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Bill Gates: The Definition Of Student Success

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A student’s success is hard to define because every individual has a different definition of success. Students usually think of success as getting a passing grade, but the schools could define it as students getting a high grade point average (GPA), and a good citizenship grade, along with a lot of other standards. But schooling, let alone education, shouldn’t be focused on grades. Rather, it should be based on the life lessons learned from the subjects taught. Life lessons could include study habits, organizational skills, confidence to participate, and being punctual to class or job meetings in the future. Additionally, a student’s success can’t be forced by any type of authority, and should be approached from a less traditional angle. The …show more content…

Albert Einstein ended up dropping out of high school in spite of his lack of formal education. He became a renowned physicist and his discoveries had an impact on science and our understanding of the world. Bill Gates received a high school diploma, but ended up dropping out of college to become an entrepreneur. He revolutionized personal computers and is one of the richest people in the world. These are two of the people that didn’t achieve academic success, but accomplished individual success. Malcolm X in “Learning to Read”, only went to school through the eighth grade, and his remaining education was built upon books he read and studied and the letters he wrote and read during his time of imprisonment. He also expanded his vocabulary and learned the words in the dictionary by writing each word down along with their definition for every letter on his tablet. (X 273-74) X’s dedication to self-education, proves that a student is responsible for their own learning and success. He asks us, “Where else but in prison could I have attacked my ignorance by being able to study intensely sometimes as much as fifteen hours a day?” (X 282). School days are usually only eight hours long, so he wouldn’t have spent as much time in a classroom setting. The subjects taught in the classrooms were also unrelated to his interests, so it may not have retained his interest. By being able to study his interests without having to learn unnecessary subjects in school, he gained a more focused education. He was not destroyed by the prison system; he became a passionate reader and speaker and has a sense of gratitude for the time spent in prison. Having the capability to educate oneself without formal schooling, shows again that students are responsible for their own success. Teachers can only give them lessons and

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In “Learning to Read”, Malcolm X, writes about how he was enlightened by the text and novels that he read in prison and discusses how he self educated himself. Malcolm X was more empowered due to his passion in the history of black people in America because he wanted to make a change in the world. The teaching curriculum in America lacks relatable topics that engage young minds. Public schools in America usually lack the opinion of the students. Students would have more of a desire to learn if school wasn’t only about passing.

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In “Literacy Behind Bars” by Malcolm X discusses how he became interested and even obsessed with reading. He discusses how he wasn’t educated past the eighth grade, that his apparent education is the result of the studies he divulged in in prison. Malcolm was jealous of another inmate’s knowledge, and as a result began copying a dictionary. He slowly wrote out every word, including all of the detailed grammar on the pages. Malcolm X continued writing until he written every word there was.

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Malcolm X was a prominent African American civil rights leader and activist during the late 1900s. Prior to his role as a civil rights trailblazer, Malcolm X was an inarticulate hustler who was sentenced to ten years in prison on burglary charges. It was in prison that Malcolm X had acquired a taste for education and he could not stop yearning for more; as a result, he began to study tirelessly. Throughout “a Homemade Education”, Malcolm X appeals to one’s sense of ethics, logic, and emotion by utilizing his own personal experiences to stress that everyone should educate themselves and thus gather an understanding about the world. When in prison Malcolm X had attempted to emulate a man named Bimbi, a fellow prison mate whom he had looked up

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In his essay “best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary” Malcolm X, a militant black nationalist leader, who rose global fame as an advocate for Pan-Africanism, states that the outcome of his learning was due to his studies in prison. According to Malcolm X, reading a few sentences “might as well have been in Chinese. He mentions how being in prison had motivated him to read. Explaining that skipping words as he read “ended up with little idea of what the book said”. Bring up the fact that people who would hear him in person, television, or read something he wrote would have never guessed he didn’t go beyond the eighth grade.

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Malcolm X 's "A Homemade Education" uncovers a story of how he gained knowledge by himself and how it guided his thoughts and ideas in becoming a more knowledgeable speaker. Although Malcolm X is a very outspoken person about racism in the United States and throughout the world, he had the right to be upset but goes a little overboard on blaming whites. The main focus of "A Homemade Education" by Malcolm X is his endless attempt to increase his knowledge by teaching himself how to fully understand different words of the dictionary. Although he was inspired by a fellow inmate when he was in Charlestown Prison, Malcolm, young as he was back then, began reading intensely but couldn’t understand exactly what he was reading because of his writing and reading skills. Starting from being illiterate, Malcolm X used every resource he had to broaden his language abilities and be able to communicate to the world and his people.

