I think that when James Baldwin says “the world is larger” he is referring to how longer and larger people lives are then what people think it is. What I mean by this is that a lot of stuff goes on around the world and some people need to know what is happening. In the article James Baldwin talks about the dangers and the real stuff happening in today’s world. In the article it states, “Now if I were a teacher in this school, or any Negro school, and I was dealing with Negro children, who were in my care only a few hours of every day and would then return to their homes and to the streets, children who have an apprehension of their future which with every hour grows grimmer and darker, I would try to teach them – I would try to make them know – that those streets, those houses, those dangers, those agonies by which they are surrounded, are criminal.” This shows that James wants to teach real life things and tell the truth and what he really thinks to the children. James Baldwin believes that teachers are not teaching students things that they should know because he says, ” It would seem to me that when a child is born, if I’m the child’s parent, it is my obligation and my high duty to civilize that child.” He starts the second paragraph of the article by saying “Since I am talking to schoolteachers and I am not a teacher myself, and in some ways am fairly easily intimidated, I beg you to let me leave that and go back to what I think to be the entire purpose of education in the first place.” by saying this he believes that teachers aren’t teaching students what they really need to be taught, and this is what I think James Baldwin means when he says ” the world is larger”.
