Essay on Michael Kuo: Resisting Myths, Confronting Challenges, Finding a Savior

Michael Kuo's memoir, Reading with Patrick: A teacher, a student, and a Life-Changing Friendship, shows that she is a writer who works hard to resists any impulses arising from myths, which she claims are cliches and wishful thoughts. In the memoir, the author confronts challenging questions that a teacher, who she considers as a savior, has worked towards answering them. With this in mind, she wonders what much a teacher can do in his or her daily duties and responsibilities. Importantly, Reading with Patrick is a story that brings out an inspiring view of the friendship of a young teacher and a student and provides a reader with an extensive and resonant meditation on race, education, and justice, which are common issues facing the world today. Literacy, racial injustices and slavery are interconnected with most victims of racial discrimination and slavery unable to move on from their past, which leads them to commit crimes that affect their lives and education, but the argument brought up in this paper is the fact that literacy could aid in healing open wounds of racial discrimination and slavery.

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The memoir focuses on a life-changing friendship between a teacher and her student who was jailed for murder in the Mississippi Delta (Kuo 3). Kuo was a recent graduate from the Harvard University who arrived at the rural areas of Helena in the Arkansas region to teach as a volunteer in the year 2004. During her teaching volunteer work, she was optimistic and self-driven. However, she encountered the harsh realities of life in the region, which is one of the most impoverished areas in America that still faced the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow (Kuo 8).

In the memoir, Kuo who was a born of the Taiwanese immigrants, shared the story of her complicated but somewhat rewarding mentorship with one student, Patrick Browning who the author claims had a political awakening and remarkable literacy (Kuo 13). Kuo believed that she would make a difference among the young students. Therefore, Kuo dedicates her heart to work. She used to have quiet reading time and guided writing that she directed towards fostering a sense of self-awareness among the students that were set aside in a broken school curriculum. Although she losses some students due to the increased truancy and gun violence in the area, some learners such as Patrick that were left behind had a role to play in inspiring her.

Patrick Browning was fifteen years and in eighth grade thrives under the attention of the author and rises towards meeting the expectations raised by her teacher, Michelle Kuo. The author only taught for two years and later bound to the pressure of her parents to find opportunities outside the delta, which led her to leave the Arkansas region to study law. Years later, a day before her graduation, Kuo realizes that her student, Patrick, had been jailed for murder. Mainly, this made her feel that she had left the Delta sooner than she was supposed since she failed to meet her objective of inspiring the young learners. As a result, Kuo found it better for her to work towards fixing her mistake. Thus, she returns to Helena and commences her education with Patrick although he was jailed. Kuo makes it a routine for seven months to visit Patrick in jail where they ponder over classic novels, historical works, and poems. With time, Patrick grows to become a confident writer who can express himself in different ways. He becomes a dedicated reader interested mainly by the works of James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Merwin, and others. During her time reading with Patrick, Michelle Kuo is transformed and contends with the issue of racism in the region leaving her with the question of what the people with a privileged life owe to the ones with an unwelcoming future.

From the summary given above, one can notice a significant relation between the books that Patrick Browning read and racism, justice, incarceration, slavery, and education. From the memoir, one of the books that Browning read was the 'Narrative of Frederick Douglass.' The narrative is an authoritative story of a youth who was once enslaved and later came into social and moral cognizance from his actions of disobeying the slave-masters and teaching himself how to read in secret (Frederick and Davis 13). Douglass, through the literacy he achieved through reading, gained the courage to resist, escape, and with time, increased his freedom ultimately. Also, Douglass became a leader who fought against slavery and supported the movements that advocated for the rights of the women. Patrick Browning's life is similar to that of Douglass. Just like the leader, Browning lived in a region characterized by increased racism, issues of gun violence, and consequences of slavery. All these issues Browning faced would have been prevented early enough through literacy.

A significant association exists between poverty and race. One can notice a poverty cycle and low-literacy among the people who face racial injustices. Race is a factor that determines one's educational attainments and acquisition of literacy skills as brought out in the film, 'Precious Knowledge' (Palos et al. n.d). The result of illiteracy among the victims of racial injustices is a high number of unemployment rates among the affected persons and low educational attainment (Vaughn and MacDonald 10). For the case of Browning, he abandoned school and faced incarceration for murder. Saving Browning required the intervention of a teacher who was dedicated to assist the young people from the Helena region and ensure that they rise past the racial discrimination and injustices that they face.

