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Coats 'Constraints In W. B. Coates' Education

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Coates Education
Coates learning education of how the world functions began forming in the streets. Primarily as he enters in Baltimore public schools where the privilege of learning the truth about him and African Americans was reducing the ability to figure out the meaning of the world and himself. As he attends to Howard University, he began a new form of education. Although Coates had struggled with constraints through the school system about his education. Throughout his own journey of education, he was able to combat those obstacles and learn the truth history of African Americans through the streets, books; Malcolm X, who was a great influence for Coates education and The Mecca. In his …show more content…

The school system depends only on discipline, not on educating every individual about the truth. Coates goes into more detail in his book in the sense of evaluating the school structure in Baltimore. Coates belief that “the laws of schools were aimed at something distant and vague”(Coates 25), the education Coates experience wasn’t allowing them to have critical thinking, social interaction with the world. They avoid getting students be asked for their own opinion. In addition, Baltimore was more opac to the sense of teaching with a highly precise education. Instead, they use the same teaching curriculum.

Algebra, Biology, and English were not subjects so much as opportunities to better discipline the body, to practice writing between the lines, copying the directions legibly, memorizing theorems extracted from the world they were created to represent (Coates …show more content…

Coates testified that “the classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free” ( Coates 48). Coates was aware that the books were the key to his knowledge and as well as his curiosity to learn about his own race. He was mostly inspired by books and his main idol Malcolm X. In a quote is claimed that he “loved Malcolm because Malcolm never lied, unlike the schools and their facade of morality” (Coates 36). To his knowledge Malcolm X was a survivor, a dedicated person who teaches himself throughout the books just like Coates have done. Same as Malcolm X, Coates also wants protection for the black body. However not just the books, The Mecca change Coates education, after moving to college, a new door opens up for him. He had the capability to attend Howard University as he refers it to “my [one and] only Mecca was, is shall always be Howard University” (Coates 39). This is where a new perspective of Coates life open. Howard is one of the most diverse schools where it incorporates the history of the black community in the country. “The Mecca is a machine, crafted to capture and concentrate the dark energy of all African peoples and inject it directly into the student body” (Coates 40). He was now in a place where he felt reunited with his own people. In a place where he is not alone.Although

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