Kaffir Boy Journal #1 On Education

“Education will open doors where none seem to exist.” That is what my mother says as she was explaining to me why I should go to school and stay in school. Like kids that live in the junkyard, I think school is a waste of time. The value of education was never emphasized where I lived. We are taught to steal, fight and rebel. We are not taught to read, write, or spell. I was under the influence of the ten-, eleven- and twelve-year-old gangsters. I told myself that I would never go to school. After my mother gave me a lecture about why I should go to school, I considered promising my mother that I would stay in school. The things that she told me that really touched me in my soft spot were that she said she would take her life for me. She also told me that education is key to open a new world and a new life for me, that I would be to be better off than my parents in the way that I would be able to get a decent job and make money for food and whatever I want. The fact that my mother always wanted an education, made me want to go to school to make my mother proud. These things are what pushed me to stay in school. Who knew that I was going to stay in school and come out to be the first in my class? Even though our school is strict on things, and harsh punishment, I still came through and stayed in school and kept making my parents proud. I started getting kind of skeptical about school after a while though. My father got all this confusion in my head. My father would tell me how education is simply a white man’s to learn how to be their slaves. I was also skeptical because even though I was first in my class, I didn’t necessarily know what I was actually learning. My father’s believes didn’t help me either. I had to choose for myself about whether I should believe what my father was saying or just keep to what my mother told me. Oh was I confused in my head of mine! Everything just seemed everywhere, not organized for me to understand things clearly. I’m on thin ice of just giving up school but then I don’t want to let my mother down. She means so much to me. What will she think of me if I didn’t go to school anymore after I promised her that I will? Maybe she’ll lash me or tell the principal to lash me. If only those people at school didn’t beat me for not bringing all my materials in and paying school fees on time. I mean it’s not like I can control that stuff. If I have them I will bring them. I think those people are just really mean. Maybe I should skip school.