PEDAGOGICAL DISCUSSION: LEARNING FROM THE AMERICAN "EBONICS DEBATE"
On December 21,1996, the Oakland School Board in the state of California unanimously passed the Ebonics Resolution, requiring all schools in the district to participate in the Standard English Proficiency program (SEP). The Standard English Proficiency program was a statewide initiative that had begun in 1981 but had not yet been fully implemented in the Oakland district. Acknowledging the systematic, rule-governed nature of Ebonics (also known as Black Language and African American Language), the program took the position that this language should be used to help African-American children read and write in Standard English.1 This resolution. similar in intent to the Language for Learning Policy, was only one element of a broad strategy developed by an African-American task force, and was aimed at improving the school performance of African-American students. At the time, the African-American students enrolled in Oakland school district in California comprised 53% of the student population, but accounted for 80% of the school system's suspensions and 71% of students classified as having special needs. Their average grade was a D+. It was these painful realities, reflective of the Oakland school system's inability to ensure academic success for African-American children, that motivated the school board to approve the Black Language/Ebonics resolution.
The school board's approval of the Ebonics Resolution led to a heated national American debate on Ebonics. In her analysis of the debate, African-American educator Theresa Perry noted that, with few exceptions, the mainstream media in the United States misrepresented the Oakland resolution as a decision by the school board to abandon the teaching of Standard English and, in its stead, teach Black Language/Ebonics. Not only was this not the intent of the resolution, this was not what the original resolution stated. Editorial writers, columnists, talk show hosts, educational leaders and well-known spokespeople for Blacks in the United States vigorously opposed the Oakland Resolution. In thinking about the reasons for this opposition, Perry believed a variety of factors were at play.2 One of these was the existence of a dominant White conversation about schooling that discussed "generic solutions to broken schools."3 This conversation did not examine the specific ways race affected (and continues to affect) the school lives of African-American children in different communities and educational contexts. Consequently, it did not see the potentially positive impact the use of Ebonics at Oakland schools might have for students' academic success. A second factor had to do with the way Black language was equated with slang on television news reports about the Ebonics Resolution. Perry explained that there are multiple varieties of Ebonics/Black Language in the United States: oral and written, formal and informal, standard, nonstandard (slang), and literary. For African Americans who wanted their children to gain oral and written competence in all the varieties of Black Language as well as "White" Standard English, an Ebonics Resolution equated only with slang seemed to narrow their educational options.
As African-American educator Lisa Delpit has written, the national Ebonics Debate created "much more heat than light" and did little to clarify the public misunderstandings about Ebonics or the intent of the resolution. The debate also did little to assist educators in developing curriculum and pedagogies that used Ebonics to help African-American children acquire fluency in Standard English.4 In response, she and Theresa Perry guest edited a special issue of the journal Rethinking Schools and published a set of essays that provided a "careful conversation" about the important educational, political, and linguistic issues that were embedded in the Ebonics Resolution.5 The pedagogical discussion that follows draws on these essays, which have since been republished in the form of a book.6
In her own essay on Ebonics and culturally responsive instruction, Lisa Delpit writes that teachers working with African-American students need to respond to two realities. On one hand, they need to recognize that the Black Language linguistic forms their students bring to school are "intimately connected with loved ones, community, and personal identity." When teachers suggest that these forms are "wrong" (or illegitimate) in some way, they are suggesting that something is wrong with the students and their families. But, it is equally important for teachers to understand that the life chances of African-American students who do not learn to use Standard English fluently and effectively will be hampered. Delpit recognizes that having access to the politically mandated language form will not guarantee economic success and cites the growing numbers of unemployed African Americans holding doctorates as an example. However, she maintains that not having access will almost certainly guarantee failure in the economic market. 7
Although the strategy of implementing an English-only policy responds to the second of Delpit's two classroom realities, the need to provide students with access to English, I am uncertain about how well it responds to the first reality. In its insistence on the sole use of English in the classroom, an English-only policy delegitimizes other languages. It was not Mrs. Yee's intention to suggest that there was something "wrong" with languages other than English or the students in her class who spoke them. On the occasions when she reminded her students of the classroom English-only policy, she included the following words with her reminder: "I do not want to take away your mother tongue. I want to build up your second language." Because Mrs. Yee's own first language was Cantonese, the words sent a strong message. However, even with such a reminder, I am concerned that an English-only policy carries other messages, particularly when it is implemented by educators who use English as a first language. This concern is rooted in my own experience as an acting director of a 6-week residential ESOL program at the University of Manitoba during the summer of 1985.
When I assumed the acting directorship of the program, I inherited its English-only policy, which mandated that the adolescent students enrolled in the program speak English at all times, both inside and outside the classroom. All staff, including the program's secretary, teachers, and "monitors" who organized the co-curricular and recreational events, were expected to report any students who were overheard speaking a language other than English to the director. Students whose names were reported to the director three times were asked to the leave the program, which was funded by the Canadian government. Although I was uncomfortable with having to send students home for speaking their primary languages, I accepted the position of acting director and the responsibility for implementing the English-only policy. Like Mrs. Yee, my own ideas about language learning had been influenced by the "maximum exposure" argument, which was dominant at the time.
