Map 3 Authors

The first author I can relate to my placement at Robert L Bailey is Garcia's "Translanguaging".
Translanguaging, unlike Garcia's piece, focuses on how bilingualism can be a good, beneficial thing for children. With the time I've spent at this school, I can see how that would be the case. To start off, in my classroom, there are things called "centers". During these centers, the children can choose dramatic play, math center, drawing center, painting center, and so on and so forth. One particular day, a few weeks back, I was in the "dramatic play" area with a group of children. Two girls in particular, however, stood out to me. For the sake of this, we will call them C and L. L was playing with fake foods and was naming them in Spanish, and giving instructions on how to cook them in Spanish. I'm a non-spanish speaker, and I never even took the language in high school. So, what she was saying was completely foreign to me. She finally started speaking to and addressing me in Spanish, and asked if I understood (this part was in English). I shook my head no, so she promptly turned to the other girl, C, and told her to translate for me.she did, and impeccably so. This girl, at just five years old, had more knowledge of two languages than I did, and it amazed me. Knowing two languages is such a powerful tool; you can separate barriers between people and help to solve potential conflicts in certain regards. That is why this scenario relates to Garcia.

This scenario can also relate to Delpit's "Codes of Power". In that moment, I was surrounded by a group of native Spanish speakers, all of whom could communicate freely amongst themselves. However, I could not get by in the same scenario. Surprisingly, it was the kids who held the power in this scenario, as they held the upper hand in their own language. they helped explain the rules and codes of power to me, so to speak, by having C translate what they were saying into English.

Finally, Herbert also plays a role in this site, and I see examples of what he speaks about every Tuesday that I go. Herbert writes about the topic of segregation, and how many schools are not necessarily integrated. He also talks about how negatively that can affect students born into poor social statuses. I see examples of this when I head into Robert L Bailey, and I'm sure many of you guys do, too. When I walk into my classroom, there is not one white child. There are roughly 22 students in that classroom, and out of all of them, only four are of different ethnicities other than Spanish. Three are African American and one is Asian. It is also very obvious that most of them come from poverty, based on the clothes they wear, the snacks (or lack thereof) that they bring to school, and finally, their backpacks, jackets and lunchboxes (or, again, the lack thereof). These kids, if they are to remain segregated, will never know anything different, and may feel like they will never have the chance to be anything different, and this is what Herbert talks about and something that he actively expresses concern about.