I've had two interesting conversations with one of the CLUE students this week.

One of the girls stayed back after class on Wednesday and told me about a conversation she had with her dad about the homeless people who are loitering in front of his office building downtown. Her dad did not disagree with the fines that the City of Calgary are levying against the homeless people who hang out in front of offices and stores. He told of a homeless person who regularly plays his guitar in front of an office building downtown and wondered why the person didn't just get a job. My student sat on top of the table and talked about how she didn't really agree. She talked about things that might prevent that man from getting job, reasons that demonstrated her depth of understanding concerning how homeless people aren't operating from the same frame of reference that we (who have grown up in a conventional environment) are.

I can tell that the reading and discussion done during this project is causing this girl to look at issues like this differently. It's like Kohlberg (Six Stages of Moral Development) says, when student thinking is challenged by new ideas there can be a disconnect that causes them to change their way of thinking about an issue. Her expanded understanding was causing her to reconsider pat answers to a complex problem. I am amazed at her independent thinking, her serious thinking and her compassion.

This same girl also returned a book I had asked her to read last week. Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan tells a story about homelessness from an international perspective.

http://tinyurl.com/5v6p5

My student explained the story in detail, a story of Koly, a 13 year old girl from India who found herself married. Soon after her marriage she learns that the family only wanted the dowry that came with her and when her husband dies, she finds herself in the place of being a young widow, a social role that considered to bring with it "bad luck". No one (either her family or her husband's family) want to have anything to do with her and she eventually finds herself on the street in desperate circumstances. Homeless Bird describes how Koly rebounds from these events and goes onto success in her life. My student observed that she was almost 13 and couldn't imagine dealing with the circumstances that Koly had. We talked about how different cultures view widows and how this girl's future was very grim through really no fault of her own.