While his loss of accent brought himself and his teachers a sense of pride, it brought sorrow to his parents, who saw the change, however gradual, in their child. The author furthermore admits that for children like him, from a non-white American background, the home and school environment are at cultural extremes. This creates conflict that the young Rodriguez handled by conforming to his school environment. In effect he replaced the importance and roles of his parents in his life with those of his teachers, and as such became an academic success.
The author however admits that this is a shameful and lonely type of success. Nonetheless, it is a success that the author has chosen to conform to. Instead of therefore being successful because he has been educated, Rodriguez emphasizes that his success was chosen. He worked towards academic success with great passion, because this is what he wanted. In contrast to the popular belief that success and education are synonymous, the majority of school children, and particularly those from disadvantaged households, tend to be as unsuccessful after schooling as they were before. This is precisely so because they are submitted to a certain expectation in their school environment, and expect to be treated in the same way once they grow up.
Conformity has worked well for Rodriguez, but at a price. His culture was in no way promoted or honored by his school environment, and society expects his parents to be proud. Instead, the author appears to be almost haunted by a sense of betrayal that shames him even while he experiences the lonely accolades of success.
The education of Malcolm X relates to Gatto's article in quite a different way. Indeed, he serves as an example that education can be self-driven and entirely detached from formal schooling. While society expects him to be educated at the finest institutions, the author in fact began the most important and most voluminous part of his education in
It was through being self-driven towards the goal of written communication that the author began to educate himself.
Malcolm X had as his goal clear communication with the intellectuals and politicians of the nation. He could do this only by himself being educated, or at least having the appearance of education. The author was able to do this by targeting books that could teach him what he wanted instead of conforming to a consensual ideal of what should be taught. Through his self-education, Malcolm X was therefore able to change the world around him not only for himself, but for a large oppressed sector of his society. As such, the author is one of the greatest examples of the fact that school education does not make as much difference as critical thinking and self-motivation.
In terms of conformity and motivation, Mike Rose relates his interesting experiences at school, where he was mistakenly placed into the wrong level of class. These classes were taught by ineffective teachers who were allowed into a system that groups students together according to the system's expectations. Under the premise that increased economic opportunity is provided to children who do less well in school, these children were encouraged to apply themselves even less by expecting the least of them. In this way, their future was effectively doomed.
The American school system is ineffective at best and destructive at worst for all but the most self-motivated and individually resilient among students. This is a crisis that needs attention of the future of humanity is to be secured.
Bibliography
Cremin, Lawrence a. (1957). Horace Mann and the 19th century Education Reform movement. http://www-scf.usc.edu/~clarkjen/Horace%20Mann.htm
Gatto, John Taylor. (2003). Against School. http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm
Malcolm X Learning to Read. http://www-scf.usc.edu/~clarkjen/Malcolm%20X.doc
Rodriguez, Richard. The Achievement of Desire. http://www-scf.usc.edu/~clarkjen/Richard%20Rodriguez.doc
Rose, Mike. "I Just Wanna Be Average." http://www-scf.usc.edu/~clarkjen/Mike%20Rose.doc
