Richard Rodriguez is a great example of what it is like to be part of the students who belong to the schooled category. Rodriguez himself is one of the many students that lacked the ability to critically think. Rodriguez read and read books that his teacher once mentioned, but still didn’t feel smart. Being a "scholarship boy" Rodriguez was unable to critically think for himself and was unable to capture and completely understand what he was reading. "I lacked a point of view when I read." (Rodriguez 202) Not only did this make him feel like he wasn’t smart but also made him feel insecure about himself.So insecure that many times, after reading a book, he would look up reviews and comments on what people thought of the book because he believed…
* Always a motive by Dan Ross shows the struggle of a man to prove his innocence despite strong evidence against him. The investigating officer does not understand him, and he is presumed guilty. The theme is portrayed that individuals may take surprising actions that are not known by others. This theme is effectively reviled through its characters, and title.…
Rodriguez warns us through his own experiences. Telling us how in trying to become just like his professors by mimicking what they did and reading the recommended reading and doing as told, but in just doing this he didn’t learn to think for himself. He also regrets coming home and keeping private the things he was being taught, for in doing so he struggled to express himself concisely and efficiently. He lastly told how in keeping himself from everyone to study, helped him get good grades ,but cost him relationships and the ability to relate to others.…
"A Lifestyle" by Fernando Sorrentino entertains the reader with its humorous story of a young bank employee who gets locked in his apartment. He contacts a locksmith to open the door for him, but the locksmith finds out that he does not have any money with him to pay for the service. He informs the young man that the rules that govern his trade will not allow him to open the door without payment. The young tries other locksmiths only to find that he has been blacklisted. He tries calling his girlfriend who does not believe him and refuses to help. He also tries employees at his bank, but they either don't believe his story or think he is silly for allowing this to happen. After his phone is shut off, he attempts to throw messages off…
Second, the relationships the authors had with their teachers were different. Rodriguez’s relationship with his teachers was one that really helped him succeed. Rodriguez’s teachers were dedicated to him and wanted to give him all the information he asked. Richard took advantage of his teacher’s knowledge by always asking questions. He…
Rodriguez found reading more of a central activity than leisure. It took one on one sessions, personally with the teacher so he can develop a better understanding. For six months he gradually processed communication between the reader and the writer through the books. Therefore, when he read, it started to respond to him on a more personal level. It got to the point that if he read a book and understood it, it was like a friend. If he read a book and did not understand it, he would avoid it.…
Rodriguez reflects on a poignant memory from his childhood in which he and his friend Tino…
This book made me realize that a good education can take you a long way. Education soon leads to work which is gifted with a payroll. Francisco knows the value of education and works hard on getting good grades so that he can make money and help his family pay for their needs.…
Man’s Search for Meaning is written by Victor Frankl, an Auschwitz Holocaust survivor. The book is divided into two sections that consist of an autobiography and a logo-therapy section. During the autobiography section Mr. Frankl takes the reader through his time at the Auschwitz camp and gives his perspective of what happened as a camp prisoner and a psychiatrist. Viktor Frankl discusses concepts of suffering, humanity, spirituality, choices, social factors, and meaning to life. Frankl thoroughly examines these concepts through the eyes of someone who lived through one of the worst concentration work camps and then explains how these concepts merge with his own theory of counseling, logo-therapy. Logo-therapy is based on a foundation of Existentialism,…
Ambition; an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honour, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment…
Rodriguez begins to become more involved in his classroom by his new grip on the English language. He shares fewer and fewer words with his mother and father. His tone now transforms into guilt. As Rodriguez's public language becomes more fluent, he forgets how to speak Spanish. "I would have been happier about my public success had I not recalled, sometimes, what it had been like earlier, when my family conveyed…
As a young girl growing up in Haiti, I experienced first hand that the path my parents chose for themselves was not the life that I wanted for myself. I was able to relate closely to Richard Rodriguez in “The Achievement Desire” because he faced many struggles that I too faced as a young girl. My parents always pressured me to work hard at school, I was always suppose to have my homework for Monday done by Friday night, which made me so mad at my parents. Just like Rodriguez was furious at his parents for forcing him into English classes, which started his separation from his parents. “The Achievement Desire” written by Richard Rodriguez is a story of a man who found himself through education. His whole life he was eager to read books and learn more . He was the kid in class who always raised his hand, and would always be caught reading a book at home all by himself. He came from a middle class Mexican family that had struggled to make it to where they were. His parents were somewhat educated, but worked hard to make a living, similar to mine. His siblings were also smart, but Richard always felt like he was by himself. He had great parents but hints that there was never that special bond between them. His family and school were two different worlds that he had to learn to live with. His values of family and education, which I am also able to relate to along with his inner struggle to separate from the life led by his parents. throughout the essay, I will be discussing the similarities and differences Rodriguez and I shared, such as, our immigrants parents, the language barrier between ourselves and our parents, and wanting a better life for ourselves…
Ambition is usually seen as the primary tool to promote achievement. In the novel Frankenstein, there are three outstanding examples of people with ambitions, and each person achieves their goal in a different way. Mary Shelley uses the journeys of Robert Walton, Frankenstein, and the creature to warn against ambition for the purposes of self-gratification, as they ultimately lead to the detriment of the lives of others.…
While reading “Achievement of Desire”, I came across the idea that the self hated that Rodriguez and I felt is not innate. Someone is teaching us, people of color, that our accent, parents, origin is wrong and only by assimilation and conforming to a Eurocentric idea of professional will we become accepted. In the media, especially growing up I saw professional individuals of color as exceptions to the rule, however an abundance of white professionals. Growing up, all the professionals that I had come across were mostly white and it soon made me feel like people of color were to work blue collar jobs, unless you were a genius. One example of this is in elementary school every teacher, I had up until sixth grade was a white. Being that they were the first professionals that I was around for most of my day and being taught by them, I…
Napoleon Bonaparte once said: “Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. It all depends on the principles which direct them.” From this quote, one can see that great ambition is crucial to experience success whether it is achieved in an honest fashion, or a morally questionable one. In the novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (ADK) and the movie School Ties (ST) a strong sense of ambition is one of the driving topics for the plot and the development of many characters. For example, one can see that Duddy will do anything to achieve his dreams, even if that means betraying his friends or taking part in illegal activities. Although the amount of ambition in both works is very prominent, too much ambition can prove to be detrimental in many ways, and it is evident that ambition proves to be more severe in ST because many characters struggled with common morals and were affected by the mental destruction that comes along with too much ambition.…