Rarely does one keep the same outlook for their whole life. Ideas and people are molded and reformed in the crucible of life. Often times, one is unaware that they are even being changed at all. In The Achievement of Desire, Rodriguez chronicles, from the perspective of the man he is now, the changes brought upon by education that shaped him, and the price associated with those changes. It was a price that he couldn't put his finger on at the time which makes it harder to have concrete opinions about it. Without any words to describe what he has lost, it is almost as if nothing has been lost, except for the inescapable feeling that something has been lost. He simply lacks any way to talk about it and bridge the gap between the situation and …show more content…
Curiously, it is delving further into education, the process that separated Rodriguez from his family that ends up giving him the means to appreciate and talk about what he lost. Something that Rodriguez was acutely aware of since a young age was the separation between him and his family. When he is very young he comes home and scolds his parents about grammar. When he is a few years older he knows better than to pedantically correct his parents. At school, he is taught the virtues of reading and reason, while at home, there is no reading for pleasure and intimacy and closeness is values. This separation widens the further he progresses in his educational career. However, as a child, he has neither the words nor the capacity to truly understand the separation that is occurring. He idolizes his teachers and works to emulate them in his speech and values. As he grows to admire his instructors, his admiration for his parents wanes. His parents serve to remind him of who he was, who he can not be if he is to continue with his education. Therefore, he substitutes his teachers for his parents as the object of his admiration. His teachers have all of the answers and his …show more content…
He could often be found reading in a secluded part of his home. His childhood classroom had numerous posters espousing the virtues of reading and learning. He wondered what the connection between the two was, whether or not reading was the only way to learn. For him reading was simply a means to cross titles off of a list; a list of “important” books put together by some profesor. One anecdote that encapsulates his adolescent mindset is when he read Plato's Republic. He describes how, at numerous times, he found himself lost but kept pushing through the book just so he could say he read it. Having finished the book he felt an immense pride; pride at being able to say he read it, not pride at having truly read and understood the text. As an adult he is able to understand his folly, but as a child he didn't understand that, much like the distinction between hearing and listening, there is a difference between reading and understanding. As a graduate student Rodriguez has shown himself to have a deeper purpose for reading. Whereas previously he read for his pride in saying that he read, now he shares how he read to be introspective. He searched through books of educational literature to find some theoretical model of a student that he identified with. He finds no text to identify with save for a chapter in Hoggart's Uses of Literature. Hoggart describes an imagined student called a “scholarship boy” who is the ideal student from
His ideal educational system is based on free and creative thought. He proposes that we achieve this through a variety of methods. First and foremost, he emphasizes the importance of reading as an enlightening, fun, educational activity rather than a chore. He cites Britain, France, Germany and Spain as countries whose students make much more progress then their American peers after 7th grade (let’s not forget that communist Cuba who most Americans despise has the highest literacy rate in the world). He believes reading nurtures the thought process and I agree.
Rodriguez’s situation was that “his parents are immigrants to the United States and several of his siblings were born in the United States in the State of Texas.” His dad was well educated back in their country, Mexico, but they’re being declined because of the existence of bigotry. “His parents were having a tough time finding a job because of their situation – they have found several jobs but are paid below minimum sometimes.” Rodriguez’s parents have multiple jobs just to survive on their daily basis. Rodriguez’s family situation has affected them all – Luis was affected the most and went astray as he was so desperate into fitting into the society and is able to help his parents. No matter how hard life will be, there are ways to avoid gangs and criminal behavior – government programs and other resource center helps a family to survive and even lend a hand to parents and educate them of how to suppress their child to go astray and be involved with crimes and gang
...rest became a nightmare. Enrique’s time apart from his mother made them more like “strangers” than family. Filled with anger stemming from the years apart from one another, he refused to obey his mother’s wishes to live healthier. While lost in family chaos, he turned back to his addiction of drugs crashing his dream of a perfect family dynamic. Though his dream became a nightmare, he was able to achieve it through one core trait where his inner strength help drive him to not give up his dream of seeing his mother. This signifies that if a person is willing to work hard to achieve their dream through diligence, it can be met. Though the outcome may not be what one hoped for, being able to say you accomplished something is soul-pleasing. His success in making it to the U.S. regardless of many downfalls satisfies one missing piece in his broken puzzle of a life.
In addition, with other obstacles: which we face in our lifetime. These obstacles can be from our family, work, and our family. We have to get rid of these distractions in our life. For example: going to school and then going to work. We all attend school, which we strive for an education. Sometimes we have to work, while we are getting an education. According to Richard Rodriguez, who wrote “The Achievement of Desire” states, “ Not for the working-class child alone is an adjustment to the classroom difficult. Good schooling requires that any student alter early childhood habits” (599). There are people who only focused on school, which they developed good study habits, and other people who do the minimum work for school. We considered good study h...
