Blog #7: Rodriguez "Aria", Collier "Teaching Multilingual Children"

Authors' Arguments:
In "Aria" by Richard Rodriguez, he talks about how as a child he was forced to assimilate into the english speaking American culture, and thus it changed his private home life. He argues that this was worth it, for it gave him the key skills needed to succeed in the culture he lived in.

In "Teaching Multilingual Children" by Virginia Collier, it seems she asserts the benefits of teaching children in their primary languages. She believes that to truly learn, a student must absorb a curriculum through their strongest pathway of communication.

These two views seem to butt heads, Rodriguez arguing that letting go off some personal culture presents a rise to the challenge scenario, while Collier seems to suggest that students are able to learn and succeeded regardless of assimilation, so long as material is provided that they can understand.

Passages of Interest:
1) It seems that having read Delpit early on in this course, I have clung to the ideas of personal culture and using codes in that context to succeed. In Rodriguez's piece I found a paragraph that seemed to speak completely about the benefits of operating such culture of power codes:

"Weeks after, it happened: One day in school I raised my hand to volunteer an answer. I spoke out in a loud voice. And I did not think it remarkable when the entire class understood. That day, I moved very far from the disadvantaged child I had been only days earlier. The belief, the calming assurance that I belonged in public, had at last taken hold."

2) Even though Rodriguez seems to accept his "sacrifice", even to find much success in it, the piece seems to allude a small bit of sadness. It almost seems like an inevitable loss though. The following passage reminded me of someone who had grown up. By taking on responsibilty we all make the transition to adulthood. It is what we need to do to succeed. However, we can still look back longingly at children playing. We remember what it is like, but know we can not go back. This passage gave that feeling:

"Hearing a Spanish-speaking family walking behind me, I turned to look. I smiled for an instant, before my glance found the Hispanic-looking faces of strangers in the crowd going by."

This shows that Rodriguez does not hate his former culture, but rather has transitioned.

3) Virginia Collier's piece was not as easily digested as Rodriguez's. Not that it didn't have it's points, but it was just a very dry style of writing. One thing that I did like was the following:

"Teachers must be creative and flexible, serve as a catalyst for discovery as students learn to operate effectively in their multiple worlds, be able to mediate and resolve intercultural conficts, keep students on task, and serve as a support base. "Teaching is complicated, but also rewardingm in ways that many other jobs can never be. You have a chance to interact daily with live, growing, thinking maturing human beings, and that time is special, despite the complications of managing a bureaucratized, overcrowded class room or overtested, underchallenged students"

Discussion:

As I have said in my past posts, my mindset has been popped from one side of a teaching style continuity to the other with each new reading. I think the quite from Collier above takes a direct knock at Rodriguez's argument. Where it talks about bureacratized classrooms and overtesting. However Rodriguez piece acts as a counter argument. I think both readings work well together. 

I would agree mostly with Rodriguez. I think codes of power need to be explicitly taught, but the only difference is I don't think they should be mutually exclusive to personal identity and culture. It seems like things went a little too far in his case. Too much application of codes of power will lead to a continuation of Mott Havens, but lack of application will do that also. I think as future teachers it is our responsibility to our potential students to pack our heads with knowledge and experience. 

In class we talked about these assets as tools by which we will help build a future for those we will be instructing. Through reading and expanding our toolkit, we have to use all of our experiences. If we rely soley on our hammers, we wont be able to unscrew screws, but if we only use our screwdriver we can't drive in nails.