Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 15:56:04 -0800 From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (rakesh bhandari) Subject: Re: M-I: Ebonics. This is a conversation which I wish we could have in person. I am moved by Carrol's insistence that no student be marked as inferior because of the language he or she brings into the classroom. Hindi was my first language, and I was myself removed from my elementary school class for rememdial training. I was deeply humiliated by supposedly having a special problem, which was really only a heavy accent. I don't like the idea of children being removed from the class for special language problems--I wish my teachers simply knew a little about India and openly noted that the mother tongue of very few first-generation Americans has ever been English. Instead I was made to feel like a freak until I learned to sound like the next Valley boy. Much of my young educational life was marked by nasty teacher suspicion of my abilities, no matter my test scores; and to be honest, I never thought of myself as validated until I had open-minded university teachers (maybe that's why I am still here?) But this was all before Asian-Americans became the model minority, a devastating stereotype for the working class kids here in Oakland. By all means, we should study Black English and celebrate the blues in our history and composition classes, but we should study it together. And we should together understand Black English in all its complexity--its roots in West Africa, its innovative impact on working class life, and the way it has been forced on people as a way of marking their inferiority. Also, if students are failing, I would argue that it is not because teachers fail to speak to them in Ebonics and thus cannot instruct them in composition and history. Anyways, if teachers are to speak in Ebonics, then there is no reason to segregate African-American students; many of the students of whatever ethnicity speak what people may take to be Black English. The Chinese American classes may have to be conducted in Ebonics as well. All in all, many children are not too inspired in the public education system. It would make more sense to have smaller classrooms, better paid teachers, better facilities and books. And of course that is what the Oakland teachers went on strike for last year. The strike was settled on unfavorable terms however. I guess this is one of the concessions--special all Black, overcrowded classes conducted in Ebonics, instead of radical improvements in public education for all the children who are being failed by it. And once overcrowded Ebonics classrooms fail to motivate students and impart skills, what conclusions will be drawn? Comradely, Rakesh --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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