had created. As a priest he could not have been in a relationship with Checker,he had a relationship with her and in the end of the book he leaves her, and decides to go to another Reservation. The band breaks up, as they lost the competition in New York, Junior dies, and the reservation decides not to help the band.

Towards the end of the novel, we see how the characters attitudes vary about Big Mom who represents the traditional Native American traditions. Thomas who considers himself to be a traditional Native American believes in Big Mom and her powers. He believes all the stories that he has heard about her, and believes that she is a powerful medicine women who can help improve their band. Victor on the other hand does not believe in Big Mom, and thinks that all the stories are a bunch of crap that dont work. Checkers at first was frightened by Big Mom because she was afraid that Big Mom would use her magic and instantly know that Checkers was in love with Father Arnold, but then she realized that they could have a talk and began to believe in her. By contrasting these attitudes, we can see how traditional Native Americans beliefs differ from the more modern day Native Americans.

I feel Sherman Alexie puts a lot of emphasis on one of the producers or whatever he was, the guy named Sheridan , and places emphasis on Father Arnold; not the characters themselves, but the way they act with Checkers. To me, it feels as if Sherman Alexie is putting emphasis on the white americans and rape with the Native American, Checkers. More of what I’m looking at is Father Arnold. Don’t you think that Sherman Alexie portrays a negative priest as he conveys him as a rapist and a hypocrit? He kisses Checkers and has deep intimate relationships with her. I’m personally disturbed by the idea of priests and how they act in modern day society, but do you think Sherman Alexie has that negative attitude on Father Arnold and Christianity itself?

The book starts off telling us, a strange man landed on the reservation. Thomas was the only person who went up to this men and help him. Thomas and this men whos name is johnson talked and he told thomas that he was sick and he needs help and only one person can help him and the person that came to thmoas mind was big mama. thmoas realized that jhonson hand was deformed ,because of the guitar. jhonson goes up to bigmama and does not bring his gutior woth him. Thomas starts to play the gutiar and he always had athing for music. thomas decided to form a band. so he got junior and victor. they started off playing in the twin bar and they loved them. different music. The guitar was great because when you played music the sound just keeps getting louder and louder. and more beautiful.

The chapter starts out with Thomas tell his story, about how Thomas had to cope with his father drinking alcohol and we also learn that Chess and Checkers had to deal with their father drinking alcohol as well. The story also goes back and forth with the basketball game that was going on between Samuel and the other Indians, which is quite interesting because the game would go very close, and you would be stuck wondering who could win the game. The band also receives a letter to play in Seattle, and Checkers decides not to go with the band to Seattle, but she would be sharing the prize money. While the band is in Seattle, Checkers gets very close to the priest-Father Arnold. Coyote Springs wins the thousand dollar prize money, but the community starts disapproving of them. The council of the Spokane reservation writes a letter in which how they (the band members) are not “traditional” and they are getting “out of control” and this is after they have won from Seattle.  Even the community does not like the fact that their people are moving up, and the Thomas, Victor, and the bands knows this they still decide to take up the offer that they receive for New York.

If one pays careful attention to the detail authors put into writing their books, one may find little hints as to what is going to happen by the end of the book. On page 11 of Reservation Blues, we are introduced to “the-man-who-was-probably-Lakota.” Throughout the book, this man continues to scream “The end of the world is near!”. At the time we are first introduced to this man, Robert Johnson had just given Thomas his guitar. We see that this crazy Lakota man foreshadows Thomas’s destiny. He shows that the guitar Johnson gives Thomas will ultimately bring Thomas bad luck in the future. His quote, “The end of the world is near!”, shows that the man is predicting the end of Thomas’s world by the end of the book.

In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” as part of Tim O’Briens “The Things They Carried” we read about whether war stories are real or not. He brings up a point that a true war story is told in parts because no one can consistantly look to see if its true. No one can actually watch a person die. He gives the example of Curt Lemon, that he turned away looked back and turned away. If a story is too specific it is probably fake.