Everyone has learned how to read and write in different ways. Many have learned from having a parent read to them or from a teacher, or maybe a volunteer at a library. But for some getting to read and write can be illegal and can endanger their lives. For instance, Slaves were prohibited from reading and writing as a way to control what they are told and what to think because, if given the chance to read about what was going during slavery then there would be an uproar of slaves who would want to escape the unfair treatment from their slave owners. When given the opportunity to read and write, it gives our brains new concepts and new words to analyze and define; It allows us to expand on what we do not know and gives us the information for our brains to process. Being able to be in school and have a proper education is a privilege that many are not able to have.
In the essays of Sherman Alexie and Fredrick Douglass, both stories give the audience a way to enter these two young men’s lives and what
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He begins to read the Colombian Orator at twelve years old. He was inspired by the speeches on freedom and began to read about abolitionist and the importance of their work. At that time, a lot of information was pouring in and with that new information, he had to ask himself if it is worth to learn this information and be miscible or ignore it and continue to see learning as pleasurable. Becoming educated can be painful and pleasurable at the same time. He began to be depressed and have suicidal thoughts. “I often found myself regretting my own existence and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed” (p.121). From his learning, Douglass realized that his life will not be like the men he reads about books. Douglass started to see education as a curse and less of a