NP Ebonics (was It ain't only Rock & Roll, it's Jazz too)

[davemarc]

MalignD:

By what logic should it become the  obligation of teachers to "respect" the "home language" of their students?  The teachers' role is to educate their students, not "respect" what is, in fact, dialect.  

The strawman is the idea that this is a disservice being done Blacks and their heritage by white educators. 

*

In the above statement, the "strawman" is the ridiculous presumption that respect for the "home language" of students precludes student education.  

Since all language consists of dialect, the home language of one set of students is just as worthy of respect as any other.  And the theory propounded in the links I provided is that respect for the home language will foster the education of the students, actually helping them to learn a more "standard" or "mainstream" system of English.  

Apparently, treating the "home language" as inferior and its practitioners as ignorant has somehow not yielded great results, perhaps because such a stance, no matter how well-intended, is often based on intellectually baseless attitudes and is also insulting to the language learners, their families, their communities, and their cultures.  Obviously in numerous cases the chauvinistic stance has not prevented students from learning the standard form, but the pro-respect educators seem to feel that being more truthful and respectful regarding language is an admirable educational goal.

d.

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