Lisa Delpit, who wrote this chapter, is one of the biggest names in English education. I think she makes such important points in this chapter. Teaching kids isn't just about presenting the right content using the right strategies; a huge part of teaching is about how we treat kids and the spin we put on things. Delpit makes that point beautifully here.
The question is, if Delpit's daughter can learn Black English in a few weeks, might it also be possible for students who speak predominately Black English to learn Stardard American English in a matter of weeks IF they saw it as being vitally important, IF they were excited about it?
P.S. These are all terms for the same thing... BE = Black English BEV = Black English vernacular AAE - African American English Ebonics And there are others as well.
That seems to be the struggle for teachers now. Not only with African American students of couse, but it seems like we need to work harder to relate to get students to get excited about lessons.
Lisa Delpit puts into words in chapter 3 what we, as future teachers, need to keep in mind. We need to build a curriculum out of what students enjoy learning about. Some parts of study are always going to be boring, but students try harder than some people give them credit for. Why is it that some teachers give up on students? Is it because the students are lazy? I can't believe that about every student that a teacher gives up on.
I liked the fact that Delpit talked about code-switching so much. I also appreciated the quote, "How is it that we spend upwards of 12 years trying to get the SE dialect into the heads of A.American children ... including some middle-class White children who go to school with A. American children...allegiances" (p.39). Because she acknowledged what many people do not in the AAVE debate. Let me be perfectly clear, I'm NOT suggesting I or any of the white children Depit mentions have anywhere near the disadvantages many African American children have my point concerns linguistic identity and the odd space young, white AAVE speakers have. As a white kid who spent most of my academic life in schools with a majority black population it is not surprising that I picked up AAVE early on. That I used it fluently for a time is only unexpected because no one would think a white, middle-class, college-educated woman like me would have ever been exposed to AAVE to begin with, but that shows you how right "book-cover judgments" are. That I stopped code-switching very early (except for casual language and an occasional southern slip)is perhaps more unusual. I instinctively used SE at home with my parents and in class with my teachers because "that was how they talked", and AAVE with classmates at school because "that was how they talked". I didn't stop AAVE because of academic standards, with verbal code-switching there wasn't any reason (my hand-written responses were always SE); I stopped because of a social divide I didn't understand at the time. I was raised with very little allusion to race (both my parents were Northern transplants to the South and supported Civil Rights), so when I went to school race was not something I paid much attention to--especially in Elementary school. Not so with my African American friends who were all too aware of the disadvantages society imposed on them. They alluded to various racial "hierarchies" and freely used epithets (white/ black cracker, oreo, wigga)--words I didn't know and largely ignored as irrelevant. When my six year old friend Gracie looked at me in art class one day with an odd expression and asked, "Why you talkin' funny?" my response was "What you mean? I talk like you." She shook her head and said in a determined voice, "You can't, you white." The other African American kids at the table nodded in agreement and reiterated her statement. I was confused and hurt but I was careful not to use AAVE again. Looking back it is not surprising that those children who were marginalized culturally, economically, and linguistically would refuse to share their linguistic identity, the one thing school could not remove from them (so long as they continued to code-switch), from me. I was an enemy in their camp--and my racial ignorance was not only strange but my linguistic intrusion was "unnatural", almost sinful, to my teachers and my classmates.
I blame proscriptive confines of an artificial language that claims to be "the standard". I blame our society.
I know I'm starting to stray off topic here, but I did want to build on something Danielle said. People are always asking why the drop out rate is so high in the U.S. In many respects, that is a complicated question. But really at the base of it, it is a simple answer. Mostly students drop out because they don't like school. It isn't enjoyable, and they don't feel it is relevant. Learning can and should be joyous and relevant but we've figured out how to ruin that. And so schools do all these weird things to try to raise the graduation rate instead of focusing on making education joyous and relevant. Posters and pep-rallies and threats won't solve the problem.
