"Aria"

 Aria 

By Richard Rodriguez.

    I could not agree more with this text because what it says is true. I have realized that this happens very often with families that are learning a second language, because as the text mentions, the priority for parents is that their children learn the language. I have a connection with this because I have a very clear example of this, most of my cousins were born here in this country, so their parents spoke to them only in English so they would learn it better and not have problems when they had to communicate with other people. Now that they are adults, they have difficulty speaking Spanish and the only way they can communicate with their parents is in English.

    A few days ago, in one of my classes, we were reading something about "having an accent" which is interesting because it mentions that having an accent is not a problem, since everyone has one. When we speak a language we learned or even our own language, another person who speaks our language will notice that we have an accent, depending on what region of our country we are from, if we are from the north and we go to a part of the south, the people who live there will notice that we have an accent. But most of the time, I have noticed that people avoid speaking a learned language for fear of their accent being too noticeable. I just wanted to mention this about the accent, since the text focuses on being a bilingual person. 

    Being bilingual is amazing, but it also takes time. Your brain has to change a lot, you have to think in another language, or if you do it in your own language, then you have to think again, but in the language you learned. But at the same time, it also makes you more creative because it will help to improve mental abilities, helping with problem solving and decisions. Of course I speak from my own experiences. 

link to the article :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_IiVUh8-zacE9Nh_I4Q9Jmaj8_v9ATtR/view

https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2022/04/29/learning-language-changes-your-brain/

Literacy with an attitude

 Literacy with an attitude 

By Finn

    While reading this text, it made me reflect on my own experience when I was in school. When I was in middle school, I think it was in 6th grade. I attended a school where there was a mix of all the examples mentioned in this text. That school had a mix of upper class and middle class students. Some students were there because they had won scholarships, so it was extremely important for these children to get good grades because otherwise they were at risk of being kicked out of the school. I suppose the teacher knew which students had scholarships, because it was clear that they treated them with indifference. In my country, having a scholarship is not like it is in this country. In my country, if a student earns a scholarship, it is because they have very few resources to pay for the school they are attending.

    According to Finn, people from lower class are ignored because they (the education system) do not want them to be as the same level as the upper class. They want people from high class to be even higher to be more successful and that helps them because they have the necessary tools while they are at school. In the other hand, there is people from low class like I mentioned before they are treated with indifference because they do not have the necessary tools at school. He is also trying to say that teachers are the ones who can change this, because literacy is not just learning/teaching how to write or read, it is advocating students for a better education. When we are students, we all want to be treated in the same way, it does not matter if we are upper/middle/low class, I think being classified in a social class should not be a problem anymore.

Here is one quote that I liked

"When rich children get empowering education, nothing changes. But when working-class children get empowering education, you get literacy with an attitude"

I could not be more agree with this, because when they (working class children) get an education like that, they know they are getting more knowledge and there will have the necessary tools that will help them to get a better education. 

TroubleMakers

 Preface + Introduction

By Shalaby

    It is mentioned that there is a higher probability that black students are suspended than their white peers according to the United States Department of Education, since it is due to the data that they gave and that they are considered troublemakers before they start kindergarten. However, these people are the ones from we can learn the most about freedom for all the things that have happened to them. This part of preface, makes us realize how difficult it was for those people before having a freedom, calling them troublemakers just because they had a different skin color or another culture. Here in this article, the author mentions that the students are the ones who have to answer, that the teacher is the one who asks, the adult speaks while the young people have to listen. Reading this, reminded me when we were talking about Delpit in class, and about the example Dr. Bogad gave us with the bottle of water, when she asks if it is allowed to drink water during class, that there are rules that we (students) are supposed to follow. However, what the author is trying to say, is that he/she wants schools to teach children not to think that only some lives are important but all lives are important.

    Reading the article "Introduction, on (in) visibility," I realized how some teacher decide to leave their careers as a teachers, and they say they do it because of the students' behaviors. I do not know whether to agree with this or not. I remember when I was in middle school in my country, I was in music class, but some of my classmates were not paying attention and did not know what we were supposed to do. We were practicing the flute, but there came a time when the class became a complete disaster and the teacher could not keep up. He left the class crying and went straight to the principal's office, saying he did not want to teach anymore. It is true that being a teacher is not easy at all, because sometimes it can be very stressful, difficult in trying to control the attitude of the students and things like these can happened like the one I talked about that happened with my music class teacher, but I feel that no matter how difficult the situation is with the students. the teacher has to know how to control the situation, even their feelings and not say that they do not want to continue teaching anymore because of the attitude that the children/young people have. The author also mentions in one part of this article that you can learns from children/young people and I agree with that. For example, in kindergarten, children teach (teachers) how friendship works. Although there is a lot of talent in individual work, they also teach how unity is when they have to work in a group and they even teach us how with a simple smile you can brighten someone else's day.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mG6TCYnAVbtn5Ned9kfZUco2d50bIrht/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rUshv9hpW_q2ylsTA1r86Gh09Ew-1f7m/view

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