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Great Expectations And The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

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Usually in society, people make the assumption that a person with a formal education is superior to a person without one. This is a social construct that does not hold any truth. In the book Great Expectations, we see the stark difference between formally educated and informally educated people. Pip becomes a gentleman and learns in a formal way. He has plenty of money but yet he is unsatisfied with his life. In contrast, there’s Joe who was informally educated to be a blacksmith. He can't read or write and only makes enough to live a humble life. However, Joe is happy with the life he has. People often assume that Joe is not smart, but they overlook the fact that he is very street smart, good at his trade, and has a heart of gold. In the …show more content…

However, she was smarter than most kids her age and is more independent as well. Jeanette’s mother taught at various schools, and had a very informal teaching style. Her students are still learning, but yet they are having fun and feel loved by their teacher Eventually, when Jeanette gets older she goes to college. Before she went to college, Jeanette had prior experience in the journalism field, but she needs a degree to get hired. In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, a formal education provides the characters with more financial security and a higher social class, while a non traditional education provides more happiness and freedom but less societal acceptance. Both Jeanette and Pip benefit from the non traditional education because they develop a greater sense of empathy and “street …show more content…

Ever since Jeanette was little, her parents stressed independence and self sufficiency. The lessons they taught Jeanette were full of life lessons and practicality. Jeanette was smarter because her parents style of teaching showed how fun learning could be. Also, Jeanette had so much independence growing up that she had to learn to fend for herself. This was a successful way of teaching because Jeanette and her siblings were:“all reading books without pictures by the time we were five, and [their] dad taught [them] math. He also taught [them] the things that were really important and useful, like how to tap out Morse code.”(Walls ). An informal education taught Jeannette more than a textbook would. She learned life lessons while she was learning math. Furthermore, Jeanette's mother is a teacher who insists on breaking the rules to teach her students. She doesn't make kids do their homework or make them do anything they don't want to do. She believed that “rules and discipline held people back and felt that the best way to let children fulfill their potential was by providing freedom.”(Walls ). This way of teaching made school fun for the children. It made the health and well being of the student a top priority. Unfortunatly, this method of teaching was frowned upon by the rest of the teachers at the school. They criticized Jeanette's

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