Education

After today’s discussion in class I’ve been thinking about the meaning and purpose of education, both in the context of the book and more generally. In the reading we did for today, there was a bit of a show-off between Grant and the Reverend, with both thinking the other was less educated than them.

Grant is a teacher, but more often than not I find myself pretty unimpressed with what he teaches his students. The first time readers see him in class, he hits students unnecessarily and criticizes them for doing understandable things, like using their fingers to do math. He also values things such as writing in straight lines, and knowing the Pledge of Allegiance which aren’t exactly the first things that pop into my head when I think about what educating children should look like. Grant often uses the excuse that he is just teaching what white authorities want him to teach, but nevertheless I think he could still look for opportunities in his class to teach about the system they live in and about black culture.

This leads into the Reverend’s point, that Grant himself is uneducated. Even though he went off to college, and is educated in the literal sense of the word, the Reverend thinks that Grant does not understand his community and the sacrifices that the people around him have made, including his aunt. Reverend Ambrose believes that what Grant should be teaching Jefferson is about God and religion, things that Grant has professed himself unknowledgeable about. This tension between them is never really resolves (as far as I’ve read).

This leads into the possibly unanswerable question of what education is most important, and what does Jefferson need to learn about himself or the world before he dies. In psychology we learned about how intelligence is not simply book smarts but is comprised of that and many other components, such as emotional intelligence, street smarts, etc. In A Lesson Before Dying we see characters who clearly value one facet of intelligence over the other, and try to impart that knowledge to Jefferson.

It made me think about if I had only two weeks left where I was allowed to learn new information, and then had to carry on knowing only that for the rest of my life, what would I want to be taught? Honestly probably not a lot of the stuff we learn in school (sorry surface integrals but you’re probably never going to be useful again). I think that often we put a lot of focus onto education and learning that won’t really service us in the future, while we could be spending time having more useful real world experiences.

What do you guys think about what the Reverend and Grant want to teach Jefferson? What kind of education do you value most in your life?