You learn something new every day, don’t you? I hope? 
A language purist would insist on “n’est-ce pas”. 
This is the nub of the question in this thread. Despite the lamentations of the OP, the original news article (and I have not yet found any news from a separate source to corroborate) was so poorly written that we don’t yet know what the curriculum entails.
If it means that the teachers will be instructed in enough AAVE so that they can avoid psychological interference errors when teaching code-switching to kids who come to the class speaking (and trying to write in) AAVE, then I think it is a superb idea.
If it means that they are going to find textbooks written in AAVE and conduct classes entirely in AAVE in the hopes that at some future date they will have established enough trust with the kids that they can wean them from AAVE to SAE, then the idea is somewhere between stupid and criminal.
What we do not yet know is where on the spectrum between these two approaches the San Bernardino school system is aiming.
Given that we do not yet know what the actual approach will be, this thread has fallen into the same rut as its predecessors of one group attacking the whole concept of AAVE, demonstrating on the part of a few posters a willfull ignorance of the topic, with another group defending AAVE, with a few posters taking an extreme “it’s all good” approach, and the rest of us trying to keep enough facts on the table to conduct a serious discussion regarding the issue of education.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
For the record, there will be no more submissions that contain any comments similar to the the following. Even when submitted in jest, passions are too high on this subject to inject the latent hostility that these display:
[ /Moderator Mode ]
Where is all the outrage about Hawaiians that speak pidgen? It’s nearly the exact same scenerio, and yet not a single person has attributed any sort of cultural downfall or outrage or “OMG they are rejecting culture and destroying all that is good about America” to pidgen speakers.
How do you think that relates to our cultural relationship to native Hawaiians vs. Black people?
What constitutes a “great Black American author” and what qualifies someone as relevantly historical? Either the book is worth reading on it’s own or it’s not. An event in history is significant enough to merit study or it’s not. It’s condescending to present something as a racial accomplishment.
I’ve read the article and it clearly indicates intent to teach in the language of ebonics:
*"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.’
Texeira said research has shown that students learn better when they fully comprehend the language they are being taught in.*
There are 2 flaws with this concept. It treats Black Americans as outsiders (foreigners) and it presumes a linear level of language deficit over all age groups. The first flaw is an ironic form of Jim Crow policy. The second flaw treats all age groups the same. Poor language skills are the result of years of neglect. It doesn’t happen overnight. The significance of this is that very young children can be brought up to speed faster if they use proper grammar from day one. Immersing a young child in Ebonics would do more damage than good.
Ultimately this is an attempt to address social poverty. Like all good intentions, it is worth exploring. But IMO it does not address the core problems of urban decay and will fail because of it. Since I believe the stakes are too high to risk diverting scholastic funds, it should be tried on a micro scale to prove it’s worth as an educational tool.
I stand corrected.
Based on your post I called my friend who teaches in New York. She told me that ESL operates exactly as you described, not as I thought. My confusion seems to have arisen from her having taught as a bilingual educator, as well (and at a time when we were closer). Bilingual Education is the model in which students are taught the content of their subjects in their native tongue, and is the model I confused with ESL. She also explained that a third model is called Immersion, in which students are thrown into the deep end, so to speak, attending all classes with their American peers and receiving extra English instruction on their own.
I apologize for the confusion. Thanks for pointing to the mistake.
Thanks for fixing the link in the OP, and thinks for keeping things civil.
I don’t think that’s true. It’s certainly not condescending to say “if you’re studying [Topic X], you need to know about [Y] or should read [Z].” There can be numerous reasons to read a particular book or study an event.
I think that article is clear about little, if anything.
Teaching people in the language they speak does not presume a deficit.
Yes. But ebonics /= poor language skills.
True. But the article is so badly written that I am not sure that I am willing to credit what it says.
Yes ands no. I agree that the rush to throw Crispus Attucks into history books is silly and I would agree that including mediocre stuff by anyone of a particular group simply to have “representation” is also wrong. However, in a society where we still find people claiming that “that group” (whatever that group may be) has never done anything worthwhile, I think it is important to make sure that we highlight the accomplishments of people from various groups so that enough students are aware of them that the stupid claims that “X have never done anything” cannot be proclaimed with such ease. I also think that if we are looking to break negative cycles, it is important to be sure that the people within those cycles are shown role models who have excelled. This does not mean falling back on silly stuff such as the “Afro-centrist” history that distorts reality to make a point, but it does mean that some attention is paid to actual accomplishment by group.
It has tapered off in the last two years, but the first four years that the SDMB operated away from AOL, each February was punctuated by numerous threads making outlandish claims that blacks had never amounted to anything, so why “give” them a month to celebrate. This sort of nonsense cannot be fought with platitudes about the quality or equality of all persons, but must be demonstrated to be false with concrete examples.
History is history. If Topic X is “Black history” then it’s condescending to highlight an accomplishment of a black person that would otherwise go unnoted in history.
I stand corrected. My quote from the article was from an outside source suggesting a curriculum of ebonics.
In your opinion. IMO, teaching 12 years of Ebonics isn’t just a deficit, it’s willful intent to deceive.
The whole point of the article was to address the inability of urban children to comprehend anything taught in school. That is the definition of poor language skills. Trying to quantify it as a language would suggest ebonics is an acquired scholastic achievement, which it’s not. What this experiment offers is less education, not more. If it is tried on a large scale it will siphon off funds that could have gone toward hiring more English tutors. My original point emphasized the need to treat younger students differently than older students. Children in kindergarten and 1st grade should be immersed in English, not coddled with ebonics.
This discussion is all relative. Time will tell if the concept has wings. I’m sure any program known as the Students Accumulating New Knowledge Optimizing Future Accomplishment Initiative, is sure to succeed.
