ValerieM

I believe Rodriguez’s purpose in sharing his educational experience with us serves as a warning. I think he wanted to warn us not to allow education to culturally separate us from our families, and not allowing it to change us as a person or our culture, and our heritage, only allowing education to take preeminence in its proper place in our life.  Rodriguez was a child who spoke Spanish as the dominant language in his home while learning English outside the home. Before he learned to speak English he was afraid to participate in class, but when he learned English he was eager to learn and it caused him to become alienated from his family.  I believe this caused him to live in two separate worlds at the same time dealing with two separate classes of people. His mother would tell him not to write in the books because she would sell them when school was over verses the teacher telling you the same thing but the purpose was different and he valued what his teacher said verses his mother (p.440).

Here is what I think Rodriguez is telling us about education. “Education is a long, unglamorous, even demeaning process- a nurturing never natural to the person one was before one enters a classroom”. Education does change people, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the worse (p. 446). A person may lose everything to gain an education, Rodriguez educations did not come without a cost. It cost him his family, friends and heritage.  Rodriguez gained the literacy of becoming bilingual which is something he argues with because it reflects his own experience.

I have gain quite a bit from reading this article; it has taught me not to throw away my culture, family and heritage to get ahead in life. I think he entitled this essay, “The Achievement of Desire” because he finally got what he was striving to get, “an education” and he had a desire for his past, which is why I think the entitled this essay what it is.

I believe the connections between Gere and Rodriguez is that of getting as much learning possible. One can never learn too much, but I think its how one go about getting it is where the problem lies. Although Gere speaks on the extracurricular or the additional experience needed to be a successful writer whereas Rodriguez thinks that’s an individual doesn’t need to be bilingual to be successful.