Both "Aria and Teaching Multilingual Children are about ELL learners. Although there are some similarities in both articles, I found the the differences to be glaring. Virginia Collier's approach to teaching ELL learners was much more respectful than the approach that Richard Rodriguez teachers used. I felt so sorry for his parents,especially the father. The school took away his voice as a father. He seemed to loose respect for himself and was in many ways no longer the head of the family.
I see this quite often in my school. Parents who speak no or very little English are afraid to come in to school. They do not feel welcome. Undocumented parents are afraid to seek or accept help. I have one ELL class but at the beginning of every school year, I take a survey on to see how many of my students speak another language at home. This year over 50% of my students speak another language instead of English. The percentage is even higher of parents that can not read or write in English. This makes it difficult for students who need help with their school work. This year my principal wants to try and help solve this problem. We have implemented some after school programs to help kids with their homework and we are starting a before school program where students can come before school as well. We have found that many children would like the before school program because the have to go home right after school to take care of younger siblings.
When the Rodriguez family was encouraged to speak more English and less Spanish at home,they lost some of their identity. Rodriguez's parents were ashamed to be caught speaking Spanish to each other. This is a tragedy. My husband is second generation Italian. This same scenario occurred in his family. His great grandparents were teachers in Italy but spoke very little English when they arrived in America. The children were discouraged to speak Italian at home but they were embarrassed to speak in school. My husband's grandmother  was about 12 years old when they came the US and she shared with me on many occasions how lonely she was and how much she hated school. I think that because of this experience, she never taught her children Italian, something that my husband and my children regret. My oldest son lived in Spain. His wife is Spanish and I know that they fully intend to have bilingual children.
As a teacher I try very hard not to be like the teachers in "Aria" and to be the supportive and respectful teacher like Virginia Collier. It is one of the reasons that I am getting my masters degree.