Talking Points #2 - Aria by Richard Rodriguez

1. "I would have felt much less afraid. I would have trusted them and responding with ease."

- This quote is refering to when the author first walked into the classroom and how his teachers owuld always greet him in English, not Spanish his native language. First of all this shocked me, becuase something as simple as learning a Spanish greeting would have helped him feel more comfortable. It's so important for a student to feel comfortable in his or her own classroom, especially at a young age. This we help the child open up more and become more apt to learning. I know from experience, that if I'm in a class that I'm comfortable in, I'm more likely to raise my hand in class and thus gain more knowledge from the professor.

2. "Fortunately, my teachers were unsentimental about their responsibility. What they understood was that I needed to speak a public language."

- This quote really stood out to me because it really astounded me that his teachers went to his home adn told his parents that they needed to start speaking English. First of all that really shocked me that teachers would do that. I think it definitely would have benifited both the English and Spanish student to be imersed in one anothers languages. In fact, my entire senior project proved that it would be beneficial. They both would have eaasily picked up a good amount of the other language, which would have benifited them in the classroom and in life in gengeral.

3. "The family's quiet was partly due to the fact that, as we children learned more and more English, we shared fewer and fewer words with our parents. Sentences needed to be spoken slowly when a child addressed his mother or father....The young voice, frustrated, would end up saying, "Never mind"--the subject was closed. Dinners would be noisy with the clinking of knives and forks against dishes."

- I picked this quote because, as sad as it is, this is what pretty much happens in American society. When children are younger, they are learning the English language. So they talk and they talk and they talk. I dont think anybody is more chatty than a five or six year old. But as they get older, they learn the language and turn into pre-teens and teens and don't share anything with their parents anymore. Family dinners, if even existent, turn into nothing more than the noises of forks scratching the plates.


Overall I like this reading mostly because it was short. Also because as stated above it kind of circulated around the ideas of my senior project which made it pretty easy to read. It really shocked me that the nuns went to the boys house though, and told his parents to start speaking English around the house. Not only is that an invasion of privacy, but I think its wrong to tell a parent how to teach their kids. Now, Delpit says that teachers shouldn't assume that a child is learning something at home, but ehse two teachers take matters into their own hands and completely change this boy's lifestyle. As I said before, if the teachers had learned even a little bit of Spanish, the boy would have felt more comfortable and would have been able to open up more and learn more. Also, changing their home language to English, changed his entire way of life. He didn't know what to call his parents anymore, and worst of all, "the special feeling of closeness at home was diminshed." And for this reason, it made this reading a little sad for me.