STEP 1 READ AND ANNOTATE THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE
STEP 2 COMPLETE READING RESPONSE ANNOTATION WORKSHEET ON THE ARTICLE
- Perform each step as directed in the handout
- Provide MLA citations as needed
RR Annotation Worksheet Revised .doc
My Essay is:
Education can be both a useful tool and a weapon. Just as a knife can be used to craft a beautiful meal, it can be used to cause great harm in others. Martin Luther King Jr argues in his paper, “The Purpose of Education� that education’s true goal is to combined intelligence, reason, and morality. For King, to ignore the ethical concepts of education is to miss the entire point of education itself. He argues his point by showing the example of the late, highly educated Eugene Talmadge, a college-educated man with the notion that African Americans are inferior. Martin Luther King’s argument is certainly true that education can only lead to social change by focusing on increasing character and ethical standings.
Education can be used as a means of creating great social change. Martin Luther King says, “Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.� Education essentially forms the path for which people can walk to create great changes in the world. While others can use education as a means of exploiting others, it can also be used to equip oneself to lift a society to greater means. Martin Luther King Jr attributes his great social change efforts to his education and his experiences for this reason. For a man can conduct great social change when equipped with education.
The issue with many individuals, as King describes, is that education is often misused as a potential for wealth and power instead of social change. People view education as a necessary step in their evolution as a person. They consider education to be a means to increasing self-value over others. King argues, “Most of the “brethren” think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses.â€� This argument is proven correct when considering many of the most educated individuals in the world leading companies that exploit millions of people worldwide. With the expansion of globalization came a rapid increase in labor exploitation of the lower-class worldwide. The educated lead these companies using their own education as a means to an end, with the purpose being to dominate others and profit from their exploitation.
Education without morality can only lead to a loss of positive social change in the world. Education is extremely dangerous when applied to someone without ethical standings. King empathically states, “The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.� An education individual is one who is armed with the knowledge to have accurate problem-solving, quick decision skills, and the ability to see the truth through false claims. When an educated individual is also devoid of all moral reasoning, this creates a very dangerous situation in which the intelligent can sway the opinions of the less educated through calculated decisions. This lack of morality is what allows individuals to fall victim to the educated’ s propaganda, which is specifically created to deceive those who are ill-equipped to see true reason.
The purpose of education is to infuse individuals not just with reason and power, but with equality and character. Martin Luther King’s argument that education without moral standing and character is dangerous continues to be true today. While King originally made this argument against the racist individuals who tried to hold down the African-American population, the same examples can be seen today with the exploitation of the international labor force. The educated and without morality has simply shifted their focus to exploit another group and harm social change of the world. Education of the future must consider the dangers of not introducing character and morality as a necessary part of the process.