Malcolm X Experiential Education

Words closely associated with academic education are “valuable” or “beneficial.” Nevertheless, as we can see in the book The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X, the fundamental academic education that Malcolm receives is anything but “valuable” or “beneficial.” After a well-intentioned but still racist teacher quells his interest in being a lawyer, Malcolm’s opinion of academic education is that if your skin color is not right, no matter how mentally capable you are, you will never be successful in life. Instead, Malcolm learns the most from experiential education. Experiential education differs from its academic counterpart since it involves the expansion of knowledge through the events that one encounters, much unlike

His teacher looks down upon him, merely because of the color of his skin, no matter that Malcolm was the brightest kid in the class. Consequently, he decides to leave school, making his main source of education experience. In Boston, Malcolm sees that white people's influence is so intense that it affects the way that African-Americans view themselves and their fellow counterparts. Interestingly, we see Malcolm describe the well-off Negroes as “Hill Negroes” and the others as “ghetto Negroes”, which seems to show that the self-image of Africans-Americans is defined by white standards. Malcolm states “Under the pitiful misapprehension that it would make them ‘better’, these Hill Negroes were breaking their backs trying to imitate white people.” (46) Moreover, in Boston, he learns how to navigate the world

After he gets released from prison, Malcolm dives into the Nation of Islam. During his time in prison, the spiritual leader of Islam, Mr. Elijah Muhammad, reaches out to him and Malcolm feels compelled to join the efforts of Islam. He makes a name for himself as a public speaker, who encourages African-Americans to stop living in the oblivion that the whites created. He continually mentions the past of America and claims that African-Americans worked as slaves to build the country, while white people had once and still were living off the backs of African-Americans. Malcolm’s time as a minister for Islam reinforces many things for him, such as how ignorant his fellow African-Americans are and the immense influence that white people have on them. All of this only feeds more fire to his already raging flame, making him passionate about his fight against white supremacy. One example of this is in the scene when Malcolm receives a call from a white reporter and he states “When we Muslims had talked about ‘the devil white man’ he had been relatively abstract, someone we Muslims rarely actually came into contact with, but now, here was that devil-in-the-flesh on the phone with all of his calculating, cold-eyed, self-righteous tricks and nerve and gall... And I tried to pour on pure fire in return.” (262) In this quote, Malcolm recounts an incident in which he