Report on richard rodriguez's the achievement of desire

The Scholarship Boy In the excerpt “ The Achievement of Desire”, derived from the autobiography “ Hunger of Memory”, Richard Rodriguez recounts his academic achievements from childhood to adulthood while also comparing it to that of his reclusiveness from his family. In the beginning of the excerpt, Rodriguez tells his readers about his childhood as a boy eager to learn, hungry for knowledge. He describes himself as a “ scholarship boy”, explaining it as, “ a certain kind of scholarship boy. Always successful, I was always unconfident. Exhilarated by my progress. Sad. I became the prized student – anxious and eager to learn… an imitative and unoriginal pupil.” Rodriguez had the skill of a sponge, absorbing information and then when tested, could return the original idea, but not his point of view on anything. He became aware of the separation between school and his family. He was embarrassed of his parents lack of education. He had to separate the two, in doing so, he had to distance himself from his family in order to succeed academically.

Rodriguez had chosen his books and studies over anything else, including family. Later in life when he was older, he came to regret this decision and eventually found his way back to the enjoyment of family, but first FerrisRodriguez started to loathe spending time in his studies and with books and the academic community he had joined. According to Rodriguez who quotes Richard Hoggart throughout this excerpt, a scholarship boy is someone who “ tends to over-stress the importance of examinations, of the piling-up of knowledge and of received opinions. He discovers a technique of apparent learning, of the acquiring of facts rather than of the handling and use of facts. He learns how to receive a purely literate education, one using only a small part of the personality and challenging only a limited area of his being. He begins to see life as a ladder…” After years spent focusing only on his academic successes, the scholarship boy will long “ for the membership he lost… The nostalgia is the stronger and the more ambiguous because he is really ‘ in quest of his own absconded self yet scared to find it’” Personally, I can’t relate to Rodriguez. I was never a good student. I grew up in a single parent home, and while we had little to no money, we never lived in complete poverty. My single parent was never there emotionally or academically. I never went to my parent for help with my academics and I never got scolded for coming home with straight F’s. For some reason, I loathed school. I attributed it to having social anxiety

Ferris Page 3 and lack of attention from teachers, but I think it was a lot of things that I’ll never begin to explain. Not until eighth grade when I went to a school with a lot less students, more one-on-one with the teachers and a lot less homework load, did I find myself getting A’s and B’s. Even still, me and my family had never gotten along, no matter my grades or academic success. I still struggle in school to this day, but not like I used to. I find myself more driven, having life goals, and seeing school as a stepping stone to achieve these goals. Not until the last couple years of high school did I really realize how far an education could take me in life. That’s when I really buckled down and tried harder. I graduated high school fourth in my class with honors, from getting straight F’s, but it wasn’t me just throwing back unoriginal ideas. It took me hard work because of the fact that I always did the work to my own rhythm, sometimes having to ask the same questions over and over again. A part of me would love to be like Rodriguez, although having ideas of my own is very important to me. Having my own opinions and thoughts of things has won me awards, it has gotten me praise from many people, but more importantly, I can think deeply and profoundly about things I read. There’s nothing like

Ferris Page 4 being able to read something and lose yourself in thought with it. I could even take this excerpt and think deeply about it, about how our system is messed up. How easily it is to lose ourselves in trying to be what authority and society tell us to be, otherwise we won’t succeed. What an awful thing we do to ourselves, creating the same academic standards for everyone. Albert Einstein once said “ If you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will forever think it’s stupid.” Although I have struggled immensely academically, Rodriguez’s excerpt has made me thankful I have always taken the road less travelled and struggled just because my mind didn’t work the way I was told it was supposed to.