Tiffany

-Tiffany Rutecki

I think the purpose of Rodrigues sharing his educational experiences was because even though English was not his first language, he still managed to be successful. “The boy who first entered a classroom barely able to speak English twenty years later concluded his studies in the stately quiet of the reading room in the British Museum… but that only make clear how far he has moved from his past. He used education to remake himself” (431). He has made so many achievements throughout his life. He came from being a little boy who did not know English very well to a man who was very successful. When he did not believe in himself his teachers believe in him. Although he did not really understand what most of the books he read, he did not let that stop him from reading more books. Later he realized that he had to choose between his family and education. He began to become embarrassed of his parents. “He goes home and sees in his parents a way of life not only different but stankly opposed to that of the classroom” (433). He loves his family but realize he has to change his life to become educated. He was faced with the fact that his parents did not I have the same level of education in English as he did. They could read and write in Spanish, but not so much in English. His parents wanted to make sure he got a good education and was very successful in life. “Tightening the irony into a knot was the knowledge that my parents were always behind me. They made success possible” (437). He wanted so badly for his teachers to like him that it made him wore en harder. Seems he went in this direction because he had nowhere else to go. His parents were examples of “little to no education” in English and the things he needed to learn to be successful he could not learn from his parents.

I think that Rodriguez is teaching a lot about education with this article. He teachers that I you really want to get an education then you can all it takes is hard work and dedication. No matter the obstacles life gives you there is always a way to overcome them. Although he didn’t really have help from his parents, he had their support and encouragement.

There are a lot of connections between Gere and Rodriguez’s articles. They both talk about how important education is. In Gere article the Women’s writing workshop talked about helping each other. “They offer one another encouragement as well as criticism and suggest revisions” (Gere, 76). The student in Rodriguez’s article got a lot of criticism from his teachers. They both talked about getting an education not only from teacher, but from everyday life. In Gene article there was two different groups who wrote and learned from each other and things they did on a day to day bases outside of a classroom.