In the text, "The Achievement of Desire" by Richard Rodriguez, the reader is told about the extraordinary educational experience he endures. Rodriguez tackles a psychological battle between education and family. Rodriguez relates what he must undergo to that of a "scholarship boy", which is explained in the book The Uses of Literacy, by Richard Hoggart.
             The term "scholarship boy" consists of a hybrid student who must be fully capable of learning in the classroom as well as home. Both of these environments present the student with obstacles he must surmount. Rodriguez vividly describes one distraction of studying at home, "Mother is ironing, the wireless is on, someone is singing a snatch of song or Father says intermittently whatever comes into his head" (655). Rodriguez decides to evade this learning environment and decides to adapt to another. This environment is that of the classroom in which he tries his hardest to imitate the accents and dictation of the teachers. Rodriguez trusts their every direction and appears to respect them more than his own parents, which is apparent when Rodriguez states, "what mattered to me was that they were not like my teachers" (658). Rodriguez says this because of the mere fact that his parents were an excellent example of what he did not want to become.
             Rodriguez receives a copious amount of support from his parents because they want him to have the chances that they never had. His mother provides most of the encouragement however, while his father feels the opposite at times. Rodriguez' father
             appears to dishearten Rodriguez' academic success and thinks that by concentrating too much on an education he will forget how to do manual labor. This is revealed when Rodriguez states, "It was my father who laughed when I claimed to be tired by reading and writing. It was he who teased me for having soft hands" (660). Rodriguez...