Students Hooked on 'Ebonics' Are Being Groomed for Failure

INSIGHT magazine ^ | June 3, 2002 | Nicholas Stix

[stands2reason]

Poor Lance made a racist comment on another thread and has been trying very hard to make those that pointed it out (connectthedots and I) look like people who don't know the difference between a racist comment or not. I do. I'm sure mhking does, as well. Lance, give it up. Get over it.

[abclily]

I remember that very well! Don't remember which game show it was. Seems to me one of the contestants on this very same show gave 'Europe' as the name of a foreign country. Remember that?

[stands2reason]

I think the debate was on which language was the true primal language of man, whether it was Hebrew or Latin, or other some such language.

[Calvin Locke]

I said it was psych 1. Credit to fulfill "liberal arts" requirement.
Not too mention better part of 25 years ago.

[weikel]

Nah ebonics amuses me beatch.

[Rollee]

I wish my sister could talk to you and read your excellent postings. She won't because she is very liberal and the words "Free Republic" scare the daylights out of her. My dear, highly educated sister tutors athletes in a remedial reading & writing program at a very large midwestern college. She told me the other day that she feels the need to use "ghetto" (her word, not mine) in order to communicate with her students. I asked, why not encourage them to speak properly? She had no reasonable answer to that one. My next comment was that she wasn't doing them favors by allowing poor speech. Isn't a mind a terrible thing to waste on the low expectations of ebonics?

[mhking]

I'll let you in on a secret. I posted the long piece I wrote today on my blogger site at http://mhking.blogspot.com/. So if you're afraid to send her here, then send her there - I don't mention FR by name there, but I do save some of my stuff there. I'm trying to collate a lot of my writings with the intent of publishing a book at some point down the line. In addition, I tend to put some of my things on my other site at http://www.ramblings.tk/.

Hope that helps...

[mhking]

She told me the other day that she feels the need to use "ghetto" (her word, not mine) in order to communicate with her students. I asked, why not encourage them to speak properly? She had no reasonable answer to that one.

Here's a big kick. The kids that do make it to the pros need to know how to talk properly, if for nothing else than to be able to be interviewed on television. ESPN won't touch a kid who can't speak the language, no matter how well he plays...

[hinckley buzzard]

Nice work Parsy! "groobedy??" Whuzzat?!?

[Rollee]

Thank you very much, I will direct her to your links. I appreciate the help. I do hate to see how her thinking has been manipulated by all of that liberal bs.

[Political Junkie Too]

That was the essence of my post, too.

-PJ

[Dakmar]

A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

-- Orwell, Politics and the English Language.

[WoofDog123]

Highland Scots is another example of a dialect of english i have found to be completely unintelligible to me in some speakers. As far as I am concerned there are romance languages that are more mutually intelligible than highland scots and bbc english are. I understand lowland scots fine, but had no chance with the northern dialect, i literally understood something like 1 in 3 words.

[mafree]

Thanks for the ping.

I don't speak Ebonics myself and never did- I feel it's better to speak standard English and was raised to do just that. I talk the way I write.

At the same time, some Black children come to school speaking some form of Ebonics, usually because it's all they hear around them and no one has yet insisted they speak Standard English. It's generally a good idea for their teachers to at least be able to understand what they're saying while teaching them standard English. That's not the same thing as teaching the children Ebonics or allowing them to only speak it.

[stands2reason]

Well, ex-CUUUUUUUUUSE me!!! ;-)

[Cagey]

Perhaps, he didn't have any home trainin.

[tdadams]

The kids that do make it to the pros need to know how to talk properly, if for nothing else than to be able to be interviewed on television. ESPN won't touch a kid who can't speak the language, no matter how well he plays...

LOL. I remember when Shaquile O'Neal first entered the NBA and would be interviewed on TV. You could barely understand a word he said, although not because he spoke ebonics, he just mumbled terribly and could barely form a complete sentence. He also had the annoying habit of looking chronically distracted, looking everywhere but at the interviewer.

Somebody must have gotten on his case enough and sent him to a voice coach, because usually when I see him now, he speaks clearly in full sentences and focuses on the interviewer.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Perhaps, he didn't have any home trainin.

And he lives in Tennessee! lol Perhaps no one welcomed him with a casserole when he moved there, so he's pouting....... ;^)

[tdadams]

And he lives in Tennessee! lol Perhaps no one welcomed him with a casserole when he moved there, so he's pouting....... ;^)

My career choice ties me to Nashville, but I generally like the South. The people are very friendly and the quality of life is great. But I do wish the people here could talk normally.