How are Junior’s experiences at Wellpinit and Reardan High Schools representative of the real world in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian?

The contrast between both fictional high schools is representative of how socioeconomic status plays out in school districts across America. Disadvantaged students get by with less and their education suffers for it, while advantaged students receive more opportunity and choice due to better funding. Wellpinit High School is poorly run with few supplies. Most students lack ambition and drive. Adult Native Americans aren’t given much more to work with since they live on reservations that were meant to be death camps, and they turn to alcohol in the absence of hope. When Junior receives his mother’s geometry textbook, he realizes school is a preview of life; the world’s leaving behind Native Americans, declaring “nuclear war” on them. Reardan High School shows many of the power structures Junior will face in the adult world. Popular, high-achieving kids are at the top of the pack, money buys status, and racism goes unchallenged. Based on the prejudice his family has faced driving through Reardan, and the behavior of Reardan adults like Penelope’s father Earl, Junior can tell the white world will give him the same challenges Reardan does.