Similarly, prospectors and miners went where the minerals were, regardless of Indian territorial claims, only to be outraged by threats to their lives and supply lines.After the Civil War, farmers expanded onto the Great Plains, past the lines of semi-aridity, and then felt betrayed when the rains proved inadequate"(421-22). These people had developed their own ideas about the reality and rather than test their notions to a narrow test of accuracy, they were content to blame reality. This condition is still very evident today in the Arab- Israeli conflict, where the Israelis are angered and upset that the Palestinians want their land back from who they view as squatters, just as the Indians wanted the land back from the western settlers. Not only in international conflicts do we see this, but in everyday activities. From gardeners who plant their bulbs early every spring, and then get mad when there is a late frost, to tourists that ravel to Hawaii and then feel cheated when it rains. I even see this every day at school, when students don't study for a test and then fail, or when an athlete doesn't show up for practice and loses their role as a starter. In all of these situations the people involved could have saved themselves a great deal of time and frustration if they had simply submitted their mental reality to a narrow test of accuracy. .
Education itself can in fact make this situation of people not submitting their thoughts to a narrow test of accuracy worse, not better. Richard Rodriguez, author of the essay "The Achievement of Desire", in which Rodriguez evaluates his education and its impact on his life says "It mattered that education was changing me. It never ceased to matter. My brothers and sisters would giggle at our mother's mispronounced words. They"d correct her gently. My mother laughed girlishly one night, trying not to pronounce sheep as ship. From a distance I listened sullenly" (657).
