Why Can't she Remember that? by Terry Meier

“At one point when the teacher asked, “how many mittens are there?” Gabriela the bilingual puertorican sitting next to me turned and asked me in an exasperated tone “why can’t she remember that?”(4). 

            Gabriela’s teacher had read the book a couple of times already and all the times that she had read the book she would ask the same question, “How many mittens are there?” The teacher’s purpose here was to see if her students were paying attention. Clearly Gabriela was paying attention because she noticed that she would ask the same thing each time, but Gabriela still didn't answer her question even if she knew what the answer was.  I think that it was in fact very clever of Gabriela to catch on what the teacher kept on repeating and ask why it was that she couldn't remember the answer when the answer was right in front of her.

“Many children in multicultural, multilingual classrooms are not used to an adult asking them questions for which it is obvious that the adult already knows”(4).

            Coming from a Hispanic family I don’t recall memories of my mother or father asking me questions that they already knew. I think that this is because parents or family members assume that we know the obvious.  My parents wouldn't have to ask me constantly how many mittens I need to go outside and play in the snow because I already knew that I needed two because I have two hands. In Gabriela’s case she clearly knew how many mittens there were because the picture showed her, so she didn't think that she should have  been asked that because adults in her life didn't tend to ask her obvious questions.

The teacher’s likely assumption in this case was that Gabriela didn't know the answer to the question, possibly leading to the conclusion that she needed more simplified instruction or perhaps more English language vocabulary, rather than more interesting questions”(4).

            From my own experience I know that a child not answering to a question doesn't mean that he or she doesn't understand what the teacher is saying. Many of the times they don’t answer because they are shy or just don’t feel like answering an obvious question like in this case with Gabriela. When the teacher sees that a child is not answering a question I don’t think that they should assume that it’s because they need more English vocabulary if the child is bilingual. I think that the teacher should try to ask the question differently make it more interesting for the child so that the child can be motivated to answer what the teacher is asking.

I think that this picture connects with this because many times  children have so many things to say but they chose not to and this is not because they don’t understand what the teacher is saying or asking it’s because they are not confident enough to say what they actually want to say.

Another link that I found that goes with this article is this video about a teacher who teaches a classroom with multicultural and multilingual children.

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/multi-language-classroom