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The Shock Of Education By Malcolm X

Decent Essays

As early as the age of 4 or 5, parents send their children to kindergarten programs followed by elementary, middle and high school. From there they are expected to continue through college and graduate school to learn everything for their future. In Malcolm X’s autobiography, he wrote an excerpt titled, “Learning to Read” where he explains finding encouragement to educate himself on vocabulary and the history of white supremacy. After being thrown into prison he found himself in the prison’s library reading non-stop, eventually discovering the history of his ancestry like all the wrong the white man caused. Educating himself changed his life for the better, leading him to become an inspiring leader in the Civil Rights movement. Malcolm X believed that all the reading he has done will lead him to do something good in life, saying “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life” [citation]. After educating himself with all the books in the library, he became an inspiring leader in the civil rights movement and became a spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Similarly, in “The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts,” Alfred Lubrano compares the difference between the working class and those from affluent neighborhood and schools. As a child of a working-class family, coming home from an Ivy League made him realize a separation between him and his family along with the students from affluent backgrounds. Receiving a higher education than his

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