Dear Mrs. and Mr. Spirit,

I write this letter because of an incident that happened between your son Arnold Spirit Junior and me today in the math lesson. We were at the beginning of the lesson and I distributed some geometry text books. Suddenly Arnold got very angry and just smashed the book at me. This must sound terrible to you and I can imagine that it has to be a shock for parents to get that message about their son. But I want you to calm down. Junior never has been in any trouble and besides I think that neither you nor me would describe Junior as a boy with an aggression problem. I also don’t think that the reason of his acting was anger of the math lesson or of me. After class I picked up the book he threw and then it made sense to me. Arnold saw  how old our books are and it shows how poor we are. His family, the school, the rez: he is surrounded by poverty. As a teacher I experienced over years that every child in this rez realises this. So, please don’t be too angry with him because this is an experience he had to do one day. Although I wouldn’t punish your son, it is my duty to do that. As a consequence for Arnold’s behavior, he is suspended from school for one week.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. P