Essay about Education: A Blessing in Disguise

Frederick Douglass was very fortunate to have learned how to read. In his time if you were a slave and had no education you couldn’t escape to freedom. Frederick Douglass’s key to education was his mistress (155). At first she was very nice and was giving him the education he needed and wanted but then from the influence of her husband she became rotten and denied him the right to his education “My mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct me, had in compliance with the advice and direction of her husband no, not only ceased to instruct, but had set her face against my being instructed by anyone else” (155). But then he was fortunate enough to get some boys around where he lived to continue teaching him “The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these I could I could, I converted into teachers,

During the 1800’s, the institution of slavery was still ongoing in the few slave states left in America. Slavery was still proving to be unjust and unfair, not allowing for African Americans to be considered equals. However, some slaves were able to overcome the many restrictions and boundaries that slavery forced upon them. In Frederick Douglass’ essay “Learning to Read and Write,” Douglass portrays himself as an intelligent and dignified slave who’s able to overcome the racial boundaries placed upon him. Frederick Douglass saw that his only pathway to freedom was through literacy, so his goal was to learn how to read and write no matter the circumstances. Douglass realized

Douglass lived in the slave times. It was illegal to a slave to read and write. Any slave caught reading or writing would be severely punished or even killed. Slave owners felt that if they learn they will soon rebel and start to fight back. Douglass even grew up not even knowing his own age. His master’s wife is what

Since the past, black people had been oppressed and excluded from a formal education, leading them to find ways to educate themselves. While they open their minds to new worlds and perspectives, they encounter themselves with a disastrous world that discriminates them and unjustly takes their rights away from them. In these essays, “Learning How to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass and “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X, both authors tell their stories about how they found their way into the world of literacy even though they were banned to do it. Because they left ignorance back, they realize all the injustices that surround them. In my opinion, literacy is one of the most important tool humans possess to be aware of the issues of the world. Knowing about world problems makes people able to decide how to act towards situations and helps avoid being led by people that the only thing they want from others is power.

While on one end slave-owners did their best to deprive slaves of education, on the other side, Douglass constantly stresses the importance of slaves acquiring knowledge and education in any way possible. While in Baltimore, Douglass comes to the realization of just how important education is. His master, Mr. Auld, becomes angry with his wife when he discovers she is trying to teach Douglass how to write. This is a life changing moment for Douglass and from then on, he understood that education was linked with freedom. He would go to extremes to educated himself. Douglass would walk the streets of Baltimore with a book, and a piece of bread. He describes how he would meet up with young white boys and trade his loaf of bread for tips on how to read (Douglass

In "Learning to Read and Write" written by Frederick Douglass, he talks about his experience of teaching himself how to read and write as a slave boy living in Master Hugh's house where his mistress educated him. However, she was dictated by her husband and the instructions given to the slaves on how to read had to stop; in order for Douglass to teach himself, he obtained a book about slavery, The Columbian Orator and read the book every free second he had. Encouraged by the book, Douglass runs away to the north from his master for freedom. Douglass' main ideas include depravity, chattel, and an emancipation, which represents a moral corruption, the slave properties, and an act of freeing someone from slavery, respectively.

Before one ever starts attending school, their very first lesson is to become literate in the language they speak. From reading sentences to reading paragraphs to reading novels, we try to achieve literacy. However, some of the greatest public speakers and writers did not achieve it through the way most people did. This is shown in the literary works of Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, and Sherman Alexie. Like these people, literacy isn’t achieved by simply going to school. It’s achieved through great perseverance and through great tenacity.

At a young age, Douglass learns he must pursue knowledge and education to emancipate himself from slavery. Shortly after arriving at his new master’s home, the master’s wife, Mrs. Auld, teaches him the alphabet and how to spell. Mr. Auld forbids his wife to continue teaching as it is “unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” and having that knowledge would “forever unfit him to be a slave” (pg. 48). This confession opens Douglass’

“Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read.” (Douglass, 29-30).