I think once students feel proud of their work, they understand and know that their teachers, parents, friends support them and their learning school becomes more fun. I hated math as a kid but loved algebra because I was encouraged by teachers and my parents who celebrated even small achievements. If learning becomes a celebrated accomplishment in a positive environment it will be more "fun" which will encourage students to pursue subjects they might otherwise have avoided like the plague. Obviously this is only part of the solution but I think it is an important aspect of the interactive, student-focused, creative learning that should be going on in our schools.
Well I'm going to be a follower and comment on the same thing that everyone else has mentioned so far. I agree that if we were to make learning "fun" or as Delpit put it "we must make school inviting to them" that students would find school much more enjoyable. See, whenever I was in school, I hated missing classes. Not just becuase of my guilt complex, but because I loved going to school. I had great friends and the teachers were amazing. I looked forward to many classes. I even looked forward to certain years of math because of the teachers that I had. But that is because they helped make the standards and the curriculum inviting. They didn't just drill it into my head, they helped me understand why it was necessay and how it could be applied.
And I think that Delpit isn't just talking about making the curriculum interesting, but she's telling us, as teachers, that we need to listen to our students. So many times I have heard students say they hate school because the teacher doesn't listen to them. They feel like their teacher does not care. And honestly, if the teacher doesn't show they care, no wonder most students want to drop out. If they aren't being welcomed and felt like they are included and part of something, who honestly would want to be in a place like that for 8 hours a day?
But the question is, how do you go about making the curriculum interesting? Do you think that after a while teachers just start to give up on trying to be inviting?
In response to Cynthia: I honestly don't think that students can learn the Standard English Language as quickly as other languages. I've always been told that it is one of the hardest languages to learn. But I do think that if students were excited about certain subjects that they could catch onto concepts faster. But I agree with Dani, just how much can we do to make students excited? And do some teachers just give up after a a while? How could we turn lazy students into active ones?
I think we’ve seen a good number of lesson plans that considered the intellectual legacy of other cultures (i.e. Dr. Alby’s World Literature). Reading this chapter caused me to ruminate over ways in which code-switching could be explicitly taught. I think a minilesson on code-switching would be excellent for my students right now. We are in an expository unit and some of our vocabulary terms, “voice” and “audience,” would be applicable. I was trying to think of people that are good examples of people who excel at code-switching; the first person that came to mind was Sway from MTV News. I did a google search for “Sway code-switching” and came across some material on the master code-switcher, Barak Obama.
I think the most important question is how do we communicate the significance of being able to speak and write Standard English? If students were aware of the importance of this life skill, they would be more interested. Once we help them realize that standard English is a vital skill as an American citizen, then we can focus on how to make it interesting. Like Delpit said, we learn a language quickly when we "associate the language with good times." If we make Standard English a good time for our students, they might be able to pick it up as fast as Maya picked up "chetto" (i love that term).
In response to one of your earlier comments, I believe quite the opposite is true. I don't think that teachers give up on lazy students. I think that lazy teachers give up on students. After five weeks in placement, I've already seen this happen and its easy to understand why. 115 Kids. Unit plans. IEPs. SSTs. RTIs. Parents. Data Notebooks. Co-Planning. The life of a teacher can be overwhelming, so its easy to let one struggling student slip through the cracks. As future educators how do we refuse to let this happen? We need to figure out the formula for the caulk that will banish those cracks from existence.
I think this chapter pretty much says that there aren't lazy students, just uninterested students. This chapter actually made a lot of sense to me. Duh! Make school fun and interesting and kids might start learning things that will help them be successful. I've watched my host teacher tell her students to speak correctly without any reason behind it. It's fun to rebel as a kid, so why wouldn't they ignore her? If we try and actually give a crap about them then they might buy into to what school is supposed to do. The chapter echoed exactly what I have found in my placement. Kids are hilarious and unknowingly brilliant with loads of potential. How hard is it to let them know that?
Oh and Erin, you win the award for closing statement. "We need to figure out the formula for the caulk that will banish those cracks from existence." Poetic and inspiring.
