In the case of Sherman Alexie's Superman and Me, we see that self-education isn't just about learning what a word is and what letters thrown together look like. Instead, it's about taking a lot of those conceptual things and ideas and applying them to everyday life. Something that people don't typically think about is that kids do this a lot. They are like sponges that absorb information from everything around them. I agree with Alexie's definition of education and what it means to be literate. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay As told in Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, learning to read is not difficult once you dedicate yourself and find some interest in it. The fact that he was surrounded by all the books helps because it somehow “forced” him to take an interest in his surroundings. Alexie says: “Our house was full of books. They were stacked in crazy piles in the bathroom, bedrooms, and living room. … My father loved books, and because I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books too.” (Alexie p. 15) It can be said that Alexie's role model was his father, in the sense that he wanted to love what his father loved. This helped spark the "burning/burning interest" of learning to read and gaining understanding of it. The crazy thing about this story is that in the outside world Alexie was considered poor, but her father understood what reading could do for a young child. So he surrounded his children with books. Even though it wasn't the newest book, it was still a sort of path to greater knowledge. Young children use many contextual clues to make sense of their surroundings. Alexie says, “The words themselves were mostly foreign, but I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph.” (Alexie p. 15) When he started reading he didn't know what a paragraph was but by using context clues he was able to get an idea of ​​what it was and what its purpose was. He said: “I realized that a paragraph was a fence that contained words. They had some specific reason for being inside the same enclosure.” (Alexie p. 16) It's amazing to think that a child could have such a great and new thought like that. He couldn't keep this concept applied only to reading, but also to the life around him. This is an important part of education, when you can use what you learn and apply it to an everyday thing. In the story, Alexie says, “I started thinking about everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States. My family home was a paragraph… Within our home, each family member existed as a separate paragraph but still had common genetics and experiences that brought us together. At the same time I saw the world in paragraphs…” (Alexie p. 16) This is the moment where everything comes together. Reading, context clues, and bigger ideas become a big thought process that people are then able to apply to multiple situations. Being educated and literate means having a wide range of knowledge about many different things in life. Once you open a book, there's an extra word in your vocabulary bank that will help you understand the world even more. The phrase knowledge is power, is so true because once you know how to read, you can understand your rights as a citizen and this, to the men who created the country, can pose a huge threat against them. It allows minorities to rise up and rebel. Alexie tells us: “An intelligent Indian is a.