DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

How can everyone be treated the same in a system that doesn’t have equality? Agha Khan went through a rough upbringing, raised by his grandmother, living on the street, and when it came to school, it seemed even more difficult because of the past that he endured. The constant stress made it hard to focus on school, and his grades reflected as such. The system had tested him as if he had a normal upbringing, as if he never had to beg for food, as if he never had to sleep in the street, as if he didn’t have a care in the world such as taking care of himself, or making a dollar so he could just buy a bag of chips and feed himself for the entire week, relying on that one bag of chips to keep him fed for the week. He understood the material that he was being forced to learn in school, and with everything going wrong outside of the school, he couldn’t stay focused in school and the system labeled him unworthy of a chance to get a re-do, another chance, or even some help to get better and move forward. After going through so much, and still being able to at least show that he was being able to function normally, the system judged him on his abilities to solve irrelevant issues such as finding the Hypotenuse of a triangle using the Pythagorean Theorem, or knowing the date that Normandy was invaded on D-day during World War 2.

 

Breaks states that we learn a lot of unnecessary information in school, and it proves the point Diaz was making; How do we want to improve when all we have is only half way done because of the rough lives we have lived? Agha dealt with stress from home and stress from everyday life, but is still expected to focus on unneeded things such from school that he will never use again in his life. How can he focus when he himself sees no point in doing so? Along with Agha, there are many people who had the potential to do great things in their futures, but because of the unequal system, could never focus and their futures were lost, most finding salvation trapped in the legal system, others finding little jobs here and there, while some even go as far as to find it in death. Instead of fixing the flawed system and accepting that people aren’t all the same, accepting that it isn’t their fault for what they feel and what they go through, they are judged as if everything was all peachy-keen.

 

Because the system doesn’t acknowledge individual differences, a lot of people have given up on it. In his freshmen year of high school, when he was already grief-stricken due to the death of a close one, he also lost a very close friend in April that year. The friend was a football player from the same school who had a promising future and was already being approached by colleges because he and his older brother were regarded as well skilled in the field. His friend was hit with a stray bullet and was found dead by his older brother. He was always there for Agha and helped him get over some of the pain he was feeling, but when his friend died, Agha couldn’t focus on school anymore. He talked to councilors, went to the funeral, paid his respects, tried to focus on school but just couldn’t, and instead of helping him or giving him some time to heal, the school just threw him into a lower ranking class, ridiculed for not being able to focus on his work, not understanding that Agha, who had already lost so many people in his life, also close to losing his mind, almost having it fragment, was just needing some help, that he wasn’t normal at the moment, that he needed a slower pace or just some time to recollect his thoughts and priorities, but the system is flawed. Without understanding that he wasn’t just a normal kid, that he couldn’t do what he had to do at that moment, he was cast aside, regardless of the potential he was always praised for, regardless of all the effort he put into it before anything happened. Because of what happened, Agha doesn’t show emotion anymore; he has become dehumanized because of the flawed system. He can’t take it seriously at all because he knows how flawed the system is, hence he doesn’t trust it at all.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.