I don't think the kids who speak Ebonics, or something similar, would pick up on Standard English in a matter of a few weeks in my opinion. I see her point of how we could go about making them want to learn it and picking it up quickly if they were excited about it because they could relate to it, but it is hard enough for people who grow up speaking standard English to grasp the standard over the years and even as adults. I think that teachers throughout grade levels in the same school system should work on adapting similar teaching plans and work together as a team. There is so much variety in teaching and in teaching beliefs that prohibits a united train of though for both teaching and learning. Teachers need to adapt and stick to one plan for teaching out to children that do not speak the standard and follow through with that once they hit middle school all the way through high school. It was definitely enlightening to see how her daughter's self-esteem changed when she transferred schools. It is amazing how she could feel that way about herself in both situations and it was sad. I think that telling your students to "fix" their language is wrong and we should stop telling them talk "right", however I also think that teaching them that they can easily code switch and be more versatile is a good idea. Embracing both dialects is important while letting them know that their dialect is not wrong, but it might not be the best for all situations
Brittany's post is pretty spot on as far as I am concerned. I on the other hand, as a result, feel like I have little to contribute. I definitely think it is necessary to teach Standard English for the purpose of being able to "function" in the real world, but I think we must also be mindful of the cultural backgrounds of the students (as we discussed in the SPED class). Harping on the fact that it is necessary to function in the "real world" is not going to amount to anything if the students to whom you are talking have few plans beyond school (maybe they have no intention of going to school or their family does not put a high priority of education). We will probably have to go a bit farther than stressing the importance of it.
On a side note, I also agree with Brittany that suggesting someone "fix" his or her language is probably not the best course of action. I have witnessed several teachers do this "humorous" little thing where a black students speaks and the teacher replies with a "What? I couldn't understand you? You BE what?" and it really just irritates me to no end. If you really must correct them, whatever, but give me a break.
You know Nick, your comment about cultural backgrounds made me think back to something I read while doing research for the podcast. John Lounsbury really lashed out at NCLB and the system failure to recognize diversity, “Middle level schools, more so than schools at other levels, exist to serve diversity; and no scheme of school organization or federal mandate for uniform achievement can wash away human variability.”
With that said, I believe all the way down to my core that the solution is teaching code-switching. A quick minilesson and a well-designed work session (maybe an exercise that has them re-word a phrase for different circumstances) would be fun in my opinion.
I have to admit, I believe discussion between a student and a teacher should be in Standard English. Nick, I'm one of those teachers who would "humorously" "bust a student out" if they used "incorrect English." Its one of those high expectations I have for them. I guess, during the lesson on code-switching we could designate the classroom as a "King's Speech Only" environment.
I really liked Delpit's citation of Stephen Krashen's studies in second language acquisition. I espeailly liked Delpit's paraphrase of Krashen's "filler" argument: "...The less stress and the more fun connected to the process, the more easily it is accomplished" (40).
This really stuck out to me because it made me think back on my second language studies. (On a side note, I absolutely ABHOR referring to it as "foreign language," because, by nature, "foreign" implies that it is something we should not be grasping easily to begin with. I apologize for this rant!) My high school Spanish teacher made learning fun, and I often found myself speaking Spanish in a majority of the aspects of my life, not just in the Spanish classroom; my college Spanish experience could not have been more different - my teachers taught the text, and very few of them made it fun (I can really only remember one fun college Spanish teacher), making my motivation for learning the language plummet.
I can see the same thing happening with trying to get students - not just African Americans, but Latinos, Whites, etc. - to speak in standard English. By making it sound so gloomy and not making it fun, we are limiting the students' interest in the idea from the beginning.
Wes, I have to agree with you. "King's Speech" is one of my high expectations as well. If there's something that I've lightened up on during this first placement, though, is that I now recognize a difference in speaking depending on the audience. I have told my kids that if they are speaking to their friends, they can speak in any way that they choose to; but if they are speaking to me (either written or spoken), I expect them to use at least mostly in proper English. As I've said in my response to another chapter, I think it's important to teach students how to adjust speech/writing to the audience.
I like the ides Wes proposed about the "King's Speech Only TIme." I think that would be a way to avoid offending people and a creative way to show people that everyone struggles with speech, but sometimes in order to lead, you must speak like a leader. MLK didn't use Ebonics when he gave a speech for a reason and that is not to put Ebonics down but to sufficiently point out that Standard English has a place and a time and so does Ebonics. Making it clear that the classroom is a time for Kings and Leaders only seems like it could be a great way to get that started and introduce the minilesson. I'm all for teaching code switching.
