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While many people in America learn through the standard schooling system there are some that come into an education on their own, in their own way. Here I am going to compare the similarities and differences between the ways that Mike Rose, an award winning writer and professor in the School of Education at UCLA and Malcolm X, an African American activist who was a renowned speaker and ideologist, were motivated to start taking their education seriously, and how they went about getting that education.
Mike Rose was placed in the vocational track at his high school due to a mix up of his test results with another student named Rose. (Rose 152). He unwittingly found himself heading towards an educational dead end due to the nature of the vocational program at his school. The goal of the curriculum was to improve the economic advantages of children who were poor students. These already disinterested students were matched with mostly poor teachers. That is unlikely to have been an accident. The administrations thinking was probably “why place a strong teacher with students unlikely to benefit from being taught well?” As a sophomore the placement error was corrected by a Brother Clint who noticed that his student was doing better than expected and researched why this student who was testing so well was on the vocational track. Now in College Prep classes Rose still did not have the interest or motivation to absorb nor enjoy the things presented to him to learn. However Jack McFarland would change that for him and in a big way. McFarland who taught English at Our Lady of Mercy ignited a love of literature and writing in a young Mike Rose with his gravitas and enthusiasm for the subject. Malcom X was a well-known civil rights leader ...
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...helped ignite that passion, for Rose it was Mr. McFarland who would push him to learn and enjoy that learning. Similarly, Malcolm X had his prophet Elijah Muhammad and Bimbi to catalyze his desire to be a better communicator. Either man could have ended up being nothing more than the average Joe had they not had someone to bring forth a desire to become stronger readers, writers and communicators. Both men, while going about achieving their goals differently, one in more or less the regular high school to collage path and the other in a decidedly nonstandard way, did end up achieving those educational goals.
Works Cited
Rose, Mike. "I Just Want to Be Average." Rereading America. 9th ed. Boston/NewYork: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 152-62. Print.
X, Malcolm. "Learning to Read." Rereading America. 9th ed. Boston/NewYork: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 189-97. Print.
His quest for an education had begun, but it would be a long one. He decries how it all really began while he was being held at the Charlestown Prison. Bimbi, a fellow prisoner, was very intelligent and Malcolm envied his gift. Bimbi encouraged him to read and Malcolm would try but would end up quitting because he would skip the words he didn't know and keep reading. The problem with this was that he could never fully understand what he was reading and would put the book down. So he decided that he needed to learn how to read and write properly.
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Before the civil rights movement gained momentum around 1955, the African-American community was looked upon by many as a group of second-class citizens who were undeserving of rights enjoyed by white Americans. This started to change when men like Malcolm Little (Malcolm X) stood up for the cause and fought back against segregation. He was a man from humble beginnings and who dealt with racism and hatred from a young age, all of which shaped his activism. Malcolm, after his death, was recognized as one of the most important people of the 20th century by TIME Magazine. He watched from a young age as white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) terrorized African-Americans by lynching and torturing them because of their skin color (“Malcolm X”). This among many other racists acts witnessed by Malcolm shaped his philosophical and political views. Malcolm was a controversial figure because he initially supported a violent revolution against whites, but he had many supporters in the African-American community. One of them was Manning Marable, who wrote a biography about Malcolm, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, in 2011. This book brings Malcolm’s story to life through research of his experiences and interviews with his close family and friends. Michiko Kakutani, a New York Times book critic, emphasizes in her review that though the biography is not as intense in details and philosophical views as is Malcolm X’s own autobiography, Marable “manages to situate Malcolm X within the context of 20th-century racial politics in America without losing focus on his...
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I am going to explain more about the Malcolm X that many admire and respect. While he was a child he received the best grades in an all white school and was even class president once. His aspiration was to be a lawyer, but his favorite teacher had told him that he could not keep dreaming unrea...
Malcom X's "A Homemade Education" tells a story of how he gained knowledge by himself and how it guided his thoughts and ideas. Reading also molded his political views. Although Malcom X is a very outspoken person about racism in America, and throughout the world, I find that he has a right to be angry, but goes a little overboard on blaming whites.
In Learning to Read, by Malcolm X, he talks about his studies while in prison. Having only up to an eighth grade education, Malcolm X struggles with reading and writing. The main reason he decided to learn how to read was because of the letters he received while in prison, primarily from Elijah Muhammad. (X 354). He wasn’t able to write responses to them like he wanted to without using slang. Along with not being able to write letters, Malcolm X couldn’t read books without skipping over most of the words, thus motivating him to study an entire dictionary. With the use of said dictionary, he also improved his penmanship by writing down every word, definition, and punctuation he saw. (X 355). Once he memorized the whole dictionary, he was then able to read books. There wasn’t a moment where Malcolm wasn’t reading even at night when the lights were out, he still managed to use the little bit of light shining into his cell to read.
The autobiography of Malcolm X captures the personal growth and the journey of Malcolm Little, also known as Malcolm X. Throughout his life, Malcolm’s experiences shaped him into the human rights activist that we are all familiar with today. In his early age Malcolm believed every white person was malicious, he was a criminal, and he believed that Christianity prevented the progression of African Americans- later on in life, Malcolm became a controversial human rights activist, believed that white people were “well-meaning” people, and was a devout Muslim (pg. 383).
Throughout the The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley, the author, makes his main determination to analyze how the structure style, and content contribute to the power and beauty of the text. His purpose to engage the reader by allowing details and imagery to communicate Malcolm X’s Development. The author sets a strong emphasis on the details of Malcolm X’s life throughout this book, so that readers understand how Malcolm X becomes the person he is. Other factors that are an incredible impact on the text in this book are central ideas such as separation vs. integration, systemic oppression and racial identity. They provide the author's purpose to rely on a stronger platform of detailed ideas. These Central ideas help the reader get a closer look on Malcolm’s Development and set compressions of the past versus today in the mindset of those central ideas. Most importantly,