According to our system, it is very unlikely to have teachers like Tapia. When we read the conclusion part of the article written by: Meroni’s, Vera and Costas, when they say: “As it turns out, not just education itself but also the skills acquired through education and taught to students drive socio-economic performance.”(pg. 14) we understand that this wheel gap, we face the embarrassing reality that our performance in real life is inefficient, as it is in reading, the example of "sapo", when the author said: ‘“Because Mr. Blessington told me I was going to end up in jail, so why waste my time doing homework?”’(Quinonez 171) all these internal and external influence received, led him to surrender and not only that, it is understood that our economic performance also depends on it. This allows us to understand why, in reading of Quinonez, this school has teachers like Blessington, the economic deficiency plays a role in determining the quality of teachers who work in different schools; And Julia de Burgos high school is not the exception. The skills acquired in our outer life, they also have a large weight in our future success or failure. But what can one develop skills in a neighborhood lacking? What kind of friends generates a neighborhood so? Understandably the position of "sapo" if we see the external
As his intimate family life at home ended, so did his childhood. The sounds of his family speaking Spanish were sounds of his childhood. When his family stopped using Spanish as their home language it shattered an intimate bond. Only when he established trust though friends in English and distinguish intimate voices, he was able to hear himself addressed as an intimate at home again. Spanish for him was associated with closeness. He does not "credit to language what he should credit to his family members" (35), which he feels is a convenient mistake many often make.
Education is a topic that can be explored in many ways. Education is looked at in depth by both Richard Rodriguez in his essay, “The Achievement of Desire”, and by Paulo Freire in his essay, “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education.” After reading both essays, one can make some assumptions about different methods of education and exactly by which method Rodriguez was taught. The types of relationships Rodriguez had with his teachers, family and in life were affected by specific styles of education.
...ting, and “ciphering”. He never went to school for longer than one year total in his childhood. He read all the books he could get his hand on by borrowing. He never learned enough to qualify as an education with the exception of reading and writing. He acquired his education through self taught methods “under the pressure of necessity.” He was not an avid reader because of the limitations of books but he read as much as he could.
Poems are forms of communication that give an applicable view of the past, present and future events. Reading the poem titled “America”, written by Richard Blanco brought me memories from my childhood in my parent’s house and also what is happening now in my house as a parent. The poem explains how one person doesn’t have all the knowledge about something. It also, describes the daily life struggles I experienced during my childhood, when my parent 's and I moved from our hometown to live in another town becuase of their work and it brings to light the conflict of cultures I and my children are going through since we moved to United State of America .
The fourth grade was when Rodriguez started actively reading. Reading was something that was always a constant for him, day or night. His parents couldn’t understand why he was so obsessed with reading all the time since they only read for necessity. Rodriguez greatly enjoyed reading and found himself reading all sorts of novels at “…the local public library…under a tree in the park…sitting on a porch, or in bed.” (Rodriguez 229). By the time he was in high school, he had read hundreds of books, which had improved his
Slick showed Rios the “hotspots” where life shapes these youth environments. The structure, as well as the constraints, that shape these young boys life in the neighborhood, slick points out a corner where one of his best friends got shot by a drive-by shooting. The lifestyle of these young boys is tragic.
He too quickly dismisses the idea of reading on your own to find meaning and think critically about a book. For him, Graff states that “It was through exposure to such critical reading and discussion over a period of time that I came to catch the literary bug.” (26) While this may have worked for Graff, not all students will “experience a personal reaction” (27) through the use of critical discussion.
In comparison to Enrique’s journey my college career is also about going from one place to the other. True grit and dedication as showed by enrique, is what i must keep in my head at all times while on my college journey. As a freshman in college i am fresh meat trying to survive the classes, hard work, and homework given in college. Like Enrique going on this journey, i am stepping into the unknown and making a sacrifice for my future and my family. Right now i may not know what i want to be but i know one thing, and that is to graduate and become successful. Along the way i will fall and be stress but that is all part of my journey. Sonia Nazario gives us this image in Enrique’s Journey: “They are out of money. They have passed through cold, heat, hunger. They slump in their seats, weak (page 60).”These obstacles was something Enrique overcame while on his way to the US. This mournful passage by Sonia Nazario shows how determined enrique was to reach the US. This is determination and perseverance is something i will incorporate in my four years in
Instead of doing this Puentes introduced skimming and graphic organizers. These are two important techniques for students to understand because skimming allows the students to catch the main points of what they are reading in a quick manner, while graphic organizers can help sort the students thoughts out. Leblanc integrated a phonics program by locating words featured in the book. Another strength of both Leblanc and Puentes is that they both have multiple texts that link and expand concepts, they both have a balance of teacher-and student-lead discussions, and both build a whole-class community that emphasizes important concepts. The most impressive instruction from Leblanc is balancing teacher-and student-lead discussions. She does this by bringing in a book to read to the class and emphasizing the sounds of certain words to the students, and then asks the students to think about the animals mentioned in the story and where the animals live. The most impressive instruction from Puentes is her ability to emphasize important concepts. She really drives in the point to the students that reading biographies is important and will help them in the future. She wants the biographies to help motivate the
To fully comprehend a work you cannot just read it. You must read it, analyze it, question it, and even then question what you are questioning. In Richard Rodriguez’s The Achievement of Desire we are presented with a young Richard Rodriguez and follow him from the start of his education until he is an adult finally having reached his goals. In reference to the way he reads for the majority of his education, it can be said he reads going with the grain, while he reads a large volume of books, the quality of his reading is lacking.