Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 00:01:25 +0000
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: M-G: Re:ebonics


Just briefly to Rakesh, who writes on M-I:

>Bob, the Oakland school district is getting money to take African-American
>children out of integrated classrooms and put them in what will surely be
>equally as crowded classrooms to be supervised by Afrocentrics trained in
>the mythical West African-derived language of Ebonics. This is a huge blow
>to the development of an integrated working class and a sure means to put
>black kids in separate and unequal classrooms (what do you think these
>teachers will be like if they believe that Ebonics is part of the genetic
>structure of those who hail from West Africa?)


Rakesh, you can't abstract from the question of the mother tongue as the
basis of all learning, particularly language in its more "high-level"
aspects of reading and writing. Integrated classrooms in poor, oppressed
areas are useless as learning centres unless they've got a dominant
linguistic group that's interested in learning or capable of developing an
interest in learning. Or a dominant, interested group that's sufficiently
advanced in its second-language skills to make learning at the levels
offered a possibility.

At my school south-west of Stockholm (96-97% immigrants) we had about 50%
Swedes until some 5 or 6 years ago. When the Swedes were siphoned off to
"whiter" schools by the local authority, we tried for a year or so to form
the classes around Swedish "motors" -- groups of native Swedish speakers.
But the changes took place too fast. Now most of our classes (seventh to
ninth grade) have no native Swedish speakers at all. To make some kind of
learning possible, we try to group the kids according to their
second-language skills (Swedish ability). The weakest groups need to be met
at their own level (usually around grade two or three) linguistically and
also, most importantly, in terms of the concepts they have relating to the
world around them. Basic things like measurement, comparison, qualities,
how water flows, time etc. Lacking basics like this, they are totally out
of touch with the expectations a school has of its students (most schools
expect kids to learn by themselves after a bit of exposure in the
classroom).

Ideally we'd have staff who could teach this foundation stuff, the reading
and writing and basic concepts of a scientific view of the world, in the
kids' native language. But most of the "home language" teachers were purged
a few years ago, with the argument "you're living in Sweden, speak
Swedish!". What we've got to do, is to get the Swedish-speaking staff to
communicate with the kids in a way they understand and respond to, so that
they can learn  to read and write and think "scientifically" anyway. It's
an impossible task. Our successes are fine, but a democracy requires these
skills of *all* its citizens, and this makes our setup, and the local and
national politics behind it, into an undemocratic farce. One in fact that's
getting worse very quickly, too.


To summarize: of course oppressed kids need resources so their needs can be
met at their own level. Once the resources are available they must be
properly used, and for this an understanding of the conceptual and
linguistic development of children is necessary. Without an understanding
of the primacy of mother tongue tuition, and the importance of developing
skills like reading and writing and getting across scientific concepts in
language the kids understand, any resources you manage to acquire will be
wasted.


Cheers,

Hugh





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