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A Homemade Education by Malcolm X, is an informative essay about the author Malcolm X dedication to further his education by himself. In this essay the author talks about how he was envious, how he turned that into motivation, and how he didn't let the fact that being imprisoned would keep him from pursing his goals. The essay " A Homemade Education" was very meaningful. The most meaningful thing to me about this essay was the dedication behind the authors purpose to further his education.

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In “A Homemade Education,” Malcolm X expresses that reading and increasing your knowledge is extremely important and that it has helped him understand black history and slavery. Malcolm X was very frustrated with himself because he could not convey what he wanted to say when it came to writing simple English. Many people, who have heard Malcolm X on television or read something he wrote, would have thought that he had obtained an education “beyond the eight grade” (1). Malcolm X claims that this impression of him is a result of him studying during his prison sentence. It began when he met a man named Bimbi in the Charlestown Prison, where he felt as if he was far less knowledgeable than him.

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X was a hard working self-educated man that taught himself how to read, write, and speak better just as Phung had been able educated herself over the summer. In a community, school, or family that does not fully comprehend the important value education plays on the person’s future can compromise the person’s whole future. Malcolm X grew up as the fourth child of eight children. As a child of a preacher who was an avid activist for African American rights, X saw firsthand how racism played a key role in his life. (Biography.com Editors, Malcolm X Biography, Biography.com) As described in the excerpt Homemade Education, X describes his life as a someone who is always active about what he feels strongly about.

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What motivated Malcolm X to educate himself was his own frustrations with not being able to write letters while he was in prison. Bimbi who could read made him want to actually want to read and actually understand what he could read also motivated him to want to educate himself. Malcolm X learned because of learning how to read want to learn about his self, his history. He was then curious about the history of the black man, “I took special pains to hunt in the library for books that would inform me on details about black history (3).” Once he learned of himself then I think he could begin to truly learn.

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In the article “The Key to Success in College Is So Simple, It’s Almost Never Mentioned”, the author Jonathan Malesic, uses Emily Zurek Small’s college success story to support the idea that the best way to ensure that one will reap all the benefits college has to offer is by cultivating the students willingness/ desire to learn. Malesic goes on to explain that two of the biggest issues standing in a person's way of success are careerism and knowingness. Although Malesic finds careerism and knowingness to be the biggest factors prohibiting one's success, he also believes that neither mentality is “fixed”. Because of the economy and culture, he notes that students only focus on honing job readiness skills, instead of actually learning and absorbing

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In “Learning to Read”, Malcolm X uses rhetorical analysis to argue how African Americans continued to struggle in gaining education due to racism. He informs people that through our history books, there have been modifications that restrain the truth about the struggles black people faced. Malcolm X encouraged his audience to strive to get the rights that they deserved. He demonstrates that knowledge is very important because the truth empowers us. In his interview he persuades his audience with diction, tone, pathos, ethos, and appeal to emotion to make his point.

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Analysis for Learning to Read by Malcolm X Malcolm X, who used X to signify his lost African tribal name, was an American Muslim minister and a human rights activist. He stated in his excerpt “Learning to Read” from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, “[People] will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade” (Learning to read, X,3). Malcolm X was kicked out of the school after 8th grade, and went to the prison. He learned how to read in the prison. Ever since then, he started to read books and think about the fate of black people’s.

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Learning to read by Malcolm X is an autobiographical piece describing his self-education. Malcom describes being “Increasingly frustrated. At not being able to express what I(He) wanted to convey in letters.” This gave him the drive to learn to read and write during his time in Charlestown Prison, and Norfolk Prison. He started his self-education by reading books, piecing together the bits that he could understand using context to complete sentences he could not comprehend.

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Furthermore, Malcolm x was sent to jail where he was motivated to begin his homemade education by struggling to communicate with Elijah Muhammad and envying Bambi for his competence to assume control of the conversation and his stock of knowledge. For that reason, Malcolm learned to read by copying dictionary, beginning to read and comprehend books, exploring black history, especially slavery and studying world or global history.

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  Frustrated by an inability to articulate his thoughts, Malcolm X studied a dictionary in prison and worked hard to improve his penmanship.    By copying portions of the dictionary onto paper,  Malcolm X eventually learned to read books. This allowed Malcolm X to understand the writings of Elijah Muhammad, and eventually to become a well-known civil rights leader.   While in prison, the ability to read was liberating for Malcolm X; instead of focusing on his imprisonment, he focused on educating himself.

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