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Public Education In William Kamkwamba's The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

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Throughout William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer’s The Boy Who harnessed the Wind, William is constantly pushing the social and scientific boundaries of his environment. His never ending curiosity and inquisitive nature are uncommon for a boy of his age and status in Malawi, his home town. He is expected to stay quiet, work on the farm with his father, and play outside with friends in free time, but William is not happy to take a back seat. He constantly asks how and why everything from bike lights to radios function and is unhappy with the common responses of “I don’t know” and “they just do”. William takes it upon himself, along with his cousin Geoffry so far, to investigate in order to fully understand the nature of these inventions. Even as those around him pay him little attention, he feeds the scientist within and always searches for answers. Obviously, this curiosity pays off because he is eventually able to create a windmill to harvest energy for his home. Because William never abided by …show more content…

As a future teacher, I think that there is a need for reform in almost all aspects of public education. However, no one has stepped out of their comfort zone in the way William was courageous enough to in order to implement these changes. To begin with, the curriculum used in schools today is thought up by businessmen who have found their way into the system but have no personal experience in education themselves. How is it that we allow anyone other than teachers to decide what and how our students will learn? The creators of the curriculum and standards limit teachers thus do so to the students as well. If teachers did not have to spend so much of their time focused on covering each topic that the state will test on, they would be able to create a safe space for students to try, fail, and ultimately love to learn. Sadly, this is not the

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The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind (written by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer), centers around a boy, William Kamkwamba, living in the poor African nation of Malawi. When famine strikes, Wimbe is devastated and many die from starvation or diseases caused and encouraged by the famine (cholera and kwashiorkor [114-128]). Once the famine passes, William ventures to the library (to read up on what he missed in school since he dropped out due to the lack of money) where he finds multiple texts covering science and physics, fascinating him and pushing him to learn more. During one of these frequent visits he uncovers Using Energy, which covers windmills. From this, he spurs off to build his own version of a windmill bringing electricity to his home

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