Posted on 07/18/2005 10:25:14 AM PDT by 45Auto
Incorporating Ebonics into a new school policy that targets black students, the lowest-achieving group in the San Bernardino City Unified School District, may provide students a more well-rounded curriculum, said a local sociologist.
The goal of the district's policy is to improve black students' academic performance by keeping them interested in school. Compared with other racial groups in the district, black students go to college the least and have the most dropouts and suspensions.
Blacks make up the second largest racial group in the district, trailing Latinos.
A pilot of the policy, known as the Students Accumulating New Knowledge Optimizing Future Accomplishment Initiative, has been implemented at two city schools.
Mary Texeira, a sociology professor at Cal State San Bernardino, commended the San Bernardino Board of Education for approving the policy in June.
Texeira suggested that including Ebonics in the program would be beneficial for students. Ebonics, a dialect of American English that is spoken by many blacks throughout the country, was recognized as a separate language in 1996 by the Oakland school board.
"Ebonics is a different language, it's not slang as many believe,' Texeira said. "For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language.'
Texeira said research has shown that students learn better when they fully comprehend the language they are being taught in.
"There are African Americans who do not agree with me. They say that (black students) are lazy and that they need to learn to talk,' Texeira said.
Len Cooper, who is coordinating the pilot program at the two city schools, said San Bernardino district officials do not plan to incorporate Ebonics into the program.
"Because Ebonics can have a negative stigma, we're not focusing on that,' Cooper said. "We are affirming and recognizing Ebonics through supplemental reading books (for students).'
Beginning in the 2005-06 school year, teachers will receive training on black culture and customs. District curriculum will now include information on the historical, cultural and social impact of blacks in society. Although the program is aimed at black students, other students can choose to participate.
The pilot program at Rio Vista Elementary and King Middle schools focuses on second-, fourth- and seventh-grade classes. District officials hope to train teachers from other schools using the program as a model.
Board member Danny Tillman, who pushed for the policy, said that full implementation of the program at all schools may take years, but the pilot program is a beginning.
"At every step we will see positive results,' Tillman said.
Tillman hoped the new policy would increase the number of black students going to college and participating in advanced courses.
Teresa Parra, board vice president, said she worried the new program would have an adverse effect.
"I'm afraid that now that we have this the Hispanic community, our largest population, will say, 'We want something for us.' Next we'll have the Asian community and the Jewish community (asking for their own programs). When will it end?'
Parra said the district should focus on helping all students who are at risk.
"I've always thought that we should provide students support based on their needs and not on their race,' Parra said.
Tillman disagreed with Parra, saying programs that help Latinos already exist in the district. He cited the district's English- as-a-second-language program.
Texeira urged people not be quick to judge the new program as socially exclusive. She said people need to be open to the program.
"Everybody has prejudices, but we must all learn to control that behavior,' Texeira said. She said a child's self confidence is tied to his or her cultural identity.
She compared the low performance of black students to starvation. "How can you be angry when you feed a family of starving children?'
Ratibu Jacocks, a member of the Westside Action Group, a coalition of black activists, said they are working with the district to ensure the policy is implemented appropriately.
"This isn't a feel-good policy. This is the real thing,' Jacocks said.
Jacocks said he didn't believe the new policy would create animosity. He said he welcomed the idea of other ethnic groups pushing for their own programs.
"When you are doing what's right, others will follow,' Jacocks said. "We have led the way before the civil-rights movement opened the door for women's rights and other movements.'
Paging Bill Cosby.
I just typed in John Kerry and found some bashing, I was surprised...Type anything conservative, or white anything.. It is so racist....
FR home page dialectized into jive :
http://rinkworks.com/dialect/dialectp.cgi?dialect=jive&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freerepublic.com%2Ffocus%2Fnews%2Fbrowse%3Fao%3D1&inside=1
YGBSM!
This past weekend I witnessed the verbal abuse by a young black man of a store proprietor (who is Jamaican, I think). I couldn't understand a word the young black man said except the N word, the F word and a few damns in there. Oh, and "homey."
What's next, Hisponics?
No, that would be discriminatory and hurtful to those who cannot boil water.
Huh?
You see, advanced courses include such gems as "Pimpin Ho's", "Bustin' Caps", and the ever useful "Pants below ass fashion and beyond", and "How to wear a hat and a dew rag at the same time."
Great way to keep 'em on the plantation, libs...
The courtroom scene was from Airplane 2. They had one of the jive guys as a character witness for Ted Stryker. His testimony went like this:
Ain no thang, check it bleed, Bro, was on!!!! Didn trip. But the folks was freakin man.
and the pilots was laid to the bone holmes, so blood hammered out and jam jib, shit, tighten that bad sucker upside the runway like a mother, shiiitt! (Golly)
I think God is mad its about to storm big time here....
Pig Latin is not a goood idea. Neoay eedsnay otay ebay bleaay otay pellsay.
Imagine the poor person working at ETS (Educational Testing Service) tasked with creating the English portion of the SAT and now he's got to incorporate this into the test.
Where do he start?
Someone from Seattle told me in Atlanta that blacks couldn't help speaking thay way because of the shape of their mouth and lips.
But therein lies the double sided beauty of this sociologist's idea. Either these illiterate, under educated youth can get affirmative action jobs funded by you and I or they can flip burgers and clean houses. Someone will be needed to do those irksome service jobs. (sarcasm intended) These youth and educators who buy into that crap don't even realize they are being doomed to a kind of servitude in the future. Just give them their 'rights' (rights to underachieve, to live on the dole) now. And then, in a generation or so, the sociologists and dem elected officials can lament on how to direct more tax dollars to help these folks, some of whom turn to crime when they find that they can't afford to live and there aren't enough affirmative action jobs and flipping burgers doesn't pay the bills, so...
You be trippin,...
Word up baby boo, I gots my new copy of da ebonics Bible today and its of the hook dog, fashizzle.
They'll be able to burglarize your house, rob you at the ATM, sell drugs to your children and run a stable of 'hos to infect your friends with AIDS.
Actually, hearing college-educated Black basketball players is a pleasure for me. (Even Charles Barkley, especially Charles with his idiom is intelligent and entertaining). But we have a serious problem now that's only going to get worse. Corporate America is constantly streamlining their employment rolls, even of us underperforming white-collar workers. They have no place for totally uneducated, unskilled labor--they just sub-contract it, outsource it, or automate it.
Illegals, who work with no benefits, no minimum wage, and no Social Security just prove the old adage:
"The true minimum wage is the same as it's always been--zero"
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