Kaffir Boy Essay Definition EDUCATION

Education can be defined in many different ways and often depends upon the person one asks. To some an education is a cultural achievement; to others it is dreaded and unnessecary. If you look up the word education in Webster-Merriam Dictionary, it reads "the action or process of teaching someone especially in a school, college, or university". To many education has a personal definition fostered through experience. In Mathabane's novel Kaffir Boy, education is information being passed onto another in attempt to further their knowledge and understanding. As there are many ways education is performed in the world, the way in which one defines education can change drastically depending upon the context. For example, the education of a preschool child could be stated as an attempt to introduce societal norms onto the child. However, to define education in this manner can misrepresent the greater scope of the term. In Kaffir Boy, we find Mark attempting to find his way through society while accepting the inequality of the Apartheid laws. While our preschool related definition can fit into this example, it is important to remember our broader definition as well. Whether Mark is being educated in culture or more traditional concepts such as mathematics, we find him learning via the passage of knowledge from others. Another example of how the author interprets education in the novel comes on page number 191, where he states, "They, like myself, had grown up in an environment where the value of an education was never emphasized, where the first thing a child learned was not how to read and write and spell, but how to fight and steal and rebel." Here Mathabane once again points to the many variances in the concept of education. In this example both of the aspects of education previously discussed are incorporated into the authors childhood experiences. This once again shows his use of a multifacted definiton of education. Later in the Kaffir Boy, Mathabane writes