Dear All,
This week, you may choose to do this blog for extra credit. Each blog you write is worth about 2% of your grade. Therefore, an "A" on this blog will give you an additional 2% on your overall course grade. And "A-/B+" will get you 1.5. A "B" will get you 1%. A "C" will get you 0.5%. Anything lower than that... well, I'm not going to read it, because y'all are better writers than that!
You have a choice between two questions:
1. Choose a resolution from the Oakland Policy Statement (Baugh, pages 312-313). I recommend 2, 7, 9,12, or 13. Discuss whether you think that resolution is a good educational policy for students whose heritage language is Ebonics. Discuss, also, whether the changes that the educators made (the text in bold) weakened or improved the resolution.
2. As we've discovered, there were a lot of controversies within the Oakland Ebonics Controversy of 1996. People were debating:
Teaching techniques
Governmental funding
The linguistic validity of Ebonics
The question of whether Ebonics is a dialect or a language
Questions of racism in education
Which of these issues do you think is most central to -- is really at the heart of -- the Ebonics Controversy? Discuss why that issue is more important than the others.
This Extra Credit Assignment is due by Monday, Nov. 2!
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Mary Elizabeth Lowe
ReplyDeleteHughes
English 1101
Extra Credit Blog
While the Oakland resolutions attempted to help the Ebonic-speaking students, the majority of their decisions were impractical, poorly worded and researched. One especially controversial aspect was found in the seventh resolution. It stated that “equal opportunities for all its students” would be provided and also that “for others whose primary languages are other than English” aid would be given to help the students succeed. Within this resolution, the words “bilingual education” were also spoken and the school board wished to gain government support and funding by treating the African American dialect as a second language. This claim that Ebonics was a full fledged language, instead of a mere dialect, served as a crutch for many of the Oakland educators. It is not a different language, for it consists of English words, does not stand as a communication blockade and politically speaking, there is neither an “army nor navy” behind Ebonics. Their intentions to take funds allotted for ESL students was an unethical desire.
Furthermore, there is no direct correlation between higher spending and better test scores. The United States is one of the highest spending nations concerning education per student and yet, their scores are not the best in any subject area. This should be a sign to the educators of this nation that more money is not always the answer, and parent involvement, time, and care are much more vital than large wallets. For this reasons, I do not believe that simply putting the label of “bilingual” on these students or increasing spending will remedy any foundational problems in the near future.
I do not think that the inserted bold words made the resolution any stronger or weaker. It simply clarifies a few things and that “bilingual” means a “second language learner.” This resolution is a weak excuse for educational improvement that fortunately was not approved by the larger governing body.