Re: Terminology
Theodore Latham (tedrico@hotmail.com)
Mon, 19 Jan 1998 17:43:33 PST
Yet another hit, Anitra! Well said! Bravo! And thank god for concerned
5th grade teachers. My 5th grade teacher gave me my 1st career failing
grade for my weekly journal enrty. But I still love her. And you, and
all my people out there on the street. Love overcomes things like
homelessness, bad grades in writing, and racial barriers between Hip
Hoppers, Indians, and white folks when packed in together under homeless
shelter roofs. Know what I'm saying! Nuff said!
Regards,
Tedrico
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Education, Shelter, and Food Assistance for the Homeless!
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>Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 19:31:45 -0800 (PST)
>From: Anitra Again <anitra@speakeasy.org>
>To: "Homeless People's Network" <hpn@aspin.asu.edu>
>Subject: Terminology
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>Homeless people don't all come out of one bag.
>
>When I was in shelter, I shared floor space with a microbiologist, a
>carpenter who had read far more philosophy books than I had, a couple
>of black hip-hop kids, two Native Americans, a Hispanic, and several
>people who had never had any job past minimum wage or any education
>past high school, and considered *all* reading a waste of time. They
>looked rather suspiciously at those of us who watched Star Trek and the
>X-Files, too.
>
>We all came from different cultures -- I grew up in a home where it
>was taken for granted that everyone, from age four on up, would read a
>bit and write a bit, every night. Where we recited our newest poems
>to each other over the dinner table. And we weren't prosperous by any
>means -- the only time I have lived and slept in the family car was
>with my family, at the begining of my senior year of high school. I
>didn't grow up making any mental connection between "educated" and
>"prosperous". Education was something you sought for the love of it.
>
>I was lucky, though. In fifth grade, I had a teacher who challenged
>me to find the best words for whatever I wanted to say *that would
>communicate to the people I was talking to.* As different from the
>best word in the unabridged dictionary. He taught me the exciting
>game of taking a concept like "symbiosis" and making it real to other
>fifth-graders who did *not* read botany books like comics, and who
>would tune out any word over one syllable and even the more obscure
>short words.
>
>I was never allowed to think of people who did not know the number of
>words that I did as less in any way than myself -- all too often, the
>same kids who had to ask me the definitions of words in their homework
>were the same kids I depended on to keep me erect in the
>roller-skating rink, or fix what was wrong with my bike chain. We
>just had different talents, was all.
>
>Under the pressures of homelessness and poverty we all become a lot
>more thin-skinned. I have noticed a lot more tension between
>"readers" and "non-readers", or those who use big words and those who
>don't, in the shelters and other programs of the low-income than I
>have in offices, for instance. I have seen some homeless people who
>have no college education get very defensive around others who have
>-- or very antagonistic.
>
>The last time I saw someone publicly attacked for using "big words",
>the attacker had a personal problem he was venting with that excuse,
>and just told him to either ask what the word meant, use a dictionary,
>or shut up. I was abrupt, because the circumstances were appropriate
>for being abrupt.
>
>But that isn't always the case. What are other ways that we can learn
>to communicate better with each other, when we don't always know each
>others words? So far we have had few people on this list for whom
>English is a second language, but I certainly hope we get more --
>there is a sizeable part of the homeless population being left out of
>our conversation. And that will be a big challenge for us all in
>learning to communicate across cultural barriers.
>
>Learning to communicate between members who have different educational
>backgrounds is just a start.
>___________________
>WRITE ON! -- Anitra
>Save America's Vanishing Frompers! Support Thalia, Muse of Comedy,
>in the Site Fights! http://www.thesitefights.com/circus/clown1.htm
>
>
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