Wes- This made me think of what we were talking about the other day about how I felt like I was learning a whole new language from my kids. Also, I too really like the "King's Speech Only Time" idea.
I reason I think it would be harder to pick up Standard American English in a matter of weeks is that there is no social group students could connect it with. It's very easy to learn something if you have social motivators, such as a group of friends, all displaying what you're learning. But, in honestly, hardly any kids speak correct Standard American English.
I had an idea of "I teach, you teach" where one day a week (or however often you'd like) you open your classroom up. Spend 10 minutes teaching them something and they spend 10 minutes teaching you something. You could both come in the next day and "quiz" each other. This could be a fun way to acknowledge Ebonics in the classroom.
Rose, I love your plan! Just be aware that some topics of discussion may be more "extracurricular" than the school administration might like. How open would their AAVE discussions be? Would you limit them to certain topics or would anything go so long as it was not discussed outside the classroom walls? (And you're right--hardly anyone speaks SE correctly all the time; its a written construct rather than an authentic means of verbal communication).
I also love Rose's plan. It is important that we learn from each other, especially in the classroom. And as Lorien said before, hardly anyone speaks Standard English all the time. It is more important that you know how to write with Standard English rather than use it in your everyday speech.
I too believe that just giving the reason of why they should learn standard English will not be enough. I think that everyone code-switches, it's a none linguistic fact. However, in school you learn that slang is not "appropriate" to be used in the real world. But, whenever I think about it, people who rap or do poetry expressing themselves in their own spoken language make more money in the real world. Being able to code switch is important to be able to communicate with a larger group, but i think the switching shouldn't just be to standard English. If teachers were to learn more about say Ebonics, they would be able to relate to their students on another level.
First off I love the idea of having Kings Speech Time. I also love the idea of you teach me I teach you time. I feel like this would be a fun idea for Fridays after RAC's.In response to Lorien's comment I think you should just state before hand that it has to be appropriate and you have to report certain things that are said to you. Also if any authority person challenged you on it you could simply say you were teaching and demonstrating public speaking.
I completely agree with the statement that we have to make what we teach interesting. If a student is bored then they don't care and they will not succeed in the classroom. I think we have all seen and been this student. If a teacher interests me and seems to care about me as an individual I am far more likely to show up for their class and do my best for them.
I think it's interesting how a way of speaking can bring out such a horror -- as if it's no language at all, even to an African American -- as is the case in this chapter -- the mother who is a professor is horrified at the way in which a phrase comes out of her daughter's mouth. It eventually comes to fascinate her though as perhaps it should all of us. It's so true what the narrator says -- that those who want to keep their middle-class acceptability work so hard to "stamp out" a language that produces so much strife in today's society.
I like what Dr. Alby -- that instead of trying to raise the graduation rate, perhaps that would come if we tried to make school more fun and joyous...not a dreaded idea.
I think Stephen Krashen's process of "conscious learning" which is rule based instruction. This means to pick up a language in the social setting in which they are in. He gives the example of Maya's low self esteem was a major problem before her parents sent her to a school where she "fit in" better, because her physical appearances resembled her more. She even appreciated the culture her new peers welcomed her in. She felt like she belonged there. According to Krashen, the more fun it was to be accepted at that school made it easier to fit in. This meant speaking in AAE.The point that is made here is important but detrimental, because it makes children that speak Standard English feel superior to children that speak AAE, since people who speak AAE are continuously being corrected in professional settings.
Andrew makes a good point that it does not only occur with African American English, it occurs with Latinos and other ethnicities. If one is around a certain language, it is only going to make it fun and easier to fit in by starting to speak that type of language.
Lisa Delpit, who wrote this chapter, is one of the biggest names in English education. I think she makes such important points in this chapter. Teaching kids isn't just about presenting the right content using the right strategies; a huge part of teaching is about how we treat kids and the spin we put on things. Delpit makes that point beautifully here.
