Freire would most likely consider Rodriguez a leader that embodies progression because Rodriguez exemplifies the transformation of an evolving student through the experiences of nostalgia, critically analyzing his early education, and teaching his readers through authentic liberation.
Rodriguez is a leader of progression due to his nostalgia being conscious of his past and own consciousness as a young student: the first step of authentic liberation. Rodriguez remembers the isolation he experienced and the separation from his family created by his education. “What most bothered me, however, was the isolation reading required. To console myself for the loneliness I’d feel when I read, I tried reading in a very soft voice”(524). Rodriguez needed to be alone in order to focus on his reading and studying for school. He recalls his feelings of isolation in order to move forward. Identifying his past isolation is the first step towards critical thinking because the problem is recognized. Freire states, “Students, as they are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge”(324). This nostalgia Rodriguez encounters is a segue way towards Rodriguez becoming conscious of his own consciousness. He “grows nostalgic because he remains the uncertain scholar, bright enough to have moved from his past, yet unable to feel easy, a part of a community of academics”(Rodriguez 530). While not only identifying the problem, but accepting his place in the problem, Rodriguez becomes self-aware. He realizes that mimicking his teachers prevents him from gaining his own perspective. Rodriguez remembers himself as a young boy, analyzing himself in comparison to Hoggart’s “scholarship boy,” and describes himself as “the great mimic; a collector of thoughts, not a thinker; the very last person in class who ever feels obliged to have an opinion of his own”(529). Freire classifies the teacher-student relationship as ineffective because the student becomes “”containers… filled by the teacher.”(318). The student in this relationship is not reflecting or critically thinking independently. Freire believes that an individual’s “deepened consciousness” drives the individual to realize that the reality of one’s past will shift with change. After Rodriguez becomes nostalgic, he is able to transform, or grow, moving forward from his mistakes. He has completed his first step in his transformation towards becoming a leader that embodies progression: self-awareness.
According to Freire, “Problem-posing education affirms men and women as beings in the process of becoming- as unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality”(326). Rodriguez, understanding himself as an “uncompleted being,” analyzes his past self and categorizes himself as a “scholarship boy,” a name coined from Hoggart that Rodriguez borrows in order to define himself as an anxious and eager student. While critically analyzing himself, Rodriguez is able to classify himself and learn from his “uncompleted being.” Rodriguez’s self-criticism is also evident in the main claim he presents throughout the entire essay, “A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn’t forget that schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student”(516). He realizes his evolution as a student, or a “scholarship boy,” and therefore, is a leader that embodies progression as he continues evolving.
As a leader of progression, Rodriguez teaches his readers through authentic liberation. The process of action and reflection is evident as Rodriguez defines the “possibility of advancement” while explaining his mother’s education and comparing it to his own. Both Rodriguez and his mother chose to educate themselves in order to advance and develop skills that would benefit their career goals. Rodriguez’s choice of education is the action and the term coined, “possibility of advancement,” is the reflection. Also, at the end of Rodriguez’s essay he states, “…before I turned unafraid to desire the past, and thereby achieved what had eluded me for so long- the end of education”(532). After committing the actions of imitating his teachers and isolating himself from reality, his overall reflection implies that his educational experience is everlasting. “The end” of Rodriguez’s education is not necessarily a literal statement, but is rather said in order to distinguish the future of his education. He is ending his past and moving toward his future, which is progressive. Freire defines authentic liberation as, “the process of humanization- is not another deposit to be made in men”(323). Throughout “The Achievement of Desire,” Rodriguez is not imitating a teachers point of view, instead the value of his own perspective teaches the readers of his essay. “Liberation is praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it”(Freire 322). Rodriguez is transforming as a student, or being, and furthermore transforming his readers as the readers are able to learn from Rodriguez’s reflections.
