FNED 246 Olivia Tetreault

     While reading Aria  written by Richard Rodriguez, there is a significant focal point on the way that assimilation has had an impact on his life, even outside of the classroom.  Those who are bilingual or support bilingual education push that students will miss out on a large portion of information due to language gaps.  These students start to feel that their home language is meant to be used privately, rather than recognizing their language skills as being beneficial to their education.  While language barriers hindered some parts of their education, there is also a lack of awareness on how it can make a child feel in the classroom.  To those who don't have access to their language in school will start to feel a disconnect from the room and feel shameful to speak it themselves.  These students, similarly to Rodriguez, felt that they had a private and public identity that was boxed off based off of what language they felt they could use....

     The purpose of Finns reading was to address the differences in not only teaching styles but also social differences that vary based on financially higher schools. His main focus regarded how those of middle and working level classes don't have enough power and necessary knowledge to change the way the school system prepares students to succeed in different financial brackets. There is emphasis on the fact that students are only being taught to fit into the same system that they are taught in, while those with higher education will not use their power to make changes, due to being comfortable with how it operates already. The energy that is required to make these changes must come from those who will benefit from the efforts, but those who want the changes are lacking the necessary skills. Finn also puts a lot of focus on the need for teachers to understand and educate students on how they can use their education and benefit from it.       Th...