Why are children always staring off into space? What are they thinking about? Children are always learning. They use their imagination to deal with change, problems and surprises. All of these events in life can eventually affect children in a positive way as they can educate themselves through adapting and creating new understandings of the world. Gopnik’s argument about children's relationship with learning, Alexie and X’s 

perspectives on the power of education, and my personal experience with divorce and relationship dynamics suggests that if we open our views of the world, it will spark a desire to create positive change. 

Gopnik argues that although adults have an expertise in learning through a foundation of decision making and knowledge, children adapt and educate themselves faster and more effectively, allowing them to develop an understanding of the world at a young age. One way that children can open up their views of the world and create a new understanding of themselves is through their imagination. Gopnik herself looks around at the things surrounding her and brings to light the idea that everything she sees is a creation of the human imagination. Doing this allows Gopnik to realize how strong imagination affects a child's ability to open up their view of the world and create new understanding. Although imagination is very important in a child's development in their understanding of the world, it isn't the only strategy they use. Gopnik suggests that childhood is a period where there is only time for learning and education, nothing else. As adults go and hunt for food, teach classes and do other necessary activities, the only thing a child has time for is to adapt and learn. This is shown when Gopnik states, When we’re children, we’re devoted to learning about our world and imagining all the other ways it could be. When we become adults we put all that we've learned and imagined to use.” (9) This quote argues how childhood is a fundamental period of time where we establish a recognition and perception of the world around us and without childhood, we would have less time to gain perspective on how to improve the world and ourselves. After childhood, when our understanding of the world is clear, we can use this understanding and transform it into positive change to improve what was once seen as a problem. 

Alexie and X both share the idea that education has the power to develop and change perspectives, along with bringing to light issues that spark a need for positive change. In his text, Alexie starts with having little to no education as a child and learns by observing his surroundings, developing a desire to read. After reading one comic book, Alexie begins a lifelong pursuit of knowledge, defying societal expectations and prejudices. Alexie uses reading and education as a lens to see the world, opening up a new view of how the world sets standards and expectations on groups of people. Alexie spreads the power of education throughout different communities and shares the idea that reading, learning and education empowers people to rewrite narratives already set on them by society and  can change an entire community. Alexie ultimately argues that through education, we gain the tools to challenge stereotypes, break barriers, and inspire positive change, contributing to our collective understanding of the world. X’s text not only agrees with this argument, but supports it even more as through gaining a new understanding of the world by reading texts and educating himself, he achieved a passion for spreading information about the problems within our world, and fixing them by reeducating others. X argues that there is a necessity to educate yourself not only for the benefit of being smart or knowledgeable, but opening your mind to new ideas and issues that are happening throughout our world. Reading is not only a factor that contributes to our understanding of the world, but a place that provides endless amounts of information that can change ideas instantly.

My personal experience with divorce throughout my family has reshaped my ideas of relationships as a whole and the fact that instant change is always possible. No experience has changed my views on the strength of relationships as much as my parent’s divorce did. I was 13 years old when I was sat down at the dinner table and told my parents were getting a divorce. My heart sank at that moment, knowing I would never see the two of them together again, but this wouldn’t affect me as long term as the other thing I learned did. At that moment, it was revealed to me that no relationship, not even marriage is permanent, and this made me scared to even express my feelings about a relationship or even enter one. My world was shaken and never have I had that sort of news told me in such a shocking manner. Although this experience was detrimental for me, it helped me in realizing that nothing lasts forever and opened my eyes to the importance of sustaining good relationships, as I would never want to inflict such bad news on someone I loved. This realization reveals that positive change can result from bad experiences that open out views of the world. This experience not only taught me a lesson, but took away my innocence. I suddenly felt older and like I had to take on new responsibilities that previously weren’t in place. Seeing my entire family happy together was now impossible and I had to face that reality, again showing me that happiness never lasts forever either.

After looking at all the ways positive change can result from opening world views through education, dealing with life’s changes and recognizing their value, and through imagination, we can see that in order to spark good outcomes, we need to put these things to use by practicing them constantly. Currently, people are anxious, and instead of learning from children that not everything has to have negative effects, they focus on the imaginary consequences.