ThornburgRRBelieve

Out of the three "This I Believe" essays I read, my favorite one was by the man who used to hangout in the streets. I enjoyed this one because he talked about how he decided to change his environment from the streets to the classroom and ended up making something of himself when he never thought he would. I found it interesting that writing a poem about a girl is what got him back into education because it is something so small. When he says "I haven’t fondled a stripper in years because now I see the stripper through eyes informed by feminist theory", I think it shows that education helps shape people's minds into making different decisions than one who is not educated would make like we talked about in class. In the essay about the martial arts school teacher, I do not understand when he says that he has never been in a fight because he says he will come into class with a limp or bruises so how is that possible? However, I find it interesting that he relates his fighting to the fight his students must face with their education and the struggles he faces everyday. I think it is insightful that he connects the two because they are not two things that people would normally relate to one another. In the last essay, I like the approach the author took on discussing what it means to be educated like we talk about in class because they talk about how it is not all about common sense and book smart but rather being able to balance the two. I liked this passage because he relates it to someone close to him that he looks up to. I agree when at the end he says that the most important things he has learned from his nona are life lessons because I had a teacher in high school that taught life lessons more than the topic we were learning and it was my most beneficial class and helped contribute to much of my success as a person.