In the 'Narrative of Frederick Douglass,' Angela Davis focuses on the intellectual and spiritual arousal that resulted after the leader sought for literacy hence emphasizing for self-knowledge in the achievement freedom from all the different forms of oppression facing the society (Frederick and Davis 4). Initially, Browning had started reforming before Michelle Kuo left the area to pursue another career. After the education he received failed to bear any fruits due to lack of continuation, Patrick indulged in a criminal activity that landed him to face jail sentences while awaiting his hearing. Kuo knew the importance of literacy in enhancing one's freedom and changing a person's perception of life hence explaining why she would ensure that her student got exposed to a variety of books.

Further, 'The Fire Next Time,' another book that Patrick Browning read contains two essays that address issues of racial tensions in America, the role of religion as an oppressive and inspiring tool, and the need to embrace change and to evolve in the thoughts about race (Baldwin 4). The first essay contained in the book was, 'My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One-Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation,' and 'Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind.'

The first essay was a letter to Baldwin's nephew that urges the reader to seek change for the black persons in America instead of revenge for the abuses one has had to endure over the years. The theme continues throughout the book, and the author concludes that the anger of the black people can be justified. However, killing white people may not be a plausible solution. Baldwin starts by making claims on the fact that they were placed in a black environment where people expected them to fail and where the dominant whites subjugated and dictated their lives in every aspect. Besides, Baldwin argues that achieving real change would need acceptance and the need to embrace the white people and showing them love even though they subjected them to difficulties that they would remember for the rest of their lives. The white people, on the other hand, have no hope of changing unless they understand that black people are not inferior.

The first essay as it has been described above by James Baldwin is essential in explaining why Kuo introduced Browning to read the book. The memoir does not mention the murder crime committed by Browning. However, considering that the student lived in a region bound by racism and gun violence, one is likely to assume that the murder charges were due to increased racism and the victim was expected to be a white person. Due to increased illiteracy, vengeance among the black resulting from increased hatred for the white is shared among the victims of racial discrimination and slavery. Mainly, this implies that most blacks have some wounds that are yet to heal. The only medicine to healing the wounds is literacy that would teach on the adverse effects of vengeance and the need to move on from past crimes.

The second essay in James Baldwin's book details the experiences of the author as a boy preacher and his disillusion nature with Christianity. It also discusses the belief that Baldwin has on the shortcomings of the Islam religion in matters concerning race (Baldwin 4). Mainly, this shows the interconnection existing between race and religion primarily to show a reader that race relations are issues that nobody or religion can solve, but instead it comes from a person's heart. The author concludes by asserting that solving race issues would need expansions of the ways of thoughts and experiences in the world. Importantly, this also explains the reasons why Kuo exposed Patrick Browning to this reading. The reading would help Browning to find means of changing his thoughts and perspectives of life, race, and experiences to solve the hatred he harbors within his heart, which is one of the healing steps towards this social issue.

With the literature that Browning read discussed above, it is clear that literacy not only entails the acquisition of writing and reading capabilities but also includes the development of a social practice that allows an individual to be socially mobile. Education enables a learner especially from an impoverished background such as Browning to learn the hidden rules and cultural traditions of the dominant culture, the Americans in this case, hence fostering upward mobility. Upward mobility, in this case, implies healing from all the injustices the whites committed against Browning and the people from Helena region and working towards moving forward and becoming prosperous. The people from the minority groups ought to become bicultural for them to succeed in accessing education and afterwards attaining good employment. Mainly, this implies that Browning needed to function in the culture that he belonged to and in the dominant American culture as well. By doing so, he would not have committed the crime and would have learned the value of education in helping improve his life and that of his family as well.

Conclusion

In summation, this paper focuses on the literature that Michelle Kuo in his memoir, Reading with Patrick, gave his student, Patrick to read and focus on. Importantly, the conclusions derived is the fact that literacy is essential in ensuring that an individual solves their life fears and moves on past the challenges that life brings. Browning was a young student who is jailed and awaits his hearing for a crime of murder he supposedly committed as reported by Michelle Kuo, a teacher inspired to assist students like Browning to work on towards improving their lives other than focusing on crime and revenge against the whites. Kuo exposed the student to different readings that include 'Narrative of Frederick Douglass,' and 'The Fire Next Time' among other books of poetry. The argument brought up in this paper is the need for the minority groups in the society to become literate since it would help them get formal employment and would eventually better their lives in the future as it was the case for Frederick Douglass and other past leaders.