Baldwin quote “One of the paradoxes of education was that precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your society. It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person.” (Baldwin 1) Baldwin meant that when you are being educated you realize things on your own and see things differently so when you look at society and its system you can go against things society practices or its ways. I think the last sentence of the quote was really significant because Baldwin is giving a message to the teachers saying it is the teacher’s responsibility to help change society. While I was reading this quote, in the back of my mind I was thinking how he had the tone of inspiring teachers and readers to make the change of our education system, to stop the false teaching to students. When he said, “It is your responsibility….” It is clear that he is talking to us to take action to re-evaluate what is the real purpose of education. This connects with my experience in school because I always questioned the education system and questioned the teachings. I thought that school’s purpose was to help us brighten our future with opportunities but according to Baldwin, the purpose of education is to find one true self and be able to make his/her own decisions without having others make our decision for us. Baldwin writes very specifically about the experience of Black Americans. I think the experience of other marginalized people or groups such as Asians, Hispanics, and others resonate with Baldwin’s sentiment is probably through the education system itself. For example, the achievement gap in education shows only how unfair the education system is towards the students of color by their test scores but doesn’t take the factors that led students into giving low test scores. Those factors could be less school funding, low income, lack of student motivation, and more.

Baldwin appeals to many different rhetorical situations through ethos, logos, and pathos. One example of pathos, “On the one hand he is born in the shadow of the stars and stripes and he is assured it represents a nation which has never lost a war.” (paragraph3, pg1 ) This quote uses pathos because in this sentence it draws out feelings of patriotism and giving false assurance of giving equality to the Black Americans even though they were born in America, the land of freedom and justice for all. The second example would be when Baldwin start’s off by saying, “Let’s begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time.”(paragraph, pg1) Immediately Baldwin is using ethos because he is saying “we” and that includes himself, he wants to trust him with a fact that probably many people would agree on and trust him with the information he will be telling his readers.

As Baldwin articulated, teachers can have an incredibly powerful impact on students, my algebra teacher in high school is very impactful to me because I was always bad at math and didn’t want to learn because It looked too hard. But her positive energy, patience, and how she taught us made me really motivated to learn algebra and I passed my exams with flying colors, I really enjoyed her algebra class. After I graduated, I stayed in contact with her because she was just an amazing teacher and a great person. I talked to her about my experience in college and when I am struggling with math in general or need advice she would take time out of her day to help me, I really appreciate that.