Malcolm X, Benjamin Franklin and Mike Rose

Though the essay’s that we read by Malcolm X, Benjamin Franklin and Mike Rose all describe a learning experience in each of their lives, they are writing in different times and come differing backgrounds.

Malcolm X is black man who was a civil rights leader in the 1960’s who had dropped out of school in the eighth grade. We read his essay “Learning to Read” which tells how he learned to read and write while in prison. He was frustrated by his inability to communicate effectively in the letters that he wished to send to those outside prison; especially to Elijah Muhammad. Spurred by desire, he developed a plan to teach himself; a task he performed with abandon. Not only did he teach himself to read an write at a remedial level, he became a learned man that was one of the “most articulate and powerful leaders of black America”.

Benjamin Franklin on the other hand, came from a white, well to do family who valued education which was not just learning from a book, but learning a trade. He stated that he can not remember when he could not read and at the age of 8 began his formal education. At the age of 10 he stayed home to learn the family business while working with his father. His father spent much time with him looking at different trades that might suite him and become his vocation. All the while Franklin loved books and had access to them. He found a friend that he enjoyed exchanging letters with on topics that they would argue for the fun of it. His father happened upon these letters and was able to offer helpful criticisms on how his writing could be improved. Franklin’s father was very much a part of his educational experience. He had the family support that neither of other two men had.

Mike Rose writes in the 1980’s of his educational experiences in high school from he perspective of a child of working class immigrant parents. Unlike the other two writers, he finished school. However his parents were trying to learn the ropes of a new country and busy working to provide for the family’s basic needs and were unable to adequately prepare and support him in his education. As a consequence he was placed in the remedial classes with teachers who were unprepared to see the potential in their students. Rose saw many of his classmates fall through the cracks and begin to embrace their status, to not do so was too painful.

Through each of these men’s writings we get a peek at a educational experience that was significant to each, yet how they were all so different from the others.