The Importance Of Education In A Talk To Teachers By James Baldwin

The turning point in the essay is when Baldwin states “Because if I am no what I’ve told I am, then it means that you’re not what you thought you were either! And that is the crisis.” By stating this it recognizes the faults in the education system, and leaves the audience intrigued wanting him to elaborate on his point. This statement also unfolds the truth about education which is “if you lie about one aspect of anybody’s history, you must lie about it all.”

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.

James Baldwin was a prominent African American writer, social critic, and racial justice advocate in the 1960’s and 70’s. In his 1963 Talk to Teachers he aimed to persuade an audience of teachers that education must exist to challenge systems and structures of power and that when it does not, it only serves to reinforce them and amplify their injustice. He specifically focuses on racial hierarchies and white supremacy in the United States. He achieves his persuasive purpose through the strategic use of first, second, and third person pronouns and the use of evocative language, and emphasizes the actionability of his message with anaphora.

In James Baldwin’s “Talk to Teachers”, he discusses the ways in which education is taught and practiced in schools. Contrary to this, Baldwin has other beliefs and feels that education should be regulated in other ways. Baldwin states, “the purpose of education...is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it, at no matter what risk.” During my personal school experience, I’ve noticed that the education system values discipline rather than my education. I agree with Baldwin and believe that schools should prioritize an unbiased education to the students so that we can think for ourselves and to stand up for what's right.

Burning fossil fuels isn’t the only reason for pollution; likewise, language isn’t the only key to social acceptance and identity. Baldwin’s argument about the importance of language as the "key to identity and social acceptance" is somewhat accurate. Society acceptances us due to our language and provides us with an identity. Social acceptance should be based on how one represents themselves in front of others. Language is of the aspects that determines one’s social acceptance, but it is not the only key to social acceptance. Identity is who you are and something that defines someone; however, language shouldn’t be the only key to one’s identity. Although language plays a significant role in social acceptance and

The black youth has to know how our leaders earned their freedom and rights so that they do not take these rights for granted and stop fighting for their freedom. The importance of educating youth has allowed them to connect racial and social injustices from 1963 to the present day. Teachers are also able to advocate for the importance of youth in society.

For generations African Americans have been disadvantaged in America and effects of these injustices have made a lasting impression. Education is one of the leading problems in the black community. Though there have many reforms in education over the years, racial injustices still exist because no attention in placed on how legislature affects people of color. I was raised in a middle-class family of educators. My entire life I’ve been told to “stay in school, get an education, and work hard so that you can beat the system.” Recognizing the structural forces in my life has helped me understand my place in society. Being able to “understand everyday life, not through personal circumstances but through the broader historical forces that

The educational system has been around for thousands of years, and throughout time, there have always existed equality issues. From girls not being able to attend school as far as the boys, to children being separated into different schools because of the color of their skin, equality in education is an issue that has plagued humanity for far too long. Throughout the years, there have been some important decisions made in an effort to afford equality in education. Perhaps, as we move forward in our thinking and beliefs, we may find a way to make education a right that everyone who has the desire to grow through knowledge should be afforded, regardless of circumstance.

Education is something that has historically been a valuable asset to asserting one’s power and place in

Thus Black Studies argues for a number of far-reaching reforms. There should be a greater emphasis on student participation in the teaching/learning process, rather than the banking process where the teacher deposits knowledge into students’ heads and periodically (at exam time) makes withdrawals. ….. Finally, freedom, like effective education, is achieved most often when groups of human beings cooperate with each other, not when lone individuals compete against all others” (Cole, pg

In James Baldwin’s article “A Talk to Teachers” he utilizes paradox, tone, and anecdote to persuade the audience that an educational system where students are taught the true meaning of American history and identity must be established in order to create a society where people of all races contribute their ideals to society.

James Baldwin wrote “A talk to Teachers” in 1963 during times of distress and confused societies, but his article is still opening people's eyes to education and choices. Education is a path that is almost necessary to survive in our modern society and James Baldwin explains why education is not enough. We need to be taught to ask questions we need to be taught that living outside of society social laws is okay. Baldwins point, his goal was to have teachers inform the youth of the continuous remodeling society.(James Baldwin Lessons for teachers in a time of turmoil, By: Clint Smith). In a comic by Matt Groenig schools is portrayed as hell.

Baldwin continues on and says that blacks were being oppressed everywhere. “…Negro girls who set upon a white girl in the subway because…she was stepping on their toes. Indeed she was, all over the nation” (73). Not only does this portray the ever growing tension felt among African Americans in a certain area, it expresses the tension felt across the nation. African Americans everywhere were still continuously looked down upon, causing agitation, which was the current social condition blacks and whites faced.

What is learned in school, be it public or private, determines, for the most part, what position an individual will find themselves in - in the future. In “White Privilege and Male Privilege,” Peggy McIntosh, an author known for doing something that is rarely done in the white community--speaking of her race--makes references to education, to her privileged education, to support her argument on white and male privilege. Sometimes I wonder what society would look like without education; would there be any norms, or rules? Education is so deeply instituted into most Americans' lives that those questions will probably never be answered. One thing is certain; some people are able to get

Education has unequivocally remained one of the most important and ever-changing aspects of society. With the advent of new decades and time periods, educating our youth has remained one of the most important tasks to undertake. The changing needs of students and the modernisation of classic teaching methods have caused quite a shift in terms of pedagogy. Throughout the civil rights movement, especially, there was much conversation about education in terms of how black youth were taught and about equality in terms of tutelage. The civil rights movement evoked a glut of strong feelings concerning the flawed and contradictory educational system in America. During the whole of the 20th century (and late 19th century), it seems, a lot was written about in regards to how the youth-black youth especially-were being educated; many called upon the idea that blacks and whites weren’t being educated the same and that there was a significant imbalance in terms of equality. One of the most important citations in the matter of education is one by Jacob Bronowski, “It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.” The redolent outlook this quote brings to education rings true to this time period of the 20th century in which education was being drastically changed and reworked.