Education and change go hand in hand. This can be confirmed by evidence from various chapters in the book regarding the issue of decision-making. First, it may be pertinent to note that in life, change is inevitable but the crucial thing is to be able to adapt to changes that occur in our daily environment. Change develops us as it challenges the status quo, hones our survival skills and keeps us in tune with the environment around us.
Most of the changes that occur in a person’s life take place due to the circumstances that they survive under. Accordingly, education plays a very important role in the development of a society right from the individual level all the way to the national level. Education helps develop a person’s critical thinking, expand their mental horizons and increase their capacity to innovate and think creatively.
Education helps develop a person’s ambition, and in the process follow their dreams and helps chart a person’s destiny towards self-actualization. Douglass decides that he needs to learn how to read and write, when he hears Mr. Auld telling his wife that reading will help the slaves realize that they can do better in life. He believes that they will be more aware of their rights.
He realizes the importance of education and decides that he has to learn how to read and write at all costs. He realized that reading was a skill that would end up helping him. After he gains understanding of the word abolition, Douglass is all set to get out and go to the north where free men live.
Although it is necessary for him to use force, such as the instance that he fights with Mr. Covey, he ultimately used his educated mind to attain his goals. He states that the fight uplifted his spirits and rekindled a fire that had been put out a long time ago (Douglass 86). It was necessary for Frederick Douglass to create a new relationship to the economy after his realization that he could do better for himself.
He had ambitions that were deep seated in him right from the beginning, since he always dreamt of escaping to the north where he would be a free man. The desire to escape was fired up in Douglass at the tender age of 11 after his master passed on and he realized that he was classified among the livestock on the farm. Most of the reactions that are elucidated upon emanate from the authors realization and education.
At one point in time, he started teaching other slaves how to read and write. The situation works out for Frederick Douglass when he finally escapes to the north and reunites with his fiancée then starts working as his own master. His ultimate moment comes when he attends an antislavery convention and starts crusading against the vice from that point onwards.
In a synopsis, Douglass shows that education is crucial to change and there is no way that one can go without the other. For a person to be able to embrace change, he or she will first have to learn about the advantages that it will bring along.
Change is inevitable and along with it comes education. All decisions that are made ought to be based on the circumstances together with the knowledge that a person has in the field that he or she is concerned.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, New York, NY: Doubleday, 1845. Print.
