As a young child, we are given certain opportunities and guidance to expand our knowledge right off the bat when it comes to reading and writing. Going to school to get an education is what every parent aspires their child to do. Parents want the best for their children, to be accepted and to learn to their fullest extent just like every other child their age. However, there are many children and families who are not as privileged when it comes to receiving these certain opportunities. I ask myself a simple question: is education really taken for granted as if it is just a given and not a privilege? It seems that these days, going to school and learning is just 129). Douglass’s mistress, someone he claimed to be a “kind and tender-hearted woman” (pg.129), had begun to instruct him on how to read and write starting with teaching him the alphabet. Slavery is mainly what caused the change in Douglass’s life. As his master found out about his wife’s actions in teaching him how to read and write, she was instructed to stop. She quickly turned from warm and tender hearted to cold and fierce. This eventually left Douglass to take his education into his own account and further teach himself. He stated that, “The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read” (pg.130). Douglass took matters into his own hands and did whatever he could to learn. Along with learning how to read himself, he also learned how to write by looking at letters on timber in old ship-yards. Copying down the letters he saw and making four letter names by associating them with certain objects. Much later in Douglass’s life, he went on and became a leader in the abolitionist movement. Coming from a dark past while living in slavery to becoming a great speaker and someone others can look up to as a role model. The
