abstract

Disclamier : I'm going to take a shot at this abstract. It may be a little bit unorginized so read carefully.

As a thesis for this paper, I would like to focus on the motivations and assumptions of schooling in today's society. I will be focusing on two litterary pieces, Mike Rose "Crossing Boundaries" and Min Zhan-Lu "From Silance to Words: Writing As Struggle" to help me illistrate my point. Mike Rose, talks about the assumptions lower class citizens put on the effects of education, and how those effects motivate them to go back to school to earn their High School diploma. Even though, these adult students know how to read, write and pay bill's they still feel as if they need to complete what they believe to be "standard education" in order to have a better life, or a higher paying job. On the other hand, Min Zhan-Lu talks about education as more of a 'handiecap' to her writing and schooling. In Min Zhan-Lu's household, she was taught "western" education because her parents thought it would be more of asset rather then an problem. Unfortunatly, because 'western' education was band in her school and newly reformed china, her prior education served to harm her more then it did to help her. Through this essay, I will expand on how roles of socity play a part in education, and how education in certain forms can be both helpful and harmful.