Diversity Topic Revisited

In my Language and Literacy class last semester I posted to the wiki an article on the debate that started in Oakland, CA in regards to Ebonics and it’s place in the classroom. As I have started to read Delpit’s book, I found the following quote that ties in with that subject that I do not plan to write on for my paper, 

but I feel is also important.

Children have the right to their own culture, their own language, their own culture. We must fight cultural hegemony and fight the system by insisting that children be allowed to express themselves in their own language style. It is not they, the children, who must change, but the schools. To push children to do anything else is repressive and reactionary (Delpit, 2006, p. 37).

I agree somewhat with this quote that we, as teachers, should not try and change a child’s culture and set of beliefs, however, I think we need to make sure children also have the tools to be successful in a world where people are not always tolerant of other cultures and those of the minority. In order to do so teaching children about culture and why it is important to do things, such as speak, write, and read, in a formal English manner is important. It is not that the way that their culture speaks (for example) is wrong but because of biases they need to have the ability to communicate in ways that others are more accustomed to in both higher education and for later in life when they are in the work setting.

Ebonics is one example of this, where I think that teachers should not suggest to their students that the way they might speak at home is necessarily wrong, but that there are certain settings where different levels of formality are appropriate, very similar to youth slang. Another example of this might be how you talk to your friends when you are casually hanging out verses how you behave and your language in a school atmosphere. In my own experience I have not been exposed to many situations where the cultural language is very diverse in a school setting. However, I do remember that when I was observing in the head start 4’s/5’s class in North Charleston early last semester, there was an African American boy in the class who was wearing a shirt that said something on it that I did not know the meaning of, and nor did the head classroom teacher who happened to be white. The head teacher asked one of the assistant teachers, who was African American, what it meant and she did know. I can remember both teachers laughing about it because it was a “black term” as they called it. The lead teacher said something about how it was important for her to know what these terms meant and how it was a good thing that she had an assistant who understood “the lingo”. In some ways I feel that speaking in Ebonics is almost having an accent in some ways (like a southern accent or a New York accent) because it is part of who you are and very hard to change. It is part of some people's identity and should not be looked at as negative but as simply part of a culture. Below are some links to articles I have read related to Ebonics and classroom diversity.

http://www.pbs.org/kcts/preciouschildren/diversity/index.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3935/is_199901/ai_n8828933/

http://www.cal.org/topics/dialects/aae.html