Richard….no answer….Richard….no answer….RICARDO! Yes?
Does this sound familiar? It does to most students who are not white. In Rodriguez’s article, we learn that the school system loses a lot of kids just because they don’t take the time to learn and appreciate their student’s backgrounds. Many times, the students are forced into a new culture that takes time to adjust. Once they adjust, they tend to forget some of their past. This is what happened to Rodriguez, and he said that it actually helped him in the long run.
In my student learning classroom there are many students with names that I have never seen before. Names that I couldn’t even begin to pronounce, mostly because they are spanish names and I don't know how to speak spanish. I asked my teacher before I went to work with my small group how to say their names. She told me that she says them this way. I repeated them back to her and she said that I got it. I then went to the table with the students I was going to work with and called them by name. I was trying to be personal so they would feel as if I cared and wasn't forcing them to be someone else, but one student looked at me and asked if I could say her name a different way. Of course I was embarrassed because I wanted to say them correctly and apologized to the student and agreed to say it another way.
Later, I thought about this situation again. The teacher has called this child the wrong name for almost 6 months. She has converted it to an English name when it is Spanish. Rodriguez talks about how being forced to grow up with an English name helped him, yet he lost part of his background. This is what was happening to this student. She was losing part of her background because the teacher and school system was forcing her to convert to the English ways. I don't know if I agree completely, but Rodriguez would say that this child was on the path to a better life style, one that would be easier in the long run.
The video below shows the frustration that students go through when teachers attempt to pronounce their names when they have names slightly different from the "norm."
In my student learning classroom there are many students with names that I have never seen before. Names that I couldn’t even begin to pronounce, mostly because they are spanish names and I don't know how to speak spanish. I asked my teacher before I went to work with my small group how to say their names. She told me that she says them this way. I repeated them back to her and she said that I got it. I then went to the table with the students I was going to work with and called them by name. I was trying to be personal so they would feel as if I cared and wasn't forcing them to be someone else, but one student looked at me and asked if I could say her name a different way. Of course I was embarrassed because I wanted to say them correctly and apologized to the student and agreed to say it another way.
Later, I thought about this situation again. The teacher has called this child the wrong name for almost 6 months. She has converted it to an English name when it is Spanish. Rodriguez talks about how being forced to grow up with an English name helped him, yet he lost part of his background. This is what was happening to this student. She was losing part of her background because the teacher and school system was forcing her to convert to the English ways. I don't know if I agree completely, but Rodriguez would say that this child was on the path to a better life style, one that would be easier in the long run.
The video below shows the frustration that students go through when teachers attempt to pronounce their names when they have names slightly different from the "norm."
