School is unequivocally one of the most valuable resources people can have in pursuing their dreams and achieving future goals. Education can provide an outlet for learning, critical thinking, and inquiring to occur in a positive and accepting milieu. However, learning environments can pose as prisons, holding its victims within the unbreakable walls of exams, homework, and projects. This almost certainly ensures that the once familiar outside becomes only a blur of faded memories and damaged relationships. As students mature into adults, they undergo transformations throughout adolescence. Several ostensible side effects include the hampering of family connections, heritage, and traditions. In Richard Rodriguez’s essay, The Achievement of…show more content… In this poem a college student from the South has been attending a northern University to continue her education. Her experiences at the school have altered her personality and perspective on the world. Subsequently, she finds herself disconnected from her traditions and family values. While sitting and conversing with her grandmother, it becomes clear that their shared ideologies have dissipated and their once lengthy conversations have turned to brevity. Hence, it can be concluded that students utilize education as a resource to engender personal philosophies about life. As this occurs, learners move away from family beliefs and traditions. Modern school institutions are fashioned for people to inquire, think, act, and pursue their ambitions in a customized environment designed to help students reach their full potential. A family, while often essential to teaching ethics and early skills, does not contain the same resource base as schools. Therefore, parents cannot provide the same opportunities and assets to students who dream of success. As Snapping Beans alludes, in traditional southern communities, families tend to be conservative, thus focusing their lives around religion and morals. In a northern school many of the students are more progressive and can be less pious than southern folk. The young girl in the poem was once able to relate to the traditions of the conservative South. However, since her transition to higher education in the North, she cannot readily relate to the old rituals and dogmas as she could in her younger years. This story connotes a sense of separation from family in the respect of cultural and traditional
