American Creed

American Creed

The American dream means different things to different people. Some Americans may believe it is about money or wealth, and some may think it is about having to learn something that you can carry your whole life. Being well educated increases the possibility of having lots of career opportunities. As I moved here to the United States two years ago, I didn’t have enough knowledge about America and its history. Now that I know a lot about it, I think that here in the United States the American creed means that every race and gender deserves equal rights and freedom. Still, we all know that this country has been facing racism, inequality, and discrimination since European settlers first arrived.

In class, we’ve watched short films where two inspiring women proved how education is part of the American dream and believed that youth is the hope of our future. Firstly, a Creek Indian and now a school principal in Lindbergh Elementary School named Deidre Prevett states, “We have high poverty and high mobility among many of our families in this school.” For that, she became an educator, and she is happy to be able to help others to become educated, especially her community. She’s a fifth generation educator and believes that education has always been in her blood. Education has always been significant for everyone in her family; they used the oil from their land to finance it to get them educated.

Second, an African American who is now a Denning Professor of Political Economy in the Graduate School of Business and Global Business named Condoleezza Rice also comes from a family that valued education. She experienced discrimination and struggled by being Black in America. As she came from an educated family, she knows how powerful education is. Her grandfather sacrifices everything for her to go to school, and she never failed to show how thankful she is for that. As her grandfather used his education to create schools for his family and the people in their community, Rice uses her education to support her community. Finally, Prevett and Rice show how their perspectives are related; they know how important education is. They used their education to help and give a positive direction to others, especially to their communities, just like what their families did, to be able to discover their purpose, pursue and fulfill their dreams, and to have a better future. Both of them are now successful women, and education is what led them to success.

All people have their own definition of the American Dream, others may believe it is about wealth, and others may not. According to the article “Most Americans Believe American Dream is Within Reach” Samantha Smith writes, “... very few-just 11% of the public-say ‘being wealthy’ is essential to their own view of it.” The quote shows that some people may disagree that being educated is what the American Dream is; it’s becoming or being wealthy. American Dream is not just about wealth. For example, wealth may vanish or be lost anytime, and it may also become useless if it doesn’t spend wisely, but education can’t ever be lost. We can carry it forever, and no one can steal it. Without education, we wouldn’t even know how to use wealth in the right way; even wealth needs the education to use it with knowledge and in a wise way.

Education makes us aware of our skills, knowledge, wisdom, and we’ll be able to apply these to our situations in life, not only for our own good but also to make the world a better place. With education, it’ll help us build opinions and points of view in life that will help us introduce empowerment, improve the economy, and create more opportunities. We can help others by sharing the knowledge we obtained from education. For example, in an article called “Factank”, Samantha Smith states that “87% of those with at least a four-year college degree say freedom of choice in how to live is essential, as do 82% of those with some college experience.” These students helped others with their opinions about what is important to the American Dream. This emphasizes that education helps us discover our knowledge; it allows us to construct views and have theories on crucial things, whether good or bad. Education encourages and helps us grow, develop, discover our purpose, what/who we want to become and fulfill in life. American Dream is not about being wealthy; it should be about being educated to become successful and have things you’ve never thought could be possible. As Deidre Prevett says, “Education is the key to success.”