REFLECTION on Aria

Aria

By: Richard Rodriguez

This is me and Allison, a student I tutored for
a year and a half at
Reservoir Ave Elementary school. 

            As soon as a read this piece I thought of my Student Learning Placement and the tutoring I have done before in the Providence School System. I starting getting involved volunteering in Providence Schools when I was a freshman in High School. I grew up and went to school in North Kingstown, RI. In case you are not familiar with North Kingstown, the High School I attended consisted of about 1,700 students, of those students I could probably count on 2 hands the number of students who were not white. So when I was first in the Providence school system, I was a bit surprised to say the least. An overwhelming majority of the students did not speak English at home and English was not their first language.

This is true in my Service Learning Placement at Asa Messer as well. I am in an ESL first grade classroom there. Surprisingly, most of the students spoke English in their classroom and I had no problem speaking to any of the students. However the cultural differences were brought to my attention in a different way. Upon entering the classroom the teacher had to run out to show another volunteer to their classroom, and I was alone with 28 first graders eager to ask me questions. I was a little nervous, but welcomed the opportunity. I called on one little girl, who did not have a question but rather a comment, she said to me, “Your skin is the same color as hers!” and as she said it she pointed to the only other white girl in the room. I told the student she was correct and started answering more questions and was trying to keep the students I had just met from getting too rowdy. But I was doing that, I looked across the classroom of kids, that student was right, including me there were 3 white people in the classroom, one little girl and one little boy. I was in the minority. As I worked with a total of 6 students in small groups when I was there I noticed both the differences and similarities between this first grade class and my own first grade class. Although there were many significant differences, the language, the number of students in the classroom, and the teaching styles being some of them, I realized something more important. That these students did not need different things than I did in the first grade, they just need to be taught the same things in a different way. Like Rodriguez says in this piece, “Without question, it would have pleased me to hear my teachers address me in Spanish when I entered the classroom. I would have felt much less afraid.”  When I entered my classes all throughout school I was always addressed by the correct name, with the correct pronunciation, the way I was addressed at home. I never was afraid or had to worry, and was always made to feel comfortable. 

Share with the class:

Something that I want to remember and keep with me for tutoring, service learning, and teaching someday is to remember to accommodate all students and make them feel comfortable with learning. That can be as simple as learning a  to pronounce a child’s name correctly, like Dr. Bogad made sure of with us, because that can make all the difference.