Malcolm X's Homemade Education

Self-education

Education is extremely important and can be achieved in the most unexpected places. In "Homemade Education", Malcolm tells about his time in prison, where he taught himself how to read and write. Behind the bars, through the use of a dictionary and books he became literate. In this article he explains how one can change his or her lifestyle by the taking the advantage of the opportunities that are available. This relates to me because couple of years ago, I didn't know how to speak English, but I took an advantage of the opportunities I had to learn a whole different language.

The title of the article “Homemade Education” itself is significant; Malcolm X came to learn more by teaching himself rather than relying on others to educate him. According to Malcolm Homemade Education means self-education. One of the biggest reasons why he chose to become

literate was the letters that he wrote to Mr. Elijah Muhammad (the leader of the nation of Islam, also called the Black Muslim Movement) motivated him to begin his studies because he wanted to be able to express himself in his letters. He states “I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what I wanted to convey in letters that I wrote, especially those to Mr. Elijah Muhammad” (Goshgarian pg. 143). He was really getting annoyed by the fact that he couldn’t express his feelings like the way he was able to at the streets. He says “In the streets, I had been the most articulate hustler out there—I had commanded attention when I said something” (Goshgarian pg. 143). Malcolm was really used to speaking slangs but, not everyone can understand slangs so when he was writing the letters to people, it was hard for them to comprehend what he was trying to say. I can understand how this can be really frustrating when someone doesn’t understand what you’re trying to say. Because when I first moved to the United States I did not know how to speak English, I would try my best to make the people around me understand what I was saying but, it wasn’t that easy at all until I started speaking English fluently.
When he was in prison he spent most of his time copying and reading from the dictionary, first he spent two days trying to read however, he did not understand the meaning of it. So he started to copy the dictionary. It says in the article “I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary’s pages. I’d never realized so many words existed! I didn’t know which words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying (Goshgarian pg. 143). He was shocked to see many words that he never saw before. Another quote that describes the process he went through to teach himself is “I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks. I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, everything I’d written on the tablet” (143). He would first write the word to improve his writing skills and then he would say the words out loud to improve his reading skills. This was one way I used to teach myself English, at first I was pronouncing the words wrong then later I got better at pronouncing words.
At the end of the article Malcolm states “months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned.

In fact, up to then, I never had been so free in my life” (Goshgarian pg. 144). He probably felt free because reading can be excited when you put yourself into the story. Having knowledge led him to a freedom that he never felt before in his life. The literacy changed his life and inspired him to find an interest in history. He began reading books on black history and how white people discriminated against black people and how they treated the colored men. In the article it says, “But at that time, I felt that the real reason was that the white man knew that he was the devil” (Goshgarian pg. 142). After reading the stories about the stuff white men did to black men Malcolm decided to join the nation of Islam.

In conclusion, most of the times we tend to ignore the opportunities that are around us and do not put effort in changing our lives or others. Whether you love him or hate him but, you have to admit that Malcolm was the one who contributed in changing Americans social life as we know it

today.