Much Learning Hath Made Them Mad
Ebonics is back. Apparently not content with black students' current down-ward spiraling levels of achievement, educators in California (of course it had to be California) have decided to accelerate their free-fall. Now black students are going to have a second-rate education inflicted upon them (well, actually third-rate, they're already getting the second-rate) by a group of self-congratulating dunces completely obsessed with multiculturalism and the sensitivity cult. The fact that a "coalition of black activists" would actually support this nonsense is revolting.
It is almost too painful to point out all that is wrong with teaching ebonics, so I won't even bother. Suffice to say that there is a sociologist involved, which should immediately be a warning sign. Ms. Texeira nearly hits for the cycle, managing to work in a mention of prejudice, self-confidence, and starving children. It is up to Ratibus Jacocks, a member of the aforementioned coalition of black activists, to finish off the display and quell any future dissent by mentioning the civil rights movement.
This is a complete and utter farce. Somehow education has largely become the province of silly people with sillier ideas, intent on performing feel-good cultural experiments at the cost of actually educating students. To do so with a group that so desperately needs a superior education right now to help improve their lot is unconscionable, and a cause for shame.
Werd up, y'all.
--Josh
It is almost too painful to point out all that is wrong with teaching ebonics, so I won't even bother. Suffice to say that there is a sociologist involved, which should immediately be a warning sign. Ms. Texeira nearly hits for the cycle, managing to work in a mention of prejudice, self-confidence, and starving children. It is up to Ratibus Jacocks, a member of the aforementioned coalition of black activists, to finish off the display and quell any future dissent by mentioning the civil rights movement.
This is a complete and utter farce. Somehow education has largely become the province of silly people with sillier ideas, intent on performing feel-good cultural experiments at the cost of actually educating students. To do so with a group that so desperately needs a superior education right now to help improve their lot is unconscionable, and a cause for shame.
Werd up, y'all.
--Josh
posted at 5:30 PM
3 Comments:
I'm not sure what to think about this. I'm trying to be intellectually stimulating and to have a respectful conversation, but this just seems silly to me. I don't understand why ebonics is considered a seperate language rather than dialect. In schools through the world students are taught english, because to function in the business world one needs to use english is used. In a place like Uganda (or insert your African country) where there are 54 different languages, having a unified language for trade and business is good. Dealing with cultural preservation in the midst of this is a difficult but important problem. Ebonics, however, is not another language. It is a dialect of english. The words are the same just used differently- sometimes. Are we going to start teaching southern dialects in school? However, I'm open to the fact that there could be some good arguments about this, that may not have been presented in the article, so if anyone thinks otherwise please voice your opinion.
d.r. leonard
Congratulations. You made our list of the 23 best Ebonics headlines. Keep up the good work. If not, it's not your fault!
See who else is on the list with you at www.independentsources.com or
http://independentsources.com/2005/07/19/senior-administration-official-needs-some-headline-bling-bling-the-worlds-10-best-ebonics-headlines/
Nice work catching the eye of Insider, Josh.
I speak Southern, and I'm not asking anyone to learn it at school. As a matter of fact, I can't think of anything I'd like less than an over-educated student from, say, Brooklyn, to go to school somewhere down South, say Sewanee, take a "Southern" class, and then feel he can more effectively communicate with me than any other Brooklyner because he knows all twenty-eight conjugations of the word "reckon."
Sometimes, at the risk of being culturally insensitive, we should recognize things as folly.
My markedly rural accent gets me along just fine with "inner-city" friends and students of mine in Philadelphia and Camden, and our understanding of the way one another speaks adds to a more whole understanding of English. We trade colloquialisms. That's something that can't happen in a classroom. You certainly don't learn Puerto Rican in Spanish class, or Castillian (usually).
Incidentally, I never took an ebonics class, but I imagine I'd score in the upper percentile on an Ebonics Aptitude Test. If there's one language which can only be taught by true immersion, it's Ebonics. What myopia of a group of would-be cultural litterati to think it can be brought to the classroom.
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