School can’t change us, but education can. Time can’t change us, but experience can. As Rousseau stated education are from everywhere, and school is not the only one. Also Frankenstein showed us he learned how to survive based on his own experience without going to school. school is not equal to education.
voluntary education
By understanding Rousseau’s Treatise on Education, where he emphasizes his pupil should learn only what truly interested him. No one, including his father, can force him to learn the topic he hates because he will learn nothing from it. Through Rousseau’s theory, we can better understand why the monster in Frankenstein can be able to adapt to the human culture. The monster learns to speak, read and write all by himself, with full passion to learn everything about human being. The monster is so successful in attaining his education because he is truly interested in his subject and his voluntary action to learn allows him to develop internal maturity that makes him become closer to a man.
brainstorming exercise #2
Thesis Statement #2
Education once served as the golden ticket towards physical freedom but it just as well enlightens and leads an individual towards mental liberty. In Immanuel Kant’s “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” Kant claims that for enlightenment, “…nothing is required but freedom, and… [the] freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters.” The character of Grant from Earnest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying, is repeatedly demonstrated throughout the novel to be freer than his equals as he is not restricted to the fields where other colored men work because he has received the higher education that the others didn’t have the opportunity of. Furthermore, he is enlightened through the education he received to reason the injustice of society that binds him from leaving and abandoning the place where he doesn’t feel like he’s living to somewhere where he can “have a choice of things to do” (Gaines 29). Through physical and mental freedom both acquired through education, one should use it as the initiative to gather the courage to embrace and forgive the cruelties of fate in order to view the world in brighter colors.
Thesis exercise #2
Through education a person can become enlightened of oneself and decide on a path towards happiness. Before a person can be happy in any sense of the word they must be able to first realize that they are unhappy or unsatisfied with them selves or there current situation. Through this self analysis or moment of enlightenment, there able to decide what is the problem and what must be changed to improve the issue in hopes that they became happy or content with them selves.
Desire and Motivation
In response to Jessica lin’s post “ the desire to learn”, i am agree with Jessica’s thinking that the desire of learning education is the main key for Douglass and Jose to their success .
As Jessica mentioned in the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass was mistreated by his owner, his owner also said that teaching slaves how to read and write, will only make them unmanageable and valueless to the owners. But just because these words, it motivated Douglass. Douglass was a slave that always wanted to be free, but by those words, he understand he can be free by gaining knowledge, and be a valuable person. His desire of learning is to be free one day, and that motivated him to be a educated person. his education eventually helped him escaped slavery.
The same also apply to Jose in “Black Shack Alley”, Jose’s grandmother didn’t want him to work at the sugar cane fields just like other kids, so she encourage him to go to school for an education, she believed as long as Jose study hard, the education will bring him to different level in life. Jose’s desire of learning is not to be working like his grandmother, or other kids. His desire motived him and even got him a scholarship because of his excellent work.
The desire and motivation of learning changed their life, without these, they might still just be one of the slave.
Frankenstein and Rousseau
In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, the monster illustrates the importance of what Rousseau calls an education through “other things.” Through handling and encountering objects and phenomenon and nature, the monster learns all he needs to survive on his own without even having to go to school and be taught by a teacher, which Rousseau believes isn’t necessary to attain education.
Frederick Douglass and Grant Wiggins
Both of these man had an opportunity that was very rare, if not impossible, for those around them especially in the African-American community. Although, they come from two different centuries (19th and 20th century) there communities still share something very much in common. The black community in the tie period of Grant Wiggins are no longer slaves by law but psychologically and economically they still depend and have to submit to the Whites to survive. Almost 100 years have past and their people have still not been able to break free.
Frederick Douglass writes: “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest slavery, and my enslavers… As I writhed under the sting and torment of this knowledge, I almost envied my fellow slaves their stupid contentment. This knowledge opened my eyes to the horrible pit, and revealed the teeth of the frightful dragon that was ready to pounce upon me”
Frederick Douglass is so important to this passage and many we have read because it shows us how education and knowledge is so powerful in showing us the world in a new way! Grant finds this out first hand. Wiggins, a man from a community that has had to submit to the whites, is finally able to realize just how bad the situation is. He shares the same emotions as Douglass when he says he envies his fellow slaves for being content and accepting of the position they were in. Both these men are trying to challenge the norm for the advancement of their people. Frederick Douglass is determined to make this happen by moving north and joining the abolitionist movement and Grant does this by trying to teach his students that there is something more ahead than just working in the plantations.
This would not have been possible without first finding the knowledge they need to show them there true circumstances.
Knowing what to do with education
“What did you learn (at college) about your own people? What did you learn her – her ‘round there?” he said, gesturing towards the other room and trying to keep his voice down.
I didn’t answer him. “No, you not educated, boy,” he said, shaking his head. “You far from being educated. You learned your reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic, but you don’t know nothing. You don’t even know yourself. Well?”
“You’re doing the talking, Reverend.” “And educated, boy,” he said, thumping his chest. “I’m the one that’s educated. I know people like you look down on people like me, but” – he touched his chest again – “I’m the one that’s educated.” (Pg 215)
Reverend Ambrose explains to Grant the meaning of education. Just because Grant went to college and received a degree does not mean he is free or even a man. An educated man knows himself, knows his people and their suffering. Grant has lost connection with his own community which is why he feels trapped everyday. He doesn’t understand them and they don’t understand him. Reverend Ambrose’s understanding and empathy for his people is his education. Also, in their conversation, Reverend Ambrose asks Grant if he knew about Tante Lou’s hands, scarred from cutting cane to pay for Grant’s college or her knees scarred from praying for Grant. Grant doesn’t know about any of this, she’d hid it from him. He didn’t pay for his own schooling like a man. I think that’s what the Reverand is trying to say to him by mentioning his aunt.
“I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. I certainly wasn’t seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me from London, asking questions. One was, “What’s your alma mater?” I told him, “Books.” You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes in which I’m not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man.”
Malcolm X used books to open his mind. He was not trying to be a “status symbol” but someone who knew about his people and was making an effort to educate them. He wanted to free their minds from the little they knew about their own history. Malcolm X wanted to answer questions and have his followers question what was going on during their time. When he learned to write he learned many different words which enabled him to read. Through reading he gained a mental freedom. Malcolm X knew what he wanted to do with his knowledge and for that he became an amazing leader. A powerful man in everyone’s eyes.
Free to Think
I believe that A Lesson Before Dying was a clear example of Kant’s ideology on enlightenment as well as emerson’s theory on man thinking. In the novel a plantation teacher (Grant) is persuaded to visit an innocent convicted felon (Jefferson) in prison. Reluctantly Grant agreed and from then on, his and Jeffersons lives were changed. During his trial, one of the jurors referred to Jefferson as a “hog” not only lacking respect for him as a man but overall dehumanizing him. With no education and lack of ability to decide his own fate , Jefferson doubted himself and wondered if he was even worthy of being called a man. Kant believed that enlightenment was freedom from a form of slavery and opened up opportunities. Grant provided Jefferson with knowledge; knowledge of literature and knowledge of the world. He bought him books and radios and other items that would help give him more perspective of the world. He enlightened him. Now free to think, Grant gave Jefferson the opportunity to form his own opinions, instead of those imposed on him from young. He was finally able to create his own identity with the ability to think more freely. Learning how to write gave Jefferson the ability to have a voice that could live long after he did. He exhibited what Emerson believed to be the qualities on man-thinking. He died a man.