We will read an excerpt from Nelson Mandela' s autobiography,
Long Walk to Freedomin which Mandela discusses his experiences with education.
In addition to discussing the perspective, argument, and bias of the document, provide some background information on who Mandela was, where he lived,the significance and historyof where he lived, and why he is so famous?
This information is not covered in the course material so you will need to do a littleoutside research, but you do notneed to include citations or references.Alsocontextualize Mandela's experiencein what we have learned in the class(i.e.imperialism, decolonization,racism).Be sureto include quotations from the primary source document to support your analysis.
BE CAREFUL, DO NOT CUT-AND-PASTE DIRECTLY FROM THE INTERNET.
Identification:Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela(2008)
Attribution:Nelson Mandela
Perspective (enlightenment or control?)Argument:Bias:“On the first day of school, my teacher, gave each of us an English name and said that from thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to British bias in our education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions were automatically deemed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture. Africans of my generation generally have both an English and African name. Whites were either unable or unwilling to pronounce an African name, and considered it uncivilized to have one.Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, the son of a mineworker can become head of a mine, and the child of farmworkers can become president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.Since the turn of the century, Africans owed their educational opportunities primarily to foreign churches and missions that created and sponsored the churches…The mission schools provided Africans with a Western-style-English-language education. Even this amount of education proved distasteful to the [Whites, who]… have always been unenthusiastic about education for Africans. To him it was simply a waste of time, for the African was inherently ignorant and lazy and no amount of education could remedy that.Mr. Sidelsky, whom I came to respect greatly and who treated me with enormous kindness…was involved in African education, donating money and time to African schools… Only mass education, he used to say, would free my people, arguing that an educated man could not be oppressed because he could think for himself. He told me over and over again that becoming a successful attorney and thereby a model of achievement for my people was the most worthwhile path I could follow.”