ks of Western Civilization" (634). The professors list of one hundred books was also found in the newspaper. Along with the list, the professor claimed that, "More than anything else in my life, these books have made me all that I am" (634). Rodriguez read the editorial and immediately after dedicated the next few months to reading every single book on the professors list. This act of desperation exhibited how much influence Rodriguezs teachers and books had on his education. He read the books thinking that the professors list would define his life as well, he did not realize that each person has their own list of works that reveal individual existences. Rodriguezs reading of the professors books relates to the banking method because the retired teacher was depositing his thoughts, or in this case his choice books into Rodriguez.As a scholarship boy, Rodriguez conformed to the banking concept in other ways as well. According to Rodriguez, "The scholarship boy is a very bad student. He is a great mimic, a collector of thoughts, not a thinker..." (635). This not only describes Rodriguez; it also illustrates the theory of the banking system. In the banking system Freire states that, "The student records, memorizes, and repeats without perceiving what the significance is" (Freire 349). Freire believed that students did not think on their own, they simply memorized information divulged to them. This belief parallels Rodriguez and the memorized information he retained from the books he read. When Rodriguez read his books, he was like a robot. He did not read to understand or interpret the books, he read for the soul purpose of saying that he had read that book. "Most books," Rodriguez confesses, "I barely understood. While reading Platos Republic, I needed to keep looking at the book jacket comments to remind myself what the text was about. And by the time I reached the last work, relieved, I convinced myself that I had read...
