Rodriguez’s chapter “The Achievement to Desire” is basically a reflection of his past through a critical standpoint. Rodriguez was able to make his essay extremely able to be related to, and ultimately forced me to look at my past education history through critical eyes. Basically, Rodriguez is trying to show just how much he moved away from his primary discourse. He learned the English language and rarely spoke Spanish, he did not follow the cultural norms of a Hispanic family (the close-knit family), and he expressed the embarrassment that he had for his parents because they were not educated like his teachers, the people he looked up to. Education successfully moved Rodriguez away from his primary discourse into new secondary ones, those that required much reading and studying. These secondary discourses seemed to teach him that imitation was the key to a successful life (mushfaking). In his primary education, Rodriguez realized that he really had not achieved anything because his thinking skills had never grown from the point of looking past “what the book says.” In short, Rodriguez was saying that “primary education is imitation” (448).

In order to receive what Gee called meta-knowledge, one must keep in touch with his primary discourse and those values, beliefs, and culture that were taught at a young age while somewhat challenging them with what is learned in school. In Rodriguez’s case, his parents almost seemed to want him to give up his culture (and Discourse) in order to become a better individual, one that is educated. However, while trying to move into his secondary discourse, Rodriguez feels as though he is alone, he only hears silence in his new world filled with reading, studying, and learning. The complex relationship and loss of ties that Rodriguez experiences with his parents shows just how hard it is to grow up and expand out from the primary discourse to new secondary ones. As Rodriguez proved, after the secondary discourse is fully achieved, one reflects back on their past with a sense of longing, mainly because that primary discourse was much easier to fit into than those new ones trying to be taken on.

Gee Reflective Blog

When thinking about Gee’s interpretation of Primary and Secondary Discourses, I continued to picture a child growing up with their family while leaning their specific values, beliefs, languages, etc. Then, this child begins school and becoming involved in other activities where they will learn new ideas, cultures, ways of speaking, and new ways of thinking. The movement from a primary discourse to a secondary one can be extremely difficult for some to acquire, especially because the child will have to conform his social practices to fit in with those he is around.

After reading Dr. Unterweger’s blog about Gee, I pictured myself fitting into my chosen field of teaching history at the middle/high school level. From the get go, I always knew I was going to be a teacher because my mom was one. Through hearing the many discussions about teaching between her n the rest of my family, I came to realize that I wanted to do that same job as her (learned through primary discourse.) However, I think it is important to add that she always stressed (even to this day) not to work for MPS so her disbelief in the school system has rubbed off on me.

Here at UWM, students are taught many education methods including how to have classroom control, what to teach and how to teach it, child psychology (understanding how a child learns), and everything else necessary to work in the education field. Upon my fifth year of school, I will finally have the chance to do my student teaching where I will be able to take on the role of being a teacher. This will be my first hands on experience of physically teaching students lesson plans that I created myself. Furthermore, I will use the teacher that I am working with as a model of how he/she creates new lesson plans uses classroom control, and he/she creates a comfortable classroom environment for the students. After graduating from college, I will have learned how to run a disciplined, successful classroom and once I find a job working in a school to truly take on the discourse, I will have to conform the way I dress, behave, talk, and carry myself in a manner that students will respect. The meta-knowledge that I learned in college will play a huge role in how am able to teach my future students. However, first-hand experience and observation (acquisition) will also play a role in how I teach. By being emerged in the school setting and seeing how other teachers behave and run their own classrooms, I will learn how to run my own classroom in order to both fit in and be successful.