Like the headings that are used to label a student, Richard Rodriguez’s Achievement of Desire and Paulo Freire’s The Banking Concept of Education have contrasting opinions on the function of education in the life of a scholar. Freire believes that information is only being tossed at scholars for them to “receive, memorize, and repeat” (Freire) this information without really applying it to the real world. In contrast to Freire’s view, Richard Rodriguez believes that the development of the student has much to do with the “mimicking, imitative qualities that fall under the category of the scholarship boy” (Rodriguez). Though there are numerous differences in the ideas of these writers, an agreement between both of them is that education is the …show more content…
leading factor in influencing the shape of one’s life into adulthood. Freire opposes the believe that the conclusion of education leads to critical thinking. He believes that education should be reformed completely, and that critical thinking and consciousness should be encouraged from the beginning of a scholar’s educational journey. The praxis of education is something he believes in. Freire proposes education as an emphasizes to one’s love for life, and “the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it” (Freire). Freire thinks of “Education as the exercise of domination stimulates the credulity of students, with the ideological intent...of indoctrinating them to adapt to the world of oppression” (Freire). Rodriguez and Freire have an agree on some levels when it comes to education, but “alienation” from home life is something they cannot be agree on. Freire strongly encourages the idea that we have to immerse ourselves in our historical situation to have a better understanding of the world. However, Rodriguez contradicts this idea by proposing that we have to alienate ourselves from everything that we knew before education so that we can create new techniques of critically thinking to achieve our academic goals before we can have a better understanding of the world. Dissimilar to Freire’s conclusion of education as discovering our historical background and freedom, Rodriguez’s conclusion involves removing ourselves from our historical identities.
Rodriguez enforces the complete alienation from home, childhood, and family in order to cultivate new ways of thinking. For Rodriguez, this process might be a loss of some sort, but it the end, it is an absolutely necessary sacrifice in order to achieve academic success. He states that the student “must move between environments, his home and the classroom, which are at cultural extremes, opposed” (Rodriguez). Rodrigues judges these two environments as things that cannot be a match made in heaven until the pupil has gone through many years of education to achieve some desire. Then the student will get the chance to finally look back on their life to have the right to recouple with who they were before their educational journey. Rodriguez believes that a student should immerse themselves into their education than their “home”. Scholars should have a relatively better understanding of their teacher than their parents in order to “grasp the concepts of education without involving family” (Rodriguez). An example of these characteristics are described in Rodriguez’s own story, where he refers to his schoolteacher as someone who “understood exactly what--my parents never seemed to appraise so well--all my achievements entailed” (Rodriguez). This shows Rodriguez’s true feeling towards the power that …show more content…
education has over home; how a child cannot be effusively appreciated by their parents throughout their educational voyage, whereas their teachers can. In conclusion of Rodriguez’s opinion, “students must alienate themselves from their home life in order to be successful in the academic world” (Rodriguez). Both Rodriguez and Freire’s conclusions are different when the concept of alienation from a scholar's historical setting is reached.
Rodriguez states that it is completely necessary for students to isolate themselves from their “original situation” in order for them to achieve “individual thinking” (Rodriguez). Freire on the other hand states that education too often isolates students from their “historical situation” (Freire). Freire’s advise is that rather than use the “banking” concept for educational purposes, which entails an “alive, dynamic change in students”, scholars should be allowed to “become humanized in a relationship with the world around them” (Freier). Rodriguez, who goes through many years of learning before he was able to achieve desire with his historical setting, comes to the same conclusion as Freire when he reflects on his way of life from his revelation through the “scholarship boy” (Rodriguez). It is feasible to say that even though Rodriguez and Freire shared distinctive opinions on their ideals of what education was, it is also reasonable to say that they both believed that the main goal in “achieving a desirable education” is only possible when students acquire a “relationship with the world, their historical background, and themselves”
(Dickey). Work Cited Dickey, Molley. " Notes: The "Banking" Concept of Education." Digication E-Portfolio. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2015. Dickey, Molley. " Notes: The Achievement of Desire." Digication E-Portfolio. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2015. Freire, Paulo. "The "Banking" Concept of Education." Plato (2007): n. pag. Web. 19 Sept. 2015. Rodriguez, Richard. "The Achievement of Desire." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 19 Sept. 2015.
While staring back into the faces of small children much like his younger self, Rodriguez starts to run through points of his life where the need to know more pushed him further from his family and their norms and culture. Mainly focusing on the bright future an education offers him, he continues to knowingly distance himself from his family. Douglass went through similar situations on his path for education. Focusing on his chance for freedom, with no family ties to distance
Education has become stagnant. Intelligent individuals are still being molded, but the methods of education are creating individuals who lack free will. Through deep analytical understandings of education, both Walker Percy’s essay, “The Loss of the Creature,” and Paulo Freire’s essay, “The Banking Concept of Education,” have been able to unravel the issues and consequences of modern-day education. Despite creating clever people, Percy and Freire believe that the current form of education is inefficient because it strips away all sovereignty from the students and replaces it with placid respect for authorities, creating ever more complacent human beings in the long run.
Between the authors Barber and Tannen, there exists a consensus that education today has been shaped by the events of history. The sources of history differ along with the conclusions they drawn from th...
He further stated that with all sincerity in themselves and colleagues, public school is now regarded as outmoded and barbarous. This thought, according to him is both observable to students and the teachers alike, but the students inhabit in it for a short period, while the teachers are condemned to it. Pursuant to teachers being condemned, they live and work as intellectual guerrillas strong-minded to stimulate students, ignite their inquisitiveness, and to open their minds, yet reluctant to stay behind in their profession. Together with this, teachers...
