Education provides the masses with the knowledge needed to succeed in life. Most people define education as education offered by public institutions. However, the majority of the population acquires most of their knowledge not from school, but from their surroundings. A person's environment teaches lessons first-hand, allowing that person to develop their own way of reacting and learning. This creates a personalized education that gives the individual the ability to form their own opinion without any prejudice from an authority figure. Authoritative educators sometimes incorporate personal opinions into their teaching. Literary education often arises from life experiences. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini illustrates how society's teachings are harshly exposed to characters as they encounter the real world. On the other hand, in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the characters watch society's hypocrisy and double standards unfold before their eyes. While formal education given by authority figures can impact characters, both novels demonstrate how real-life experiences provide richer lessons while formal education limits the scope of learning for a character. However, while Khaled Hosseini uses direct and destructive experiences to educate the character, Harper Lee allows the characters to be observers in their discoveries, resulting in calm judgment as the character learns from the situation. Both authors develop the idea that real-life experiences are more significant sources of education than what teachers teach in school, where formal education constitutes a restriction on learning. For Scout, communication problems that occur from the first day of school prevent an adequate education. When Scout... center of paper... the idea that experiences are much more educational than formal education given by authority figures. The communication problems in Scout's class, the narrow-mindedness of the teachers in both novels, and the superior education the characters receive at home demonstrate this. Hosseini uses direct and destructive experiences to teach the character while Lee uses observations as sources of learning. While Hosseini's writings can be seen as more emotionally powerful, Lee's writings are shown to provoke more authentic and meaningful responses from the reader. Both the characters and the reader become educated and begin to question society's norms. This results in discovering a person's point of view and defining their vision of society. Through a combination of observation and first-hand experiences, a person often acquires more knowledge than they would in school.