HW 46 - Research and Writing

For my book i read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It was about a firefighter named Guy Montag, only firefighters in that time aren't responsible for putting out fires, but starting them. They are responsible for the burning of books. Books are against the law and might spark some form of revolution. They made it a point to throw people who were found in possession of books to be thrown in jail and their house to be burned. This was all fine with Montag until he met a young girl who wasn't under the spell of television and opened his eyes to the world around him. It was when she met her untimely end that he really began to question everything around him. The story is about how we are so quick to absorb what is right in front of us but refuse to look past it, especially when we are being spoon fed the "truth."

This connects to my thesis because although it doesn't directly deal with success rates or anything like that, it gets into the mind set of someone who had an education under the government and someone who didn't and offers extraordinary contrasting points that will be extremely useful when i write my essay. I can use how the government mindset is so easily upset when it comes into conflict with the free thinking mind.

I wanted to be able to look at education and see how the schools in urban areas compare to suburban schools and how that can effect success rates. I thought that race would play a big part as well as income. I figured inner city schools wouldn't fare as well as rich long island schools. The reason that the book helps with this is because it addresses the types of education and without looking at race or income it attacks this man's life and how easily his perfect balance can be thrown off when he comes into conflict because he doesn't really understand life because he was never really taught, he was more along the lines of forced memorization. These tactics can leave you unprepared for life which is exactly what happened to Montag. He didn't know how to respond to change so he shut down and did what he was told. Even in scenes where he should have made his own decisions he had someone else make them. He was never truly alone throughout the book, it was always someone Else's thoughts or words that were guiding him, he was a puppet. I want to be able to base what i write off of something like that. I want to be able to understand the school systems like i understand Montag.