Despite my fervent hope that none of the students would be "caught" speaking any languages other than English more than twice, and that I would not have to ask anyone to leave, one of the students continued to resist the program's delegitimization of her language. Despite two "warnings" that her continued use of French would result in her being sent home, the student continued to speak her primary language and was overhead speaking French a third time. Having agreed to implement the program's English-language policy, I felt I had no choice but to ask the student to leave the program. Further resistance to the implementation of the policy followed when the student's entire class protested my decision to send their classmate home. Despite the protest, the student was sent home and I was left with the task of rebuilding student morale and investment in the program. I was also left wondering if there were less coercive ways of promoting the learning of English. I know there are differences between the classroom English-only policies in place at Northside and the program policy I upheld. I also know there are differences between assigning students’ chores and asking them to leave a program of study as a consequence for speaking languages other than English. Yet, the issue of language and coercion still concerns me. As Angel Lin suggested earlier, the University of Manitoba's English-only policy was counterproductive. It did not encourage the resistant student to speak English. Instead, it pushed her to speak even more French. So what are the alternatives to an English-only policy? How might educators provide access to English without delegitimizing their students' primary languages? African-American educator Carrie Secret, who has taught African-American students at Prescott Elementary School since 1966, provides us with a very helpful set of responses to these questions Prior to the passing of the 1996 Ebonics Resolution, Prescott had been the only school in the Oakland school system where the majority of teachers had voluntarily agreed to adopt the Standard English Proficiency program. In a 1997 interview about "embracing" Ebonics and teaching Standard English, Ms. Secret was asked if she ever allowed students to use Ebonics in her classroom. This was her answer:
The word that bothers me is "allow." Students talk. They bring their language to school. That is their right. If you are concerned about children using Ebonics in the classroom, you will spend the whole day saying, "Translate, translate, translate." So you have to pick times when you are particularly attuned to and calling for English translation.
When the children are working in groups together, say three or four of them, I try to keep them in an English-speaking mode, but I don't prevent them from using Ebonics. I want to give them enough time to talk through their project in their comfortable language. It's like a re-write to me. But at some point, they have to present their project to me and these are required to be presented in their best English.8
When asked if there were particular times during the school day when her students were required to speak Standard English, Ms. Secret, who was teaching fifth grade at the time of the interview, said this:
In fifth grade, I encourage the students to practice English most of the instructional time. I say "encourage" because "required" is a word that sends a message that if you don't use English, then you are operating below standard. Let's say that in fifth grade, students are requested and encouraged to speak in English almost all the time.
... When writing, the students are aware that finished pieces are written in English. The use of Ebonic structures appears in many of their first drafts. When this happens I simply say, "You used Ebonics here. I need you to translate this thought into English." This kind of statement does not negate the child's thought or language.
Some days I simply announce: "While you are working, I will be listening to how well you use English. In your groups, you must call for translation if a member of your group uses an Ebonic structure." Some days I say, "Girls, you are at Spelman and boys, you are attending Morehouse College [historically Black colleges]. Today you use the language the professors use and expect you to use in your classes, and that language is English."
I once had some visitors come to my class and they said, "We don't hear Ebonics here." But that is because I had explained to my children that company was coming, and when company comes, we practice speaking English. Company is the best time to practice because most of our visitors are from a cultural language context different from ours.9
In line with her beliefs that it is important for teachers not to imply that a student's language is inadequate and that different language forms are appropriate in different contexts, Carrie Secret also had her students become involved with the standard form of English through various kinds of role-play. For example, memorizing parts for drama productions provided her students with an opportunity to practice Standard English while keeping their own linguistic identities and investments intact.
Carrie Secret's strategies for promoting English runs less risk of passing on the message that there is something "wrong" with languages other than English (and the people who speak them) than does the strategy of implementing a classroom English-only policy or program. Secret's strategies are also less coercive in that they do not result in any punitive consequences for speaking one's "comfortable" language while learning another one. As a result, there is less resistance in her classroom to using Standard English.
In concluding her essay on Ebonics and culturally responsive instruction, Lisa Delpit suggests that "all we can do is provide students with access to additional language forms. Inevitably, each speaker will make his or own decision about what to say in any context."10 Delpit also reminds us not to become so overly concerned with the language form that we ignore "academic and moral content." She argues that while access to Standard English may be necessary, it is not sufficient to produce "intelligent, competent caretakers of the future." Further discussion of the ways teachers might develop curriculum that provides students with relevant academic and moral content.
The pedagogical discussion has looked at various strategies that can be used to promote English in multilingual schools. Further discussion of the way these strategies both challenge and reproduce linguistic and economic inequities in multilingual communities is taken up in the Conclusion. Below, are a set of activities that continue to engage with the work undertaken by Ebonics writers and educators in the United States.
1 Standard English has been defined as "...the variety which forms the basis of printed English in newspapers and books, which is used in the mass media and which is taught in school (Yule, 1996). Ebonics/Black Language/African American language has been defined as " ... Linguistic and paralinguistic features which on concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States slave descendants of African origin" (Williams, 1975).
2 For a fuller discussion of this analysis see Perry (1998).
3 See Perry (1998).
4 See Delpit (1998).
5 This special issue of Rethinking Schools is available from: Rethinking Schools, 1001 E. Keefe Ave. Milwaukee, WI 53212. Available at RSBusiness@aol.com
6 See Perry and Delpit (1998).
7 See Delpit (1998).
8 See Miner (1998).
9 See Miner (1998).
10 See Delpit (1998).
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