Ebonics being pushed - idiot educators

[scaeagles]

http://www.sbsun.com/Stories/0,1413,208~12588~2969790,00.html

These "sociologists" are doing these students a huge disservice.

" 'Ebonics is a different language, it's not slang as many believe,' Texeira said. "For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language.' "

That's crap. One more reason why vouchers are needed for those who want to pull their children out of these so-called schools.

[Name]

While I agree that the ebonics thing is crap, the whole story isn't about that, and sounds like a good program.


Len Cooper, who is coordinating the pilot program at the two city schools, said San Bernardino district officials do not plan to incorporate Ebonics into the program.

"Because Ebonics can have a negative stigma, we're not focusing on that,' Cooper said. "We are affirming and recognizing Ebonics through supplemental reading books (for students).'

Beginning in the 2005-06 school year, teachers will receive training on black culture and customs. District curriculum will now include information on the historical, cultural and social impact of blacks in society. Although the program is aimed at black students, other students can choose to participate.

That hardly sounds like a horrible thing for a school to do, actually sounds quite interesting, and I wouldn't mind taking a few of the courses, if I were still in high school.

[Prudence]

First of all, I disagree with the classification of Ebonics as a different language. It's been a few years since I took a linguistics course, but at that time Ebonics was classified as a dialect. The classification of a language pattern as dialect or language is largely political.

This brings me to a quandry -- on the one hand, it hardly seems reasonable to hold special classes in a dialect. Imagine a Maine dialect immersion course! On the other hand, no one tells students they shouldn't communicate in their southern dialect at school.

Still, with a dialect there's an assumption that one is capable of communicating in and understanding "standard" Language X. What comes to mind at the moment are UK dialects. Although I think this might have changed, at least at one time you could be from Northumbria, but if you want to be in broadcasting you'd better learn BBC English.

Now, if it's meant to be strictly supplemental -- such as reading some literary texts in dialect as part of a cultural enrichment program -- then I'd have no trouble with it, as long as it didn't dominate the curriculum. For example, I'm sure it was "instructive" for me to have read Faulkner in high school (painful though it was), but that was as part of a broad sampling of US literature. If it had been all Faulkner, all the time, I can't imagine that would have been helpful.

I would be curious to know the current state of linguistic affairs in the UK. In the USA, I'm curious to know how Creole is accommodated (or not), as that's the nearest analogue I can think of.

[scaeagles]

You see, I believe ebonics should have a negative stigma. Does the business community take ebonics seriously? Can you write a college entrance exam in ebonics?

As Bill Cosby so eloquently stated -
And then: "They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't?' 'Where you is?' . . . And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. . . . Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. . . . You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

[TigerLily]

You see, I believe ebonics should have a negative stigma. Does the business community take ebonics seriously? Can you write a college entrance exam in ebonics?



me too...it's not a dialict it's improper english....

[Prudence]

According to linguistic theory, it is a dialect. And, also according to linguistic theory, dialects are neither good nor bad, acceptible or unacceptible, negative or positive.

Does that mean that potential employers are obligated to accept Ebonics, Creole, or any other dialect as appropriate and sanctioned workplace language? I would say no. If I had a potential employee in front of me who could only speak Ebonics and could not be understood by "standard" English speakers, then I would have no trouble turning them down, just like I would turn down someone who could only speak Cantonese. On the other hand, if they want to speak Ebonics/Cantonese at home, with friends, etc., I don't see the problem.

In a perverse way, I'd consider supporting treating it as a separate "language" or dialect in schools if only to enforce that it *IS* different. *THIS* is Ebonics and *THIS* isn't. *HERE* this is acceptible speech. *THERE* you are expected to speak standard English.

[Name]

Does the business community take ebonics seriously
In a sense, I would say the answer is yes, especially when marketing to the african american communities where ebonics is prolific.

[Drince88]

In a sense, I would say the answer is yes, especially when marketing to the african american communities where ebonics is prolific.
Even so, I'm not sure how seriously they'd take a job applicant who communicated during their interview with ebonics.

[Prudence]

Isn't that an overlapping issue of marketing to the perceived community? If I was marketing a product in Appalachia, and I wanted to project a feeling that my business/product was part of the community (not from "outside"), I'd make sure my adverts included people speaking in the regional dialect.

Conversely, if I was a business owner in Appalachia, marketing to the rest of the country, I'd want my customer service reps to sound mainstream.

(And, were I an Appalachian parent, I might expect my schools to include as part of their history and literature programs selections from Appalachain history and literature, including works that reflected the dialect associated with the region, as a way of imparting the cultural history and values.