ReplyDeleteThe question is, if Delpit's daughter can learn Black English in a few weeks, might it also be possible for students who speak predominately Black English to learn Stardard American English in a matter of weeks IF they saw it as being vitally important, IF they were excited about it?
P.S.
These are all terms for the same thing...
BE = Black English
BEV = Black English vernacular
AAE - African American English
Ebonics
And there are others as well.
That seems to be the struggle for teachers now. Not only with African American students of couse, but it seems like we need to work harder to relate to get students to get excited about lessons.
ReplyDeleteLisa Delpit puts into words in chapter 3 what we, as future teachers, need to keep in mind. We need to build a curriculum out of what students enjoy learning about. Some parts of study are always going to be boring, but students try harder than some people give them credit for. Why is it that some teachers give up on students? Is it because the students are lazy? I can't believe that about every student that a teacher gives up on.
ReplyDeleteI liked the fact that Delpit talked about code-switching so much. I also appreciated the quote, "How is it that we spend upwards of 12 years trying to get the SE dialect into the heads of A.American children ... including some middle-class White children who go to school with A. American children...allegiances" (p.39). Because she acknowledged what many people do not in the AAVE debate.
ReplyDeleteLet me be perfectly clear, I'm NOT suggesting I or any of the white children Depit mentions have anywhere near the disadvantages many African American children have my point concerns linguistic identity and the odd space young, white AAVE speakers have. As a white kid who spent most of my academic life in schools with a majority black population it is not surprising that I picked up AAVE early on. That I used it fluently for a time is only unexpected because no one would think a white, middle-class, college-educated woman like me would have ever been exposed to AAVE to begin with, but that shows you how right "book-cover judgments" are. That I stopped code-switching very early (except for casual language and an occasional southern slip)is perhaps more unusual. I instinctively used SE at home with my parents and in class with my teachers because "that was how they talked", and AAVE with classmates at school because "that was how they talked". I didn't stop AAVE because of academic standards, with verbal code-switching there wasn't any reason (my hand-written responses were always SE); I stopped because of a social divide I didn't understand at the time.
I was raised with very little allusion to race (both my parents were Northern transplants to the South and supported Civil Rights), so when I went to school race was not something I paid much attention to--especially in Elementary school. Not so with my African American friends who were all too aware of the disadvantages society imposed on them. They alluded to various racial "hierarchies" and freely used epithets (white/ black cracker, oreo, wigga)--words I didn't know and largely ignored as irrelevant. When my six year old friend Gracie looked at me in art class one day with an odd expression and asked, "Why you talkin' funny?" my response was "What you mean? I talk like you."
She shook her head and said in a determined voice, "You can't, you white." The other African American kids at the table nodded in agreement and reiterated her statement.
I was confused and hurt but I was careful not to use AAVE again.
Looking back it is not surprising that those children who were marginalized culturally, economically, and linguistically would refuse to share their linguistic identity, the one thing school could not remove from them (so long as they continued to code-switch), from me. I was an enemy in their camp--and my racial ignorance was not only strange but my linguistic intrusion was "unnatural", almost sinful, to my teachers and my classmates.
I blame proscriptive confines of an artificial language that claims to be "the standard".
I blame our society.
I know I'm starting to stray off topic here, but I did want to build on something Danielle said. People are always asking why the drop out rate is so high in the U.S. In many respects, that is a complicated question. But really at the base of it, it is a simple answer. Mostly students drop out because they don't like school. It isn't enjoyable, and they don't feel it is relevant. Learning can and should be joyous and relevant but we've figured out how to ruin that. And so schools do all these weird things to try to raise the graduation rate instead of focusing on making education joyous and relevant. Posters and pep-rallies and threats won't solve the problem.
ReplyDeleteI think once students feel proud of their work, they understand and know that their teachers, parents, friends support them and their learning school becomes more fun. I hated math as a kid but loved algebra because I was encouraged by teachers and my parents who celebrated even small achievements. If learning becomes a celebrated accomplishment in a positive environment it will be more "fun" which will encourage students to pursue subjects they might otherwise have avoided like the plague. Obviously this is only part of the solution but I think it is an important aspect of the interactive, student-focused, creative learning that should be going on in our schools.
