Aria-Richard Rodriguez 

   In this article by Richard he is a Spanish speaking young child, and he enters school for the first time, and needs to use English as his school language.  To his surprise one morning the nuns come to the family home, and ask the parent to speak only English.  At an early age, he realized he was an American citizen.

  For me when I read this section my heart become sad “But the special feeling of closeness at home was diminished by then. Gone was the desperate, urgent, intense feeling of being at home; rare was the experience of feeling myself individualized by family intimates.  We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed.  No longer so close; no longer so close; bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness. Neither my older brother nor sister rushed home after school anymore. Nor did I.”  I felt that some part of the family culture and heritage was gone.

“My mother and father for their part, responded differently, as their children spoke to them less. She grew restless, seemed troubled and anxious at the scarcity of words exchanged in the house.  It was she who would question me about my day when I came home from school. She smiled at small talk. She pried at the edges of my sentences to get me to say something more. (What?) She’d join conversations she overheard, but her intrusions often stopped her children’s talking. By contrast, my father seemed reconciled to the new quiet.”  I think of my friend who spoke only French at home until he was 5 years old. Then he started school a need to speak English. Being in his home often the parents would go between English and French. Years later he shared how his French language and heritage was lost. I felt bad for him, because I could tell by his facial expressions he was sad.

Collier- Teaching Multilingual Children

While reading this article I felt that I am not in the classroom, but I still teach children each day.

“crucial point of view of a true appreciation of the different linguistic and cultural values that a student brings into the classroom.”  I see children is my nurse’s office daily, and many times I am calling the parents to come and pick up their child when they are sick.  Many times, I must have the children talk to their parents for me because I do not speak another language.

Many times, the children share with me what is going on in their lives, I have a safe environment in my office.  The share with me about their language and their culture. They inform me when they are taking a trip to visit family in another country. I use this as a teaching moment to remind them about hygiene and practice good sanitation.  I am always being excited for them as they get to travel to see exciting things.  When they return I always get a blow by blow description of the trip and they share with me many pictures.

I know in our classroom the teachers allow creativity, and imagination of all kinds, for our students.  I see many projects by the student and I feel at lot of these are based on the culture or where the come from. It is great that we have a part time secretary that speaks Spanish so she will do any interpretations we need. 

When I sent home anything pertaining to the students medical issues I always try and find it in Spanish for the children’s parent will feel at ease.