Analysis of Learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass

đź“ŚCategory: Education, Historical Figures, History, Learning
đź“ŚWords: 542
đź“ŚPages: 2
đź“ŚPublished: 12 February 2022

How can a slave learn to read and write? Well Fredrick Douglass has the answer to that. In this text, he explains how he had many different strategies of learning. He was not able to pick up a book and read whenever he wanted to, there were not many ways for him to learn. Douglass had to come up with many creative ideas so he could accomplish his goals. His mistress played a big role by kickstarting his learning, Douglass would secretly read newspapers, and he had many other strategies of getting his knowledge, but Douglass couldn’t decide if him learning to read and write was a curse or a blessing.

The Mistress of Fredrick Douglass kickstarted his learning by teaching him the alphabet. “Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell, (Douglass 63)”. Learning the alphabet was a big steppingstone for Douglass, majority of slaves did not know what the alphabet was. Soon after, slavery changed his mistress, she decided that slavery and education do not mix well. It was up to Douglass to find new ways of learning to read and write. Douglass tried everything to get a newspaper, but when his mistress saw him with a newspaper, she would rush him. “I have had her rush at me with a face made up of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper… (Douglass 62).” It’s like when I was in middle school and my mom would walk in on me playing a video game in the middle of the night, she would have anger towards me because I was not asleep. He started to talk to the poor white boys, and he would trade them bread for knowledge, it was like he was paying for his education. It’s like me having to pay for my college education.

There were many ways that he learned to read and write, but one of the strategies he used really caught my attention. When he would meet with any boy he knew could write, he would tell them he could write just as good as them. Douglass made it a game, or a bet because the white kids didn’t think that a slave would be able to write as good as them. “I would tell him I could write as he (Douglass 66).”  Through this way he would learn by reading what the white boys wrote. The reason this caught my attention was because when I play games and I challenge my friends, I learn from the strategies that they use to beat me. This helps me get better at the game, just like it helped Douglass get better at reading and writing.

As Douglass started to get better at reading and writing, he couldn’t tell if it was a blessing or a curse. He states that “As I withered under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather then a blessing (Douglass 64).” If he never learned to read, he wouldn’t know how bad slavery was, and he wouldn’t be able to have an opinion on it. In this day and age, when people know to much they get hurt; mentally and physically. Knowing as much as he did mentally hurt him because he understood what was going on.

All in all, Douglass was a very intelligent person. He came up with many strategies so he could learn how to read and write.

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