Prison: The Greatest Classroom in the World

Are basic education skills learned better in a classroom or a prison cell? In “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X, the author describes his own experiences in education and teaching himself more than he ever learned in a classroom. Although Malcolm X was called the most articulate hustler on the streets, the reality was that he was functionally illiterate. He noticed his own illiteracy when he went to prison and wanted to write to his idol, Elijah Muhammad, but he was embarrassed of his use of slang and his incomprehension of larger words. He immediately started reading all the books he could get his hands on, he started reading the dictionary and then he read everything he could in the prison library.

I personally love this story. It is a great story about how one man did not like something about himself and went out to change it. I could not imagine how hard it would be to teach oneself something as crucial as how to read, but he did it anyway. Most people in the United States learned how to read in large groups in the classic classroom setting, and even some of those children that learned how to read grow up to be illiterate adults. What would our world look like if everyone had this desire to be fully literate? How would our schools look? Our world could be a much better place if everyone pushed themselves for an education to be better than what they were yesterday.