Incidentally, I would probably have gotten much more out of a class in Ebonics than I did from the Washington State History class that was required for graduation. Seriously. If you moved here your senior year, you had to take it to graduate. (we all took it in 7th grade.) Do I remember anything from that class? ANYTHING? Not one factoid. Given the increased mobility of our society, does it even make sense to require a state history class? And yet, no one bats an eye over that wasted chunk of time.)

[Ghoulish Delight]

Would a business in America accept someone who spoke only Russian and not English? Unlikely. Does that mean Russian isn't a language, just improper English?

[Moonliner]

I don't think that anyone could argue with the fact that job opportunities for individuals who speak standard English are greater than the ones for speakers of Ebonics. I'm sure in some cases you could make millions speaking nothing but Ebonics, song writers come to mind, but that is the exception and not the rule.

So teaching Ebonics would not be in the best interest of our kids. However if a large percentage of your student population uses Ebonics then I can see where the idea of treating them the same way you would non-English speaking students (Russian, French, whatever...) might have some appeal. As long as the overall goal is for them to learn standard English.

However teaching Ebonics as for foreign language is just wrong. I don't need to speak Chinese to appreciate China's long history and I don't believe that Ebonics has played such a large role in Black History/Culture that you cannot appreciate it without learning how to speak Ebonics.

[Ghoulish Delight]

No one has advocated teaching it to someone as a foreign language. It's about teaching English to kids who speak it as if English were a foreign language to THEM.

Look at it like this. Which of the following do you think is more likely to end with a kid wanting to learn "proper" English?

1) Hey, stop talking like that, it's wrong, only stupid, uneducated people talk like that. I don't care if your parents, their parents, their friends, your friends, and everybody you talk to every day talks like that, it's wrong, we need to fix you.

2) Alright, your family, friends, and everyone you know talk like that, that's fine. But the rest of the country doesn't, so we're going to teach you how to speak their language so you can work with them.

It just makes sense.

[scaeagles]

How about -

Little Johnny, I want you to succeed. Bad habits are going to make it hard for you succeed. The fact is that in the world of college and business, no one speaks like this, and it makes communication very difficult. I think it would be best, then, if we focus on not trying to talk like that or read words written like that at school. If you can completely weed it out of your life at school, then you can do the same later in life in college and in the job market.

[Prudence]

To address Moonliner's last comments -- actually, I believe that you do appreciate literature better if you read it in the native language. Yes, you can appreciate the culture without it. But I know from experience that reading texts in French or Russian was not equivalent to reading them in English translation. Heck, reading Beowulf in Old English was very different from reading it in translation. Language brings with it baggage -- a set of "understoods" that aren't and don't need to be explicitly stated. Could be the rhythms, the types of descriptors used, the sounds the words make -- it all contributes to meaning. A good translation will do its best to incoporate those elements, but inevitably some things will be lost.

This applies to dialects as well. To bring Faulkner back into it -- dialect is infused within Faulkner. I don't know how you'd manage to translate Faulkner into, say, Chinese and not lose critical parts of meaning. I would assume that somewhere out there is literature written in Ebonics to which similar principles would apply.

But --there remains a wrinkle.

Astoundingly, no one has pointed out the glaring tractor-trailer-sized hole in my reasoning. Ebonics can be distinguished from other US dialects in that it reflects an insular culture, one that isn't open to other ethnicities. Now, I'm going on my own experience here, and perhaps my experience isn't reflective of the whole, but it's my experience that Ebonics would be by and for African-Americans. Whereas no one would question my enrollment in a Japanese language/culture/literature course, I can't imagine I'd be welcome in an Ebonics course.

Traditionally, cultural studies have welcomed students from all backgrounds. Heck, where I work they just named a male professor chair of the women's studies program.

I suppose I'm cynical, but I don't think the same applies in this case.

[Ghoulish Delight]

"Bad habits"

That's instantly going to get a bad reaction. You're telling this kid that every single person they know is doing something "bad". You're not going to have a very receptive student.

[Prudence]

How about -

Little Johnny, I want you to succeed. Bad habits are going to make it hard for you succeed. The fact is that in the world of college and business, no one speaks like this, and it makes communication very difficult. I think it would be best, then, if we focus on not trying to talk like that or read words written like that at school. If you can completely weed it out of your life at school, then you can do the same later in life in college and in the job market.

How about, I don't want you speaking that Navajo any more. Educated people don't speak like that. You'll never succeed in this country if you continue to talk like that. If we remove you from your family, we can completely weed it out of your life and ensure your integration into society.

As if kids, young adults, adults are not capable of discerning appropriate speech based on setting? I manage every day to refrain from screaming "FVCK YOU!" at my boss, no matter how much I might want to. That manner of speech might be acceptible at home or with my friends, but is not appropriate in the workplace. You seem to imply that they would somehow be incapable of making such distinctions and that we should do it for them. I'm not into paternalistic education, thanks very much.

[scaeagles]

Geez - Ok then, take out the words "Bad habits are" and replace with "Speaking like this is".

[Ghoulish Delight]

Geez - Ok then, take out the words "Bad habits are" and replace with "Speaking like this is".Well, then, you have the second scenario. By simultaneously saying, "You can't speak like this" and "It's not a language", you're implicitly saying that the only culture they know is wrong and improper. Bad news.

There are time-tested, proven techniques for teaching to kids who speak a foreign language. If, instead of denying the existance of the dialect, you accept it and work on teaching them what they need to know with language teaching techniques that work, a lot more students are going to be helped.

[scaeagles]

As if kids, young adults, adults are not capable of discerning appropriate speech based on setting? I manage every day to refrain from screaming "FVCK YOU!" at my boss, no matter how much I might want to. That manner of speech might be acceptible at home or with my friends, but is not appropriate in the workplace. You seem to imply that they would somehow be incapable of making such distinctions and that we should do it for them. I'm not into paternalistic education, thanks very much.

First of all, I have suggested no such thing. What I have suggested is that in education, encouraging ebonics in any way is a disservice to these students. If we suggest in school that it is appropriate by spending educational time on it, when math and normal language scores are so low and programs such as music are being radically cut due to budgetary concerns, then we are in a way endorsing it as acceptable.

"Well, Interviewer man, teach be speak me dat dis be da cool tang in de biz place. Me not gets da jobbaden?"

Paternalistic education? Telling students about proper speech is paternalistic? I guess we certainly disagree on what is paternalistic. I'd like education to focus on helping kids succeed. Any focus on ebonics does no such thing.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Where in the report does it say that they wouldn't be taught standard English. The whole POINT is to teach them standard English.

Currently, they aren't actively taught standard English. It's just assumed they're speaking Englsih incorrectly and that we need to correct them. That's just not effective. Teaching someone to speak a different dialect is a hugely different proposition than teaching someone who uses a few too many double negatives.

[Prudence]

It wasn't clear to me from the article what the specific intentions of this schooling program were, as I alluded to earlier. I wasn't aware that the particular district was advocating a "focus" on Ebonics.

If, for example, there were a program for Spanish-speaking kids that educated them solely in Spanish, I would find that counter-productive.

If, for example, there were a program for Spanish-speaking kids that allowed to take an elective literature course in Spanish, I would have no objection.

If a particular community has decided to allocate their educational resources to elective literature courses instead of music, I see that as their right.

And I think that telling kids that their cultural experience is bad and should be discarded *IS* paternalistic and extremely counter-productive and not particularly likely to encourage continued involvement with the educational system. Who wants to participate in a system that tells them they're bad?

There is a distinct difference between telling kids that they shouldn't ever speak a certain way and teaching kids what speech is appropriate in which settings.

Let's take it further. As I've said, objectively one dialect is no better or worse than another. Are you prepare to make a judgment on which ones are approved and which are not? Because some argue that a Kentucky twang makes one sound stupid or that a Georgian drawl implies laziness. And so forth for the California surfer, the Maine lobsterman, the Bronx firefighter, etc. I don't get to say "dude" every third word at work. I make no such promises for speech at home! Perhaps you are advocating a standard, "broadcast" English which every student would be required to speak while at school?

Or is it just Ebonics that you don't like? So in a Louisiana school yard, if two friends over here were speaking to one another in Creole that would be fine, but the two kids over there speaking in Ebonics would be given detention and a lecture on how that is inappropriate language?

[scaeagles]

Or is it just Ebonics that you don't like? So in a Louisiana school yard, if two friends over here were speaking to one another in Creole that would be fine, but the two kids over there speaking in Ebonics would be given detention and a lecture on how that is inappropriate language?

I sure hope that isn't an implication of racism.

No, what I want is education to be about....education. Are there supplemental programs in Louisiana helping students feel good about speaking with a Creole dialect? Maybe there are...I don't know. If there are, I would object.

Frankly, what these kids speak at home is no problem with me. How they speak on the playground is not of concern to me.

What my concern is is that there is too much focus on what is unimportant in schools while so much else that is important lags.

Since

Dr. Thomas Sowell (writing about a similar thing in Oakland, CA) -
Whether it was word meaning, paragraph meaning, or mathematics, the children in the Harlem schools generally did just as well as the children in the schools on the lower east side. Sometimes the Harlem children did a little better, sometimes the lower east side children did a little better, but it was neck and neck all the way. In those days, excuses about "black English" were unnecessary because black children were not miles behind everybody else, as they are too often today. Why were ghetto children better able to hold their own with white working-class children more than half a century ago, when there was more poverty and discrimination than today -- and when their parents averaged only an elementary school education? Part of the reason is that they did not have distractions like "ebonics" or the kinds of belligerent, paranoid and provincial attitudes being promoted by race hustlers.

( http://www.townhall.com/thcc/content/sowell/sowe020797.html )

[scaeagles]

Where in the report does it say that they wouldn't be taught standard English. The whole POINT is to teach them standard English.

Actually, as I see it, the whole point is to validate ebonics as a foreign language.

We have huge controversies here in AZ (and presumably CA as well)regarding the education of Spanish speaking students. The preponderance of evidence that I am aware of is that English immersion has increased test scores for those students later on. There is no effort made to have them stop communicating in Spanish at home, nor should there be.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Actually, as I see it, the whole point is to validate ebonics as a foreign language.
No, that's part of the point. The rest of the point is that once it is, then they can be taught in an ESL environment where they can have access to the resources necessary to make sure their other studies aren't hindered by the fact that they don't speak the language yet.

Immersion works...to a point. But it's not "the answer". A comprehensive ESL program includes immersion and access to professional ESL teachers who can provide the extra support needed to keep the students comitted and successful. That's what people are trying to get for Ebonics students.

[Prudence]

I sure hope that isn't an implication of racism.



Not at all. I actually don't know any white creole speakers. (I know there are lots of them, I just don't know any.) That's actually why I was making that analogy. Creole has gained more legitimacy through time, whereas Ebonics is a more recent phenomenon.

Again - if the idea is to replace standard English-speaking courses, then boo hiss on them.

If the idea is to add an elective lit course looking at literature written in Ebonics/Creole/Pig Latin/Valley Girl/etc... with the hope that it would spark student interest that would hopefully spill over into their traditional courses? Why not? Will it work? No idea!

I have *NO* idea what the financial status of that district is. Ours was well off. As a senior in high school I took Honors Classic Romances. We read Frankenstein, The Red and the Black, Eugene Onegin, and other things I can't remember the names of. Hardly a "required" course (except in the sense that we were required to take an English class that semester.) They also had a "mysteries" course (not honors). And others. I practiced all the same techniques in that class as in the others -- read the book, do the analysis, write the paper. Rinse, repeat. I just did it in a subject area that interested me.

Now, if our district was terribly impoverished and the choice was between English electives or replacing the 20 year old science text books, well, then everyone takes standard English classes. Case closed.

If the district had to choose between marching band and English electives and more people wanted English electives, then English electives it is.

Like I said -- I don't know what the specific district status is, or what their specific intended implementation is.

But I'm not prepared to say that objectively there is never any reason to include Ebonics as any part of any school curriculum anywhere ever.

[Ghoulish Delight]

My mom teaches, errr, taught (she retired a couple months ago), "Spanish for Spanish speakers." It was for native speakers of Spanish, and it satisfied their foreign language requirement for college entrance. It ran essentially like an English class would. They weren't learning the language. Instead, they were reading literature and writing essays. Is this "wasted time"? Is it useless because they SHOULD be learning English? No, because it didn't replace their ESL studies (if they were still in ESL). It was a supplement, something else they could learn.

[Morrigoon]

So, is someone arguing that the children are having difficulty understanding teachers who speak in common "broadcast" (also known internationally as Californian) English? Is the conjugation of verbs rendering teachers incomprehensible to the students? Or is this an excuse to legitemize "I be axin' you a question" and such wonderfully non-conjugated and poorly pronounced phrases?

Or, is there some whole other level of language I'm not aware of and have not been exposed to?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Ebonics has an entirely different, but structured, set of gramatical rules. It's as different from English as Creole is from French.

[scaeagles]

Not for anything but a laugh, bt it is somewhat pertinent, I suppose.

an "ebonics translator" -

edited to remove the link. When I continues to play with it, it became rather tasteless and racist.

[Morrigoon]

Huh, I guess there IS a whole other level of it then.

[Prudence]

This is a bit of a tangent:

While it's all fun and games for us to have little debates here on the LoT, I think this article illustrates some of the problems with journalism today. I re-read the article, and it sure doesn't deal in specifics. It refers to "incorporating" Ebonics. What the heck does that mean, exactly?

Then to complicate things, you have quotes from a sociologist not affiliated with the school board giving her view on Ebonics as a foreign language, paired up with the pilot program coordinator, who referes to supplemental reading. These two quotes imply very different levels of involvement.

There's a huge difference between setting up an ESL program where students are educated part of the day in their "native" language, and establishing a supplemental program where students did everything they already did before the same way they did it before, only now they have some additional material to address an area officials feel could offer improvement.

Basically there's no actual info presented. We have no idea what this district is actually planning. We have quotes from the usual suspects: this is great, this is awful, what about my group? We have vague allusions to training in culture and customs. And that's basically it. One might almost suspect that the article was designed to piss people off.