1. Douglass taught himself how to read and write. At first, Douglass’s mistress taught him how to read the alphabet before her husband prohibited her from doing this. After that he started to teach himself how to read by reading books and newspapers, and how to write by copying his little Master Thomas’s written in the spaces left in the copy-book when his mistress goes to the class meeting every monday afternoon. However his most successfully way of teaching himself how to read was to make friends with the white boys whom he met in the street. He bribes them with food to get them to teach him. He also learned how to read and understand the meaning of the name on the timber.

A synthetic analysis of two works from African American literature reveals that there is no greater accomplishment than learning to read and write. Literacy is what allows us to gain knowledge through learning. This topic is important because based on a study conducted by the U.S Department of Education and the National Institution of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S are still unable to read and write and African Americans are expected to make up nearly half of that amount. In both Fredrick Douglass’ “Learning to Read” and Malcolm X’s “A Homemade Education,” common themes regarding literacy and freedom are identified and both reflect why literacy is so important. The two texts prove how crucial the processes of learning to read

Education is something that is often taken for granted in this day and age. Kids these days rebel against going to school all together. In the essays “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie and “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass, we learn of two young men eager for knowledge. Both men being minors and growing up in a time many years apart, felt like taking how to read and write into their own hands, and did so with passion. On the road to a education, both Alexie and Douglass discover that education is not only pleasurable, but also painful. Alexie and Douglass both grew up in different times, in different environments, and in different worlds. They both faced different struggles and had different achievements, but they were not all that different. Even though they grew up in different times they both had the same views on how important of education was. They both saw education as freedom and as a way of self-worth even though they achieved their education in different ways. They both had a strong mind and a strong of sense of self-motivation.

Frederick Douglass was a young slave with an aspiring dream to learn and further his life of knowledge and education. There was only one thing stopping him: his lack of freedom. The ability to read and access to an education is a liberating experience that results in the formation of opinions, critical-thinking, confidence, and self-worth. Slave owners feared slaves gaining knowledge because knowledge is power and they might have a loss of power, which would result to the end of cheap labor. Slave owners made the slaves feel as if they had no self-worth or confidence. If the slaves got smarter they could potentially begin to learn how unjust and wrong slavery was and they would have enough reason to rebel against it. Douglass was learning how to read and write from his slave owner’s wife. Unfortunately, both of them were told how wrong it was for him to be learning because a slave was not to be educated and was deemed unteachable. There was also another fear that the slave owners had. They feared that slaves would have better communication skills which would lead to escape and ways to avoid slavery. Reading opens your mind to new ideas and new knowledge one has never had the opportunity of knowing.

Education has been the subject of some of the most heated discussions in American history. It is a key point in political platforms. It has been subject to countless attempts at reform, most recently No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Ardent supporters of institutional schools say that schools provide access to quality education that will allow the youth of our country to gain necessary skills to succeed in life. Critics take a far more cynical view. The book Rereading America poses the question, “Does education empower us? Or does it stifle personal growth by squeezing us into prefabricated cultural molds?” The authors of this question miss a key distinction between education and schooling that leaves the answer far from clear-cut. While education empowers, the one-size-fits-all compulsory delivery system is stifling personal growth by squeezing us into prefabricated cultural molds.

Douglass' cousin told him the city was beautiful and Douglass knew it couldn't be any worse than the plantation. When Douglass meets his new owners, he described Hugh Auld's wife, Sophia Auld, as having a kindly face. Douglass learned what might have been one of his biggest lessons as a slave from these overseers. Sophia, the wife of Hugh Auld, had never owned a slave before, therefore she treated him almost as if he were a child of hers. She taught him the alphabet and some other minor words before Hugh took notice of what she was doing. Mr. Auld told his wife "…it is unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read." (Douglass, p.78) Hugh goes on to say "A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master… 'if you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever make him unfit to be a slave.'" (Douglass, p.78) Douglass overheard every word that hissed out of Hugh Auld's mouth. Sophia Auld had been lessoned in the ways of slave managing now. She discontinued her teaching to Frederick and began to treat him as the property they considered him to be. Douglass' mind frame changed completely after hearing Auld's words. He realized that education was the key in order to obtain his freedom, "…to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man." (Douglass, p.78) Douglass continued to pursue his education on his own. He would trade