Group discussion on The Heart of a Chief

When my group met to discuss The Heart of a Chief, an interesting question was asked that none of us really knew how to answer. The question was: why did teacher's stereotype Chris in his other schools? Now this wasn't something that was brought up a lot throughout the book but is definitely something to think about. My response to this question would be that maybe it's because Chris isn't afraid to speak what's on his mind. This can be seen when Chris picks the topic for his group about the Indian mascots. He knew this could be an awkward topic to talk about but he didn't care, he wanted to do it anyway. I also wonder if Chris' previous teachers had this stereotype of him because a lot of the time Indians are usually thought of as being quiet. Well Chris was definitely not a quiet student so maybe his teachers we bothered by this. Another topic we talked about within our group was how unrealistic this book was at times. Chris was trying to cover too many issues going on in his life all at once. He was worrying about his father being an alcoholic, he was trying to take care of Auntie and Doda, he was worrying about the casino issue taking place on their reservation, he was organizing this project for his class and he was also worrying about the loss of his friendship with Pizza. All of this seems like way too much for a middle schooler to have to worry about. I know that when I was in middle school the only drama I had to deal with was friend drama. I had no idea what was going on in my community or what was happening with my family members. It just doesn't seem realistic to me. Overall I thought our discussion went well and we all contributed some really good ideas about the book.