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Aileen Moffitt, Oakland Teacher, speaks out This was posted by Aileen Moffitt on January 26, 1997, on the Ebonics WWW Bulletin Board, which was taken down a few weeks later. I am a white teacher in Oakland. I am also one of the teachers trained in the Standard English Proficiency (SEP) program. I have been teaching in Oakland for 24 years. For the past 15 years, I have been teaching in the primary grades. I have always been a good teacher -- but since learning about SEP strategies, I have become an excellent teacher. SEP has taught me several things. One has been to develop an understanding of the history of the linguistic continuation of African languages in America. That means I have learned, from a linguistic point of view, about the language that my African American students bring to my classroom. In understanding the history, I have become better equipped to work with the children. A big difference occurred when I began to "translate" with children (non-judgmentally) rather than "correct". I have also developed an appreciation of the language. Ebonics has a richness that goes beyond the obvious features (of grammar, syntax, phonology, phonetics, morphology, and semantics). There are also characteristics of the non-verbal, the gestural, the rhythmic, and the emotional quality of the speech. I may be fluent in the grammatical rules of Ebonics, but I am definitely NOT proficient in these other qualities. Yet I can appreciate and admire them for the richness of expression that they provide. Poetry in Ebonics (including Maya Angelou's) can be music to my ears. NOTE: If you still believe that Ebonics is slang, you really need to do some research. We are speaking of the language patterns of the grandmothers and great-grandmothers of my students. They were not ignorant, lazy, nor stupid. And they did NOT speak slang. Slang is a contemporary thing and, as many have noted, spoken by teens regardless of color, although much of the leadership seems to come from African Americans. But slang is NOT the same thing as the patterns we are speaking of when we use the term Ebonics. I can also appreciate the African contributions to the world -- from the first alphabet to the scientific contributions to astronomy of Mali's Dogon people. Becoming informed of these contributions has made me a better teacher. I can no longer accept any notion such as "Columbus discovered America." That's as classic as Euro-centrism gets, for we all know that such an idea is now absurd. It's part of the fairy tale of American history. (Read Lies My Teacher Told Me. Read They Came Before Columbus. Read Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization. Face it, you're going to have to read.) Use of cultural values has also improved the management of my classroom. Who would disagree with the principles of Kwanzaa as principles for life: Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity, and Faith. My second graders do not merely recite these principles -- they try to live by them. They make connections to the literature they read. (You think I'm kidding? They can tell you that if the Little Red Hen's friends had practiced Collective Work and Responsibility, they would have shared in theeating of the bread at the end of the story.) My point is that it behooves us as educators to utilize the strengths that our children bring to the classroom -- a rich language, a strong culture, a remarkable history. We do not need to be afraid of these strengths. The children I teach are more likely to be productive members of society if they have a strong sense of self to accompany their mastery of the curriculum (including Standard English of course). My 7 year olds can tell you more about the features of the Ebonics language than many of the people who have chosen to pass judgment on whether or not the phenomenon exists. Call it a language, call it a dialect. But do remember that it is the linguistic continuation of African languages in America, for surely you recognize that Africans enslaved in America came here multi-lingual. English vocabulary was used in part because of the brutality of the slavemasters who insisted upon intelligibility (for fear they were being plotted against.) Please understand that we are NOT lowering standards -- it is a guiding princple of SEP to raise both the expectations and the outcomes. SEP students are showing greater gains than other African American students in Oakland. All of this without funding -- imagine if the program were fully supported!!! We do not begrudge the efforts of immigrant populations to get what is needed for their children. We do, however, object to the fact that the linguistic and educational needs of African American children have not been considered in a parallel fashion. In many cases, African American children are being considered the "English speaking" students in bilingual classes -- while their own linguistic needs are ignored. In other words, if implementation of a bilingual program is having detrimental impact on African American children, then shame on us for allowing this to occur. The linguistic needs of African American children differ from bilingual students because of the shared vocabulary (this is why we can teach in Standard English rather than Ebonics). BUT -- at the same time, this overlapping vocabulary (and mutual intelligibility) presents some additional problems -- one being that students are unaware that they are not speaking Standard English. By naming the language (Ebonics), I have had much greater success in helping students sort out the differences. I hope this is helpful information. I invite feedback. Aileen Moffitt: amoffitt@ousd.k12.ca.us