Except, Tom, treating history as a succession of events and accomplishments by only people(s) who excel and should be held up as role models is juuuuuuust about as intellectually dishonest as the extreme accomplishments claims made by afrocentrists, white supremecists and the grecocentric father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Real history is not made up of things like that; what I’m afraid you’re promoting/endorsing amounts to cultural PR. Your approach would tend to negate the desires, beliefs and mores of the great middle unwashed masses, and conveniently allow for history to overlook the poor or downplay the downtrodden, and also opens up the cultural/socioeconomic bigotry of by who’s standards are we to judge the mediocre from the excellent, rather than to simply look at what was done, and where, and who was there, and how things were done. There is nothing wrong with looking at history by following the accomplishments of a given people; but only a non-rigorous evaluation would allow such a review to remain “feel-good.” Afrocentrism needs academic rigor and an overhaul, not elimination.
Crispus Attucks has his place in the American Revolution. All available research needs to show that he likely died as an impulsive mob participant shot down by British troops and not a politically conscientious revolutionary. That’s my opinion what an intellectually honest afrocentric perspective would consistently show.
I agree with your premise except you are equating things written on this site in relation to what is taught in school or presented in a public news format.
Magiver.
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So in your worldview any attempt to study history by the accomplishments, events and challenges of a specific subgroup is automatically condescending. Uh-huh.
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Despite the inaccuracies and omissions seen in the first five graphs and hodgepodge organization in the rest of the article, you think Texiera is accurately quoted or that he knew what he was talking about? Uh-huh.
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Cite where it says this is a twelve year program and coherently explain how in your opinion it is a “willful intent to deceive.” I’ll wait.
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In no contemporary recognized pedagogy I’m aware are “poor language skills” defined as “the inability of urban children to comprehend anything taught in school.” Incidentally, why just ‘urban’ children? Little white kids in the suburbs are masters of the language?
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Time will tell. One thing you’ve said I agree with.
As promised: Unfortunately, as you know there is no easy answer. If there were, we’d have done it. I can only look to how some of the kids in similar circumstances have been helped. Charter schools.
If a school is doing such a poor job that it’s reached the point that they’re considering legitamizing ebonics (and, in the process, exacerbating and prolonging the underlying problem), I think it is safe to say that we are at a point where drastic measures are required. So while public educationmay be the best way to educate the masses, we should acknowledge its failings and not allow its victims to be sacrifiiced to ideology.
I’m not sure what “my approach” might be, since I have not advocated a specific approach.
Magiver legitimately pointed out that portraying some accomplishments of some persons as “racial accomplishments” was a bad idea. I merely balanced that with the idea that a color-blind (or group-blind) approach can be carried too far, as well. History and literature texts up through the 1960s were filled with Dead White European Males who “did” all the historical and literary things–not because that was true, but because a selection of “the best” included (usually unconscious) elimination of woman and non-white or non-Europeans who might have contributed just as much.
George Washington Carver should not be a part of American history because “he was a black guy that messed with peanuts” (which is how he generally shows up in books). Carver should be noted in history books because he kept the American South from turning into the same sort of wasteland that the Fertile Crescent became by discovering ways to turn peanuts into a profitable crop that could be rotated with tobacco and cotton thus preventing the utter depletion of the soil that the other two cash crops were creating. And in the midst of his genuine contributions, it very well should be noted that he was living as a second class citizen in the land he saved because he was black. Attucks should not be named unless we also memorize the names of the others who died, otherwise we are singling him out for his color (while ignoring his Indian ancestry) simply to say “blacks were there, too.” (There too what? Leading a riot?)
Hughes and Baldwin should be studied for their contributions to literature, but in studying them, we had better note the social conditions that impinged upon them because of their color and shaped much of their writing.
Both our texts on literature and history already eliminate dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people and events simply for lack of time in a 180-day school year. I do not think that anyone should be included because they represent a group when they produced mediocre work. On the other hand, given that we are already missing many outstanding people, simply for a lack of room, I have no problem with saying that we should include the color/race/sex of the best representatives when we determine who we should include in a text.
But you continue to rail against Ebonics in a genweral way without describing your actual opposition. Do you oppose teaching teachers enough AAVE to let them interact with the children? Do you have an actual understanding of the working of psychological interference that might cause a child to have difficulty learning code-switching? Do you even know what code-switching is (or psychological interference)?
I am on record in this thread as opposing the teaching of classes specifically in AAVE, but you continue to denigrate not merely the teaching, but the dialect, itself, so I am not sure whether you understand what you are complaining against.
BTW, Cleveland is hot on Charter Schools–despite the fact that after five years, they are doing no better than the public schools at a higher cost to the public. Talk about sacrificing to ideology!
Just out of curiousity, does anyone here disagree with the claim that all American high school students should learn how to speak Standard English Vernacular and how to write formal English? (Not sure if I have the names right, but hopefully you know what I mean.) Or is the debate just about what role AAVE should play in the process, and whether it’s a legitamate English dialect?
Some of you may gain some insight into the purpose of teaching Ebonics in reading this interview with Carrie Secret, an experienced elementary school Ebonics teacher in Oakland.
Excerpt:
The confusion about “teaching Ebonics” arises when people misunderstand that the students are going to be taught to speak jive. They already know how to speak “jive” or their “home language.” “Ebonics” allows them to continue to feel comfortable with this their native language while learning English. Essentially they are learning English as a second language. They are being given the choice they need.
I would see a need for this in the early grades and maybe in certain parts of the country. I taught in urban Southern schools and didn’t really see a need for it here. Others might disagree.