Aria and Teaching Multilingual Children

 The first article for this week titled “Aria,” by Richard Rodrigues is a firsthand account from the author about his assimilation into America and into using what he calls the “public language.” He talks about his silence in first grade due to be unfamiliar with the English language until several nuns from his school went to his home and encouraged the family to speak English at home to help the children learn the language. The family agrees and his teachers can see his progress. The flipside to this assimilation is the changes he sees within his family because they no longer have their “private language.” His connection to the Hispanic culture suffered because of him becoming more Americanized.  

While the first reading was from a personal perspective, the article written by Collier called “Teaching Multilingual Children” is more of a how to for teachers on helping bilingual students in their classrooms. She focuses on being more inclusive in the classroom when it comes to English language learners. She broke the teaching down into seven points: 

1. Be aware that children use first language acquisition strategies for learning or acquiring a second language. 

2. Do not think of yourself as a remedial teacher expected to correct so called “deficiencies” of your students  

3. Don't teach a second language in any way that challenges or seeks to eliminate the first language. 

4. Teach the standard form of English and students’ home language together with an appreciation of dialect difference to create an environment of language recognition in the classroom  

5. Do not forbid young students from code- switching in the classroom. Understand the function code-switching serves 

6. Provide literary development curriculum that is specifically for English language learners. 

7. Provide a balanced and integrated approach to the 4 language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. 

To me the major difference between the two articles was that with Rodrigues’ learning of English, he felt he was made to give up his native culture to assimilate into the American culture and the English language. In Collier’s article, she makes it a point to state that educators should not be trying to eradicate the first language in leu of English. “Students will produce utterances in the classroom in their native dialect. To affirm the home language means that they will not be told that they are wrong, or that what they say is vulgar or bad.”  

A Day Of Action...Not of Silence

Adrianna Murphy wrote the article I decided to read and discuss for this week's blog post. It is called "Rethinking the Day of Silence." Murphy was a teacher for 7th and 8th graders in a rural school in Maryland and she wrote this piece about her experience (and her students' experience) moving from a day of silence to a day of action. A day of silence was to show solidarity with members of the LGBTQ community who often have their voices silenced. Murphy discussed that this was difficult to accomplish because of course, middle schoolers do not do well staying quiet for exceedingly long. More importantly, students did not understand how staying silent would help their friends in the LGBTQ community. After two years of trying for a day of silence, they gave it up and decided as a collective to take a more active approach to making change. The third year they started a day of action. 

The students wanted to know how they could do more for their peers who did not feel safe being out. They mentioned especially that there were kids who were out at school and felt safe there, but they did not feel the same way at home. This brought up a memory of another class I took recently. We were talking about how schools are not allowed to disclose to families that their children identify as anything other than their biological gender if the family is not aware. There was a woman in my class who felt very strongly that this was wrong and that she was very against this. Several of us in the class spoke up and tried to get her to understand that they did not feel safe being their authentic self at home.  

The day of action at Green Acres school brought several workshops for students to engage in. This included Being an Ally, How Words Can Hurt and What You Can Do About It, Discrimination in the Workplace, Coming Out: Teen Issues, Being a Bisexual Mom, Coming Out Being a Gay Dad, Marriage Equality in the News, and Supporting a Lesbian Daughter. The most inspiring events of the day were teenagers coming to the school to discuss issues of bullying and discrimination as well as coming out and acceptance. 

The last part of Murphy's article is about educating parents as well. She discussed how there was push back from some parents."We saw the students addressing moral and ethical issues—how to treat others with respect, how to support peers who may be LGBTQ, how to use inclusive language, and how to stand up against bullying and/or discrimination—but the adults who were most concerned feared that we would focus on the physical aspects of sexuality, namely sex. Of course, nothing was further from the truth, nor would it have been appropriate.” Murphy goes on to say that they should have given parents more notice so they could better understand what was going to be happening on the Day of Action. The following year they included families more by including help from the Family Diversity Project and by holding an Evening of Action session for parents.  

I absolutely love the idea of a day of action for students to better understand and empathize with members of the LGBTQ community. Being silent to stand in solidarity is an okay concept but it does nothing to help anyone.  

Other People's Children

The author, Lisa Delpit starts out by discussing the injustice felt by black educators in regards to interactions with their white co-workers. The struggle for black educators to be heard by their white colleagues with regards to educating children of color is presented using some examples from real educators. With her use of personal experiences of black educators, I was able to really almost feel the frustration felt by these people. Delpit goes on to discuss what she calls “the culture of power.”  

 

1. Issues of power are enacted in the classroom- This has to do with all the power differentials within the classroom. From the power difference between educators and students, to the power difference between the educational system and the school itself.  

 

2. There are codes or rules for participating in power.- This is simply referring to those in power having specific ways of doing things such as speaking or even dressing 

 

3. The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power.- Delpit talks about the dominant power being middle and upper class people, therefore children from those groups do better because they have the tools they need to do well.  

 

4. If you are not already a participant of the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier. - Cultural norms can be learned more easily if they are explicitly taught  

 

5. Those with power are frequently least aware of- or least willing to acknowledge its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence- Someone who has more power is less likely to be aware of that power. Those who do not have power can see that much more clearly.  

 

The biggest takeaway from Delpit to me is at the end of the chapter. She says “children have the right to their own language, their own culture.” She says that it is not the children who need to change themselves to fit the “norm” education model but it is the education system that needs to change to meet their needs. 

 

The TED talk below by Kandice Sumner gives her personal story of being a child of color that was educated by a mostly white school system. She is now a teacher herself in the school system she was "supposed to go to."  

Kandice Sumner TED talk