Let Me Speak: Including English Dialects in the Classroom

by Jessica Jenson

There are at least 38 English dialects spoken in students' homes across the United States. As English instructors, are we doing our students a disservice by correcting their native tongue just because it varies from the standard dialect?

"Speak Now," an art piece I created for my multi-cultural education
 class, represents my hope that regardless of my students' race,
ethnicity, or dialect, their voices will be heard and valued.

My great-grandmother was a high school English teacher in a town with a population smaller than my graduating class. Her students were fresh from farm fields and oil rigs, and they spoke the dialect of their country upbringing. "Ain't" and other such offenses were the norm—except in Grandma's classroom. Her instruction became well known for cleaning up her students' English and transforming them from rough field hands to well-spoken intellectuals.

While I admire my great-grandmother and the English instructors like her, the emphasis on eradicating English dialects concerns me. As I have prepared to become an English teacher, I have come to believe that English instruction should focus on the development of the students' communication and critical thinking skills, not the destruction of their language. Teachers in today's multi-cultural setting should be more accepting of non-standard dialects. Although this shift will be difficult for many of today's educators, the inclusion of all English dialects will increase student engagement, aid comprehension, raise standardized test scores, and foster empathy between differing dialect speakers.

Validating Vernaculars: Five Theses

Each student uses letters like these to shape his or her thoughts. Should English 
educators punish them just because their letters are arranged differently?

Over the last two weeks, I have written about some of the trending topics of English education and linked them to historical and communication contexts. Today, I'm taking one of those topics—validating the many vernaculars and dialects spoken by students—and composing five claims to drive my argument.

First, a brief review. English education has largely focused on instructing students in the traditional dialect of American English, grading on "correctness" rather than actual comprehension and engagement. Researchers are now finding that when teachers accept the individual vernaculars of their students and focus on comprehension, student grades and standardized test scores rise.

Connecting the Dots: English Education Hot Spots

Last week, I wrote about three hot topics in my field of English Education. This week, I'm considering how these hot spots fit in historical and communications contexts.

Validating Vernaculars

English Education has typically taught "correct" language usage, but studies are showing that students who are allowed to use their native vernaculars in class perform better on standardized tests.

Today's students come with a range of ethnic,
 cultural, and language differences.

• Historical Connection:
  The validation of an individual's vernacular is a very Romantic-era-influenced idea. The Romantic time period emphasized the importance of the individual's original thoughts, ideas, and "genius"—all of which cannot be adequately expressed without the use of that individual's native tongue. It's not fair to limit our students' power of expression and educational success to the words we allow them to use.

• Communication Connection:
  Teaching and speaking "correct" English has long been an established path to gaining ethos in school, work, and society. However, we live in a digital civilization with access to instant translations, definitions, and other helpful tools; it makes very little sense to insist on a standard dialect when we have so many ways to easily understand each other literally at our fingertips. 

Teachers Unions, the Necessary Revolution

By Stephen Rackleff

With salaries failing to compete with other job fields of similar caliber, teacher's need to unionize in order to protect the profession and the education of our children.  

If you were to explore various polls and online debates about teachers' unions and whether or not they help the current situation, you would find varying opinions. You'd be able to find some decent arguments on both sides, and some completely rational people that believe one way or the other, and you would also find hordes of people flocking to one side because of their political alignment or background with no real opinion as to why unions are either good or bad. The clarity of what unions accomplish and what they are good for is hard to find amidst the posts and rants that abound when you search this topic from a public opinion standpoint. Many wholeheartedly condemn them, while many embrace them without a second thought. So are unions really all that great? Do teachers really need them?

Segregation: The Foundation That Every Gang Needs

By Jeremy Rock

Because of the failure of government institutions in segregated housing projects, gangs have risen as pseudo-governments to fill the demand for an organization.

Gangs were originally formed to help communities, not just gang leaders. They were not involved in drug trafficking or extortion. They were formed to protect certain communities and provide services that the government neglected. As we are aware now, gangs are largely involved in drug trade and other illegal activity. Gangs have formed an entire economic system similar to any other business, except the activity is illicit. This is because segregated, low opportunity communities provide little chance for upward mobility. Because of the failure of government institutions in segregated housing projects, gangs have risen as pseudo-governments to fill the demand for an organization. They provide several services to the community that the government neglects in their neighborhoods which in turn creates a community that is reliant on them. While it may seem enticing and exciting to poor, lower-class boys to join a gang, it is more dangerous for a person to be in a street gang than it is to be on death row after being convicted for murder.

Unionizing the Educators

     Teacher's Unions have been around now for over a hundred years, with the first official union having been founded way back in 1916 in Chicago, Illinois. This union, The American Federation of Teachers, accomplished many helpful things for teachers