In the essay “Achievement of Desire”, author Richard Rodriguez, describes the story of our common experience such as growing up, leaving home, receiving an education, and joining the world. As a child, Rodriguez lived the life of an average teenager raised in the stereotypical student coming from a working class family. With the exception, Rodriguez was always top of his class, and he always spent time reading books or studying rather than spending time with his family or friends. This approach makes Rodriguez stand out as an exceptional student, but with time he becomes an outsider at home and in school. Rodriguez describes himself as a “scholarship boy” meaning that because of the scholarships and grants that he was receiving to attend school; there was much more of an expectation for him to acquire the best grades and the highest scores. Rodriguez suggests that the common college student struggles the way he did because when a student begins college, they forget “the life [they] enjoyed
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
In their work, Plato and Paulo Freire have offered harsh critiques of education and learning. Plato compares people to prisoners in a cave of darkness in relation to knowledge, and Freire refers to a “Banking Concept” of education in which teachers put their thoughts and information into students’ minds much like the deposition of money into a bank. Instead of this money being of value, Freire and Plato acknowledge that the value declines. Although many people refute the concept of accepting new knowledge and admission of mistakes, I claim that both Plato and Freire produce valid points about the corruption of education because people cannot learn unless they have an open mind and truly desire to learn. Ultimately, what is at stake here is the effectiveness of learning and continuing the cycle of education.
Even from an early age, Rodriguez is a successful student. Everyone is extremely proud of Rodriguez for earning awards and graduating to each subsequent level of his education. But all his success was not necessarily positive. In fact, we see that his education experience is a fairly negative one. One negative that Rodriguez endures is his solitude. Education compels him to distance himself from his family and heritage. According to Richard Hoggart, a British education theorist, this is a very natural process for a scholarship boy. Hoggart explains that the ?home and classroom are at cultural extremes,? (46). There is especially an opposition in Rodriguez?s home because his parents are poorly educated Mexicans. His home is filled with Spanish vernacular and English filled with many grammatical errors. Also, the home is filled with emotions and impetuosity, whereas the classroom lacks emotion and the teachers accentuate rational thinking and reflectiveness.
Policymakers pushed for the reconstruction of college financing models, into what we now have today, as a profitable student loan market has emerged (Rossi). Although Edmundson agrees that colleges and universities do not offer today what they once were envisioned to, his opinion on why greatly differs from an emerging possibility. Edmundson in his essay outlines a student body, wholeheartedly content with an education system created entirely for show, rather than the widening of perspective, as a liberal arts education was once meant to do. When detailing student responses to his teachings, Edmundson writes that, “most of all I dislike the attitude of calm consumer expertise that pervades the responses. I 'm disturbed by the serene belief that my function -- and, more important, Freud 's, or Shakespeare 's, or Blake 's -- is to divert, entertain, and interest.” The interest of the students, in the opinion of Edmundson, is supremely consumerist in nature, as defined by their inability to “see intellectual work as a confrontation between two people, student and author, where the stakes matter. ” He goes on to argue that, “university culture, like
The more developed teaching methods there match the town’s urban society. The education is more formal and way more expensive. “One had to be fully and properly dressed, and speak French there”(51). José is aware that he is the only child who grew up on a plantation, “I was the only one of my kind”(128). All around him in school were kids who grew up in wealthy families. The children can afford to have lunch every day and have extravagant items José could only dream of having. “[. . .]Carrying leather schoolbags, pens with golden rings, and watches!”(128). The wealthy society of this town differed greatly from the poverty of José’s Black Shack Alley. Because the families were so wealthy in this area, schooling was not a privilege as it was in Petit-Bourg, so teachers did not encourage the students to do their best. “In Petit-Bourg the school masters saw to it that you learned your lessons and did your homework. [. . .]in this lycée, you did as little as you wanted”(129). The teachers in the lycée didn’t have a connection with José like Mr. Roc did. One of his teachers even said José was a “student of little interest”(129). José was isolated in the prestigious school of Fort-de-France, but thrived in his familiar environment in
Instead of loving and caring for her baby, and forgetting about Danny, she became worse than him. Rodriguez presents many aspects of the minority class that live in the United States, specifically the South Bronx. Even though the cases presented in Rodriguez’s short stories are difficult to mellow with, they are a reality that is constant in many lives. Everyday someone goes through life suffering, due to lack of responsibility, lack of knowledge, submission to another entity or just lack of wanting to have a better life. People that go through these situations are people who have not finished studying, so they have fewer opportunities in life.
Imagine a world without education where human history is totally forgotten by the young generation, and individuals are forced to live in their basic everyday life without having the power to change it. Such in balance or disorders are the growing problems that occur around the world, which were pointed out in many educational essays like “The Educated Student” By Barber, “The student and the University” by Bloom, and “Class in America – 2003” by Mantsios. These essays are among the many of their kind that address the status education in the modern world as being forgotten and lost behind all the technology and commercialization of education. This was the point of attention of scholars like Barber, Bloom, and Mantsios who came up with a common
“Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the "banking" concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits. They do, it is true, have the opportunity to become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store. But in the last analysis, it is men themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, men cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through
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.
Through Freire’s “ The Banking Concept of Education,'; we see the effects this concept has on it’s students and also we see the effects that the alternate concept, problem-posing has. The ‘banking’ concept allows the students to become vessels of knowledge, not being able to learn at a creative pace. By using communism, seeing through how education is taught in the classroom, it is parallel to Freire’s ‘banking’ concept. We can see that both ideas are similar and both were harmful to the human mind. While ‘banking’ poses the threat of creative growth and power, Marxism, which applies Marx’s ideas to learning in a communistic way, it creates the threat of never being able to learn.