Shimu's story is not as different from some of our local children's lives as we would like to think. Many American - and Minnesotan - kids still struggle with expectations from families that they work to support the family, and some are still pressured to get married young.
Panthar, on the other hand, truly lives in a different world. Herding cattle is not how most 12-year-old American boys spend their days.
The stories of these two young people are detailed in the StarTribune today under the headline "Their stories reveal struggles of the young for a different future." In Shimu's case, she is resisting her family's pressure for her to quit school & get married, hoping to continue to study and work toward a better future. Panthar's older brother, Bol, goes to school in a nearby town, with the hope of a better life through a "new way."
I will never call any of my students lazy, though some are very unmotivated and unambitious. But I wish they had a clearer sense of what the options are, and how lucky they are not only to have school available to them, but to live in a society that actually expects them to attend & learn. "Poor" in America is nothing like poor in Bangladesh or Sudan. I just wish they all understood that!
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