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?

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...owe020797.html )

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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