NP Dialects in Education (was SLSL language)

[Abdiel OAbdiel]

From: David Morris <fqmorris@[omitted]>
  Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 2:49 PM
  Subject: Re: re Re: re Re: re Re: SLSL language
  >
  > This is a good point.  It begs the question of why
only US-black
  alternative
  > grammar, Ebonics, should be taught in US schools.

  I'd be interested in seeing where anyone suggests
that AAVE grammar be
  taught in schools, except in linguistics exercises. 
I just don't think this
  is an issue.  As far as I can tell, nobody--or
practically nobody--is
  advocating or practicing this.

  > Since Terrance has pointed
  > out that MANY white students, not to mention
hispanic, arabic and numerous
  > asian students also speak their own versions of
non-standard english,
  doesn't
  > it stand to reason that we must also accomodate
their own
  > "fil-in-the-blank"-onics?  If not, why not?  And
please don't suggest it
  > wouldn't be practical.
  >
  A University of Chicago professor addresses this
issue at the following web
  pages.  I think David Morris would be pleasantly
surprised by some if not
  all of what he'd find at those pages.

 
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mufwene/ebonicsDebate.html

 
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mufwene/gurt99.html




In the introduction to Dewey's Experience and
Education, Alfred L. Hall-Quest says,   _Education and
Experience_ (1938)  is probably the simplest and most
readable extended statement on this subject
[Education] that Dewey ever made."


"Responsibility for selecting objective conditions
carries with it, then, the responsibility for
understanding the needs and capacities of the
individuals who are learning at a given time. It is
not enough that certain materials and methods have
proved effective with other individuals at other
times. There must be a reason for thinking they will
function in generating an experience that has
educative quality with particular individuals at a
particular time." 

"Failure to take into account adaptation to the needs
and capacities of individuals was the source of the
idea that certain subjects and certain methods are
intrinsically cultural or intrinsically good for
mental discipline. There is no such thing as education
value in the abstract. The notion that some subjects
and methods and that acquaintance with certain facts
and truths posses educational value in and of
themselves is the reason why traditional education
reduced the material of education so largely to a diet
of predigested materials. According to this notion, it
was enough to regulate the quantity and difficulty of
the material provided, in a scheme of quantitative
grading, from month to month and from year to year." 




"No question was raised as to whether the trouble
might not lie in the subject-matter or in the way in
which it was offered. The principle of interaction
makes it clear that failure of adaptation of material
to needs and capacities of individuals may cause an
experience to be non-educative quite as much as
failure of an individual to adapt himself to the
material." 

"Those who steal the words of others develop a deep
doubt in
the abilities of the others and consider them
incompetent. Each time [the
oppressors] say their word without hearing the word of
those whom they have forbidden
to speak, they grow more accustomed to power and
acquire a taste for guiding,
ordering, and commanding. They can no longer live
without having someone
to give orders to. Under these circumstances, dialogue
is impossible" 

  Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire









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