Adrienne Rich Claiming An Education Summary

Adrienne Rich, a feminist, gave a speech to the students of Douglas College at their convocation in 1977 called “Claiming an Education”. As you read the speech, you may see that she generally targeted it towards women, but everybody regardless of gender can learn from her speech, she writes, “The first thing I want to say to you who are students, is that you cannot afford to think of being here to receive an education; you will do much better to think of yourselves as being here to claim one.” (608). I believe she means thinking that you’re going to school because you have to and acting as if you have to get this education is not successful thinking. You should rather have the mindset that you are taking ownership of your education. I learned …show more content…
It means that the student sees herself engaged with her teachers in an active, ongoing struggle for a real education. (611)
In order to be a claimer and take responsibility she explains that you need to be proactive in getting help when needed. Push yourself, take on some challenges and then you can truly show people what you’re capable of. Also, whatever you don’t give your all to, whatever grade you get is on you, take responsibility for that because nobody got that grade but …show more content…
When I didn’t put in effort, I still came out with C’s and B’s. When I did get a bad grade sometimes I didn’t take responsibility for it, I blamed the teacher’s teaching method. Anyways, I still assumed this was fine and I was still going to be rich when I got older. Reality hit when I started my 11th grade year. In both of my dual enrollment classes, not giving effort was not cutting it anymore. Although, that truly didn’t sink in and marinate until the 2nd quarter. Before all my outlines in Writing 101 were very basic, my outlines didn’t have enough information so when I actually got to typing my paper, I got stuck a lot because I didn’t know what to type. I was lazy and just trying to rush and get it over with. Now, my notes and outlines comes out to be four pages at least. I’m in the making of soon being able to call myself a “claimer”. I started asking my teacher about more clarification in our readings and I put more time and effort into my essays. Although, I still have essays that are left unfinished and the semester is coming to a close so I’m not a “claimer” just yet. Also, I still have to work on what I call my “receiver” tendencies, such as procrastinating and waiting until the last minute to work on stuff. Also, I’m not good at having my priorities straight. I still believe that as this school year goes on I’m getting closer and closer to claiming my education. I want to develop the habits of a “claimer” so