Which Doors Will Education Open For You? Within the values of education, there is different perspectives of what the benefits are to each individual in terms of reaching a certain level of intelligence. Three men in the name of Mark Mathabane, Richard Rodriguez, and Malcolm X came from different backgrounds but later on, they all came to the same realization of the importance and value of education. Education can open doors to many new opportunities like becoming successful in your future or current adult life. The question you need to ask yourself is, how much effort and time are you willing to put into success?
Education played a rather unimportant role in the life of Mark Mathabane. In his book, Mathabane states, “They hated it and consider
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Mathabane clarifies, “So I read and I read and I read” (3). He does the reading so he can be better and also improve himself in order to meet his standards of success; he’s not trying to impress anyone around him, he simply does this for his own interests. Rodriguez’s explains how his mother believed reading was absurd, “ I would hear my mother wondering, “What do you see in your books?”(3). His mom always questioned why he read so much and she saw no purpose, let alone the benefits, that came out of his constant reading. Although Rodriguez did have some discouraging moments with his family, he still strove to have a greater and more advanced education, and that’s exactly what he set his mind …show more content…
Malcolm was someone you would refer to as your perfect stereotype in his early age. He saw education as a waste of his time because of his ethnicity. Malcolm was always told he would not get far in his education, which affected him in ways of having him maintain the “traditional” lifestyle of an african american male. Later on, Malcolm was a member of a gang and he was on the streets. “I had really begun back in the Charlestown Prison, when Bimbi first made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge. Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversations he was in and I had tried to emulate him” (1). X never really came across an opportunity to become for intelligent until he met a man named Bimbi. Malcolm faced many challenges in the process of learning how to become educated, but he was determined and he really had no reason to not spend his time practicing education things. “I was so fascinated that I went on--I copied the dictionary’s next page. And the same experience came when I studied that. With every succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events from history. Actually the dictionary is like miniature encyclopedia”( 2). Malcolm X explains, picking up a dictionary can open up a whole new world where you can learn about anything you can imagine. *first came to america, picked up my first book and i imagined