An Indian Father's Plea

a. What's the main conflict in the story?

b. What's the theme of the story?
c. What's the attitude Wind-Wolf's father takes?
d. Could you connect this story with any situation taking place at school nowadays?

A- The main conflict is the lack of effort put by the teacher and the society to
understand Wind-Wolf’s culture, which leads to issues like racism. Wind-Wolf is
treated as a ‘’slow learner’’ even though he possesses a vast amount of knowledge
in different areas. The kid’s father writes a letter to his teacher explaining the value of
his son’s culture and the fact that the he is not ‘’slow’’. He’s just having a hard time
adapting to a new world he doesn’t fully understand yet.

B- The theme of the story is “cultural differences”. There’s an obvious clash at school
between Wind-Wolf’s way of living and seeing the world and everyone else. Since
the knowledge he owns does not align to the one taught in schools, it ends up being
dismissed and treated as less important than the conventional education given to the
majority of the population.

C- The attitude Wind-Wolf's father takes is helpful and supportive. He writes the
letter to explain the situation his son is going through and asks the teacher to be
more inclusive and understanding with him. At the same time he offers himself to
help the teacher with any cultural difference that may be hard to understand.

D- Unfortunately nowadays thousands of schools are closed all around the world due
to the Coronavirus outbreak, and this situation brings to mind a case of
misunderstanding and even aggression to a different culture. Many people believe
that all asians are infected with this particular virus or that they are to blame for it.
These are ideas lead to racism, prejudice, xenophobia, and violence as well. An
overgeneralization that leads to other culture’s suffering.

Activity 1:

The author is also communicating the fact of allowing racism in the classroom. If we
as teachers allow racism in our classrooms, we are preventing our students from
becoming open-minded citizens. Apart from this, we must create an environment in
which our students feel comfortable. By allowing racism and prejudices, we are
doing the complete opposite.

Activity 2:

1- “Everybody discriminates AGAINST him”

2- “Students attending to our classes”
3- “The teacher might be unexperienced” INexperienced.
4- “The acceptation of one’s culture” Acceptance.

Activity 3:

‘’When we're talking about diversity, it's not a box to check. It is a reality that
should be deeply felt and held and valued by all of us’’

We liked this quote the most because it made us think about how sometimes the
word diversity is used and taken lightly. People sometimes act as if by having for
example, one person of color in a room, ‘’diversity’’ is achieved. That applies to any
other ethnicity, with people from the LGBTQ community and with people with
disabilities.

That checklist mentality is not helpful. Just because ‘’one of each’’ show up in a
movie or a tv show, it doesn’t mean it is diverse or inclusive. Sometimes that
mentality ends up being more harmful, since the effort to include a person of a
certain minority was ultimately not sincere. This may lead to other problems like
stereotypes, clichés and other kinds of bad representation.

Diversity should not be a thing we pursue like another item on a list. It should be an
honest, real effort. We should be more critical of false instances of diversity,
inclusion
and wokeness. We must not aim for diversity with ulterior motives but because it’s
the right thing to do.