In the case of Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, we see that self-education is not just about learning what a word and what few letters are thrown. together it seems. Instead, it's about taking many of these conceptual things and ideas and applying them to everyday life. What people usually don't really think about is that children often do this. 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 Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay As told in Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, learning to read isn't difficult once you put in the work and find some interest in it. It helps that he is surrounded by all the books because it has somewhat “forced” him to be interested 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 since I loved my father with aching devotion, I decided to love books too. (Alexie p. 15) We can say that Alexie's role model was his father in the sense that he wanted to love what his father loved. This helped spark a “love and fiery interest” in learning to read and gaining an understanding of it. The crazy thing about this story is that to the outside world, Alexie was considered poor, but her father understood what reading could do for a young child. This is why he surrounded his children with books. Even though it wasn't the newest book, it was still a kind of path to better knowledge. Young children use many contextual cues to make sense of their environment. 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 using his context clues, he was able to get an idea of ​​what it was and its purpose . He said: “I realized that a paragraph was a barrier that contained words. They had a specific reason for being inside the same fence. (Alexie p. 16) It's incredible to think that a child could have such a grandiose and novel thought like that. He was able to apply this not only to reading, but also to the life around him. It's an important part of education, when you can take what you learn and apply it to an everyday thing. In the story, Alexie says, “I started thinking of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph in the United States. My family’s home was a paragraph… Inside our home, each family member existed as a separate paragraph but still had common genetics and experiences to connect us. At the same time, I saw the world in paragraphs…” (Alexie p. 16) That’s when everything came together. The reading, context clues, and larger ideas become a big thought process that people can then 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, it's one more word in your vocabulary bank that will help you understand the world better. The phrase “knowledge is power” is so.