A Talk to Teachers

James Baldwin makes a lot of valid statements when talking to the teachers. He starts with saying "Now, the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society. Thus, for example, the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purpose of the Third Reich, became barbarians. the paradox of education precisely this--that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which  he is being educated." I think he saying that when being educated to the  benefit society the learner becomes aware of what around them and can become uncultured or act out  a certain way because  that is the only society that the learner knows.

 Baldwin talk a lot About black people and what they become in the society they are placed. He says ",that any Negro who is born in this country and undergoes the American educational system run the risk of becoming schizophrenic." He speaks of how a young black boy can become a criminal. "If for example, one managed to change the curriculum in all the schools so that Negroes learned more about themselves and their real contributions to this culture, you would be liberating not only Negroes, you'd be liberating white people who know nothing about their own history. And the reason is that if you are compelled to lie about one aspect of anybody's history,  you must lie about it all. If you have to lie about my real role here' if you have to pretend that I hoed all that cotton just because I loved you, then you have done something to yourself. You are mad." I think he  saying that if the curriculum was to be changed and that it would be taught that black people were enslaved and that white people knew that they enslaved the black people that they would know something about their history, instead of lies saying that they did all the work themselves.