The story that Richard Rodriguez weaves in his essay “The Achievement of Desire” is one that almost every dedicated academic student can relate to. In this essay Rodriguez brings forth the ideas of idolizing teachers, being embarrassed by parents, and how academic students are not always thinking on a higher level, but instead collecting ideas of other people and building off of them. He relates all of these ideas to his experience with education from primary school until well beyond graduate school. I feel as though I was able to connect with Rodriquez on a deeper level when he admitted that he “came to idolize… grammar school teachers” and would stay “after school “to help”—to get my teacher’s undivided attention” (341-342). I can relate with this state because I have always connected better with my instructors than I did with my peer. I was constantly seeking their approval while aspiring to be exactly like them when I was older. Like Rodriquez, I would stay after school “to help”, which …show more content…
Rodriquez states that “I heard my father speaking to my teacher and felt ashamed” (343). While Rodriquez is ashamed of his parents due to their poor education and limited English skills, I feel the same way when my parents speak with my instructors due to their old age. Because my parents are older than average for students my age, it has been many years since they have attended classes which creates quite a generation gap. They become easily confused when conversing with instructors of complicated courses which embarrasses me. While I believe this is common for all students, Rodriquez makes a valid point when he states, “For their children my parents wanted chances they never had—an easier way” (344). In other words, parents want a better life for their children than the life they had. My parents remind me of this fact quite
I endeavor to obtain excellence in my academics; I wish to exemplify scholarship by constantly asking the whys and hows of things. I will not let a bad grade define who I am as a student or who I will become. I also want to take the most challenging classes available, not because it will look good on my college application, but because I genuinely love the concept of learning and discovering new things. Education doesn’t end after high school, so I plan to attend university, eager to attain the knowledge to better understand my world: and expand it.
Through his eyes, he has experienced two very different worlds which are to be much alike in expectations and attitudes. However, this being not the case, it leads me to question how much the psychological and social effects of being in a remedial class weight on the minds of the adolescent. It is interesting to me that the expectations were so vastly different in a world where we teach our young minds that anyone can achieve with enough effort. Effort itself, was not pressed in the lower classes (or at least not expected, let alone strived for), and thus, students suffered from the psychological effects of being placed in a class in which they felt intellectually inferior to those who were in a higher stratum of
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
...hat of a father. The high level of sophistication and education in his teachers (factors he considers missing in his parents) makes him respect them much. The scholarship boy wishes his parents were exactly like the teachers (Rodriguez 16). Graff, on the other hand, critiques teachers. In his opinion, many literature teachers have lost touch with the passion for literature and are obsessed with professionalism, their journy to advance their careers and their fascination with analysis and theory (Graff 26).
In the novel, What the Best College Students Do written by Ken Bain, we learn about how college student goes through rough times in their college life. The author brings up a common issue that occurs in the academic life of college students. It is the need of having self confidence and self esteem. Bain believes that if a student loves and admires themselves it will give the student a better advantage of having a well-being lifestyle than all their other peers that are having difficulties. Many college students focus mainly on their grades other than the knowledges that they are learning in class. The idea of having perfect grades in all the subjects are limiting the students from approaching activities that they might be interested.
Richard Rodriguez?s essay, Hunger of Memory, narrates the course of his educational career. Rodriguez tells of the unenthusiastic and disheartening factors that he had to endure along with his education such as isolation and lack of innovation. It becomes apparent that Rodriguez believes that only a select few go through the awful experiences that he underwent. But actually the contrary is true. The majority of students do go through the ?long, unglamorous, and demeaning process? of education, but for different reasons (Rodriguez, 68). Instead of pursuing education for the sake of learning, they pursue education for the sake of job placement.
People who work hard for their goals experience true happiness. True happiness is the feeling you get when you try to complete your ultimate aim in life. People in the pursuit of education experience this greatly because they are striving to pass their classes to succeed academically. Anthony writes, “No doubt some of the experience I have in my relationships are part of what is good about them, part of what makes the relationship contribute to my flourishing, to what is good in my life” (Kwame Anthony Appiah 450). The experience, he feels during a relationship is what makes him happy in life not the relationship itself. This is similar to how education experience works because many people enjoy the hard work they put into their academics rather than the grades they receive. Dewey believed that education was a way for someone to complete their goal in life. He states, “If a few words are added upon the topic of education, it is only for the sake of suggesting that the educative process is all one with moral process, since the latter is a continuous passage of experience from worse to better” (John Dewey 401). Dewey is explaining that the experience of education allows people to develop their moral process and happiness. Dewey’s ideas on education combined with Anthony’s views on happiness support the idea that one’s experience in education directly influences their happiness. In short, the pursuit of education is an
For example, Rodriguez reveals that all this time he was not learning he was resembling his teachers actions in order to learn. He was not accomplishing knowledge or anything at all. He was only memorizing on how to be the teachers rather than himself. He had no self identity of his own how could he if he enjoyed the fact he got to use the behaviors of his teachers and apply them to himself. To him being like his teachers was a great victory that he had won because he look up to them so much that he idolized them. He would even stay after school “ to get help”, from the teachers, but in reality he only wanted their full undivided attention “I began by intimidating their accents, using their diction, trusting their every direction. The very first facts they dispensed, I grasped with awe. Any book they told me to read , I read- then waited for them to tell me which books I enjoyed. Their every causal opinion I came to adopt and to trumpet when I returned home” (Rodriguez 198). Knowledge is being accessed by mocking the teacher 's identity in order to grasp their knowledge. Rodriguez then uses it as his own way of learning, but he is only reflecting the teacher knowledge and not his. He believes the teachers are the only ones who are able to give him an education and better him. However he lacks knowledge because he is only obtaining his teacher’s level of knowledge he is not going beyond and seeing what in reality he is capable of
Academic excellence is the primary desire of every parent and student. However, there are varying perceptions of the role of education in the life of and individual. According to the survey carried out on the perception of the role of education in the life of an individual, it was established that eight out of ten students were of the view that they pursued education for the purpose of economic gains. Additionally, six out of ten students viewed education as serving the purpose of broadening their view and perceptions in life. Accordingly, the widening of the will help them rethink their ideas and values. This essay will focus on the reasons why students attend college and barriers to education in light of the book Rereading America.
In Rodriguez’s essay, The Achievement of Desire, Rodriguez illustrates the characteristics of an automaton, thus confirming Freire’s views regarding the banking concept. Despite his classification as a "scholarship boy", Rodriguez lacked his own point of view and confidence, which led him to be dominated by his teachers and his books. In the eyes of Paulo Frerie, Rodriguez would be considered a receptacle. He was filled not only with his teacher’s information, but also with knowledge obtained from his reading of "important" books. Rodriguez is a classic student of the banking system.
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.
In “The Achievement of Desire,” Richard Rodriguez references Richard Hoggart’s book The Uses of Literacy in order to explain his experience and struggles as a student by comparing his story to Hoggart’s story. Rodriguez introduces Hoggart’s personal experience in order to justify his behavior at home and school. Rodriguez considers himself to be a “scholarship boy” because according to Hoggart, a “scholarship boy” is the student that is a good student but a bad son (518). At a young age, Rodriguez began to develop ideas and costume different from the ones his parents taught him; Rodriguez indifference to the Hispanic culture caused him to physically and mentally alienate from his family members (515). Hoggart did not have Mexican descendants but he still alienated himself from his family, as he believed he had to accustom to a life in school that did not match his life as a son (518).
“Achievement of Desire”, an essay written by Richard Rodriguez, which describes the struggle a boy, has to go through to balance the life of academics and the life of a middle class family. As a son Rodriguez sees the illiteracy off his parents, and is embarrassed of it, and as a student Rodriguez sees the person that he wants to be, a teacher, a person of authority and person of knowledge. Rodriguez tells his personal story of education, family, culture and the way he is torn in-between it all. In this essay, Rodriguez uses the term of a of a “Scholarship boy” meaning a “good student” and “troubled son”, he believes that being a scholarship boy makes him feel separation and isolation as he goes further in his education and Rodriguez insist that the feelings of separation and isolation are universal feeling.
This essay attempts to discuss the competing aims of education whether they be academic, vocational or even purely enabling students to be virtuous. Marples (2010), “What is Education for?”, and Hand (2010), “What should go on the Curriculum?” provide much of the initial insight into the formation of my personal view on the competing aims of education
The “roots” of education, meaning actually going to school, studying, making great grades, and giving it your best, are bitter and tiring. Those students that have not yet become uninterested in learning are the ones that have seen past the strife in the beginning and have the rewarding end in mind.