Discussion Questions
In Chapter 4 "The Poem is a Substitute for Love," Rose spends quite a bit of time talking about other students and professors, which seem to form a kind of intellectual community. How important is this intellectual community in shaping Rose's motivation, perseverance, and ability to adapt to difficult situations?
Rose believes that education is something that must be available to everybody and not just a limited amount of people. He is an immigrant student and starts by talking about his personal experiences. Rose tells the reader about his disinterest in reading until Jack McFarland, his teacher gets him interested in writing; after which, he started appreciating literature. Mike Rose by giving examples of different international students also brings forward the idea about changing the curriculum. He says that the immigrant students should not be judged wrongly and should have equal access to the ‘Great Books.’ By that, he means the books written by Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, who have not written about the minority students but for the dominant society.
According to Rose, a diverse cognitive and social education system must be accepted so that the minority students can be included in it without any pressure on them. The immigrant students have different backgrounds and belong to different cultures that make it hard for them to adapt a culture of a very different country. They face many difficulties in the education department so to avoid that; the educational system must make changes to make it easier for those students to adjust. By giving out example of different students, Rose gets to know that he is not the only one facing the difficulties. There are other students as well which motivates him to work with them to overcome the difficulties. They can stand up for themselves and put their demands to bring change in the system. The intellectual community makes him more able to adapt to the situations that seem alien to him and other immigrant students.