ReplyDeleteWell I'm going to be a follower and comment on the same thing that everyone else has mentioned so far. I agree that if we were to make learning "fun" or as Delpit put it "we must make school inviting to them" that students would find school much more enjoyable. See, whenever I was in school, I hated missing classes. Not just becuase of my guilt complex, but because I loved going to school. I had great friends and the teachers were amazing. I looked forward to many classes. I even looked forward to certain years of math because of the teachers that I had. But that is because they helped make the standards and the curriculum inviting. They didn't just drill it into my head, they helped me understand why it was necessay and how it could be applied.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think that Delpit isn't just talking about making the curriculum interesting, but she's telling us, as teachers, that we need to listen to our students. So many times I have heard students say they hate school because the teacher doesn't listen to them. They feel like their teacher does not care. And honestly, if the teacher doesn't show they care, no wonder most students want to drop out. If they aren't being welcomed and felt like they are included and part of something, who honestly would want to be in a place like that for 8 hours a day?
But the question is, how do you go about making the curriculum interesting? Do you think that after a while teachers just start to give up on trying to be inviting?
In response to Cynthia: I honestly don't think that students can learn the Standard English Language as quickly as other languages. I've always been told that it is one of the hardest languages to learn. But I do think that if students were excited about certain subjects that they could catch onto concepts faster. But I agree with Dani, just how much can we do to make students excited? And do some teachers just give up after a a while? How could we turn lazy students into active ones?
ReplyDeleteI think we’ve seen a good number of lesson plans that considered the intellectual legacy of other cultures (i.e. Dr. Alby’s World Literature). Reading this chapter caused me to ruminate over ways in which code-switching could be explicitly taught. I think a minilesson on code-switching would be excellent for my students right now. We are in an expository unit and some of our vocabulary terms, “voice” and “audience,” would be applicable. I was trying to think of people that are good examples of people who excel at code-switching; the first person that came to mind was Sway from MTV News. I did a google search for “Sway code-switching” and came across some material on the master code-switcher, Barak Obama.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2010/01/code_black.html
My question for you guys--how would you teach code-switching?
I think the most important question is how do we communicate the significance of being able to speak and write Standard English? If students were aware of the importance of this life skill, they would be more interested. Once we help them realize that standard English is a vital skill as an American citizen, then we can focus on how to make it interesting. Like Delpit said, we learn a language quickly when we "associate the language with good times." If we make Standard English a good time for our students, they might be able to pick it up as fast as Maya picked up "chetto" (i love that term).
ReplyDeleteDanielle,
ReplyDeleteIn response to one of your earlier comments, I believe quite the opposite is true. I don't think that teachers give up on lazy students. I think that lazy teachers give up on students. After five weeks in placement, I've already seen this happen and its easy to understand why. 115 Kids. Unit plans. IEPs. SSTs. RTIs. Parents. Data Notebooks. Co-Planning. The life of a teacher can be overwhelming, so its easy to let one struggling student slip through the cracks. As future educators how do we refuse to let this happen? We need to figure out the formula for the caulk that will banish those cracks from existence.
I think this chapter pretty much says that there aren't lazy students, just uninterested students. This chapter actually made a lot of sense to me. Duh! Make school fun and interesting and kids might start learning things that will help them be successful. I've watched my host teacher tell her students to speak correctly without any reason behind it. It's fun to rebel as a kid, so why wouldn't they ignore her? If we try and actually give a crap about them then they might buy into to what school is supposed to do. The chapter echoed exactly what I have found in my placement. Kids are hilarious and unknowingly brilliant with loads of potential. How hard is it to let them know that?
ReplyDeleteOh and Erin, you win the award for closing statement. "We need to figure out the formula for the caulk that will banish those cracks from existence." Poetic and inspiring.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the kids who speak Ebonics, or something similar, would pick up on Standard English in a matter of a few weeks in my opinion. I see her point of how we could go about making them want to learn it and picking it up quickly if they were excited about it because they could relate to it, but it is hard enough for people who grow up speaking standard English to grasp the standard over the years and even as adults. I think that teachers throughout grade levels in the same school system should work on adapting similar teaching plans and work together as a team. There is so much variety in teaching and in teaching beliefs that prohibits a united train of though for both teaching and learning. Teachers need to adapt and stick to one plan for teaching out to children that do not speak the standard and follow through with that once they hit middle school all the way through high school. It was definitely enlightening to see how her daughter's self-esteem changed when she transferred schools. It is amazing how she could feel that way about herself in both situations and it was sad. I think that telling your students to "fix" their language is wrong and we should stop telling them talk "right", however I also think that teaching them that they can easily code switch and be more versatile is a good idea. Embracing both dialects is important while letting them know that their dialect is not wrong, but it might not be the best for all situations
ReplyDeleteBrittany's post is pretty spot on as far as I am concerned. I on the other hand, as a result, feel like I have little to contribute. I definitely think it is necessary to teach Standard English for the purpose of being able to "function" in the real world, but I think we must also be mindful of the cultural backgrounds of the students (as we discussed in the SPED class). Harping on the fact that it is necessary to function in the "real world" is not going to amount to anything if the students to whom you are talking have few plans beyond school (maybe they have no intention of going to school or their family does not put a high priority of education). We will probably have to go a bit farther than stressing the importance of it.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I also agree with Brittany that suggesting someone "fix" his or her language is probably not the best course of action. I have witnessed several teachers do this "humorous" little thing where a black students speaks and the teacher replies with a "What? I couldn't understand you? You BE what?" and it really just irritates me to no end. If you really must correct them, whatever, but give me a break.
You know Nick, your comment about cultural backgrounds made me think back to something I read while doing research for the podcast. John Lounsbury really lashed out at NCLB and the system failure to recognize diversity, “Middle level schools, more so than schools at other levels, exist to serve diversity; and no scheme of school organization or federal mandate for uniform achievement can wash away human variability.”
ReplyDeleteWith that said, I believe all the way down to my core that the solution is teaching code-switching. A quick minilesson and a well-designed work session (maybe an exercise that has them re-word a phrase for different circumstances) would be fun in my opinion.
I have to admit, I believe discussion between a student and a teacher should be in Standard English. Nick, I'm one of those teachers who would "humorously" "bust a student out" if they used "incorrect English." Its one of those high expectations I have for them. I guess, during the lesson on code-switching we could designate the classroom as a "King's Speech Only" environment.
I really liked Delpit's citation of Stephen Krashen's studies in second language acquisition. I espeailly liked Delpit's paraphrase of Krashen's "filler" argument: "...The less stress and the more fun connected to the process, the more easily it is accomplished" (40).
ReplyDeleteThis really stuck out to me because it made me think back on my second language studies. (On a side note, I absolutely ABHOR referring to it as "foreign language," because, by nature, "foreign" implies that it is something we should not be grasping easily to begin with. I apologize for this rant!) My high school Spanish teacher made learning fun, and I often found myself speaking Spanish in a majority of the aspects of my life, not just in the Spanish classroom; my college Spanish experience could not have been more different - my teachers taught the text, and very few of them made it fun (I can really only remember one fun college Spanish teacher), making my motivation for learning the language plummet.
I can see the same thing happening with trying to get students - not just African Americans, but Latinos, Whites, etc. - to speak in standard English. By making it sound so gloomy and not making it fun, we are limiting the students' interest in the idea from the beginning.
Wes, I have to agree with you. "King's Speech" is one of my high expectations as well. If there's something that I've lightened up on during this first placement, though, is that I now recognize a difference in speaking depending on the audience. I have told my kids that if they are speaking to their friends, they can speak in any way that they choose to; but if they are speaking to me (either written or spoken), I expect them to use at least mostly in proper English. As I've said in my response to another chapter, I think it's important to teach students how to adjust speech/writing to the audience.
ReplyDeleteI like the ides Wes proposed about the "King's Speech Only TIme." I think that would be a way to avoid offending people and a creative way to show people that everyone struggles with speech, but sometimes in order to lead, you must speak like a leader. MLK didn't use Ebonics when he gave a speech for a reason and that is not to put Ebonics down but to sufficiently point out that Standard English has a place and a time and so does Ebonics. Making it clear that the classroom is a time for Kings and Leaders only seems like it could be a great way to get that started and introduce the minilesson. I'm all for teaching code switching.
ReplyDeleteWes- This made me think of what we were talking about the other day about how I felt like I was learning a whole new language from my kids.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I too really like the "King's Speech Only Time" idea.
I reason I think it would be harder to pick up Standard American English in a matter of weeks is that there is no social group students could connect it with. It's very easy to learn something if you have social motivators, such as a group of friends, all displaying what you're learning. But, in honestly, hardly any kids speak correct Standard American English.
I had an idea of "I teach, you teach" where one day a week (or however often you'd like) you open your classroom up. Spend 10 minutes teaching them something and they spend 10 minutes teaching you something. You could both come in the next day and "quiz" each other. This could be a fun way to acknowledge Ebonics in the classroom.
Rose, I love your plan! Just be aware that some topics of discussion may be more "extracurricular" than the school administration might like. How open would their AAVE discussions be? Would you limit them to certain topics or would anything go so long as it was not discussed outside the classroom walls?
ReplyDelete(And you're right--hardly anyone speaks SE correctly all the time; its a written construct rather than an authentic means of verbal communication).
I also love Rose's plan. It is important that we learn from each other, especially in the classroom. And as Lorien said before, hardly anyone speaks Standard English all the time. It is more important that you know how to write with Standard English rather than use it in your everyday speech.
ReplyDeleteI too believe that just giving the reason of why they should learn standard English will not be enough. I think that everyone code-switches, it's a none linguistic fact. However, in school you learn that slang is not "appropriate" to be used in the real world. But, whenever I think about it, people who rap or do poetry expressing themselves in their own spoken language make more money in the real world. Being able to code switch is important to be able to communicate with a larger group, but i think the switching shouldn't just be to standard English. If teachers were to learn more about say Ebonics, they would be able to relate to their students on another level.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you Brent! Interest has to be there for kids to really care or want to learn more.
ReplyDeleteFirst off I love the idea of having Kings Speech Time. I also love the idea of you teach me I teach you time. I feel like this would be a fun idea for Fridays after RAC's.In response to Lorien's comment I think you should just state before hand that it has to be appropriate and you have to report certain things that are said to you. Also if any authority person challenged you on it you could simply say you were teaching and demonstrating public speaking.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the statement that we have to make what we teach interesting. If a student is bored then they don't care and they will not succeed in the classroom. I think we have all seen and been this student. If a teacher interests me and seems to care about me as an individual I am far more likely to show up for their class and do my best for them.
I think it's interesting how a way of speaking can bring out such a horror -- as if it's no language at all, even to an African American -- as is the case in this chapter -- the mother who is a professor is horrified at the way in which a phrase comes out of her daughter's mouth. It eventually comes to fascinate her though as perhaps it should all of us. It's so true what the narrator says -- that those who want to keep their middle-class acceptability work so hard to "stamp out" a language that produces so much strife in today's society.
ReplyDeleteI like what Dr. Alby -- that instead of trying to raise the graduation rate, perhaps that would come if we tried to make school more fun and joyous...not a dreaded idea.
ReplyDeleteI think Stephen Krashen's process of "conscious learning" which is rule based instruction. This means to pick up a language in the social setting in which they are in. He gives the example of Maya's low self esteem was a major problem before her parents sent her to a school where she "fit in" better, because her physical appearances resembled her more. She even appreciated the culture her new peers welcomed her in. She felt like she belonged there. According to Krashen, the more fun it was to be accepted at that school made it easier to fit in. This meant speaking in AAE.The point that is made here is important but detrimental, because it makes children that speak Standard English feel superior to children that speak AAE, since people who speak AAE are continuously being corrected in professional settings.
ReplyDeleteAndrew makes a good point that it does not only occur with African American English, it occurs with Latinos and other ethnicities. If one is around a certain language, it is only going to make it fun and easier to fit in by starting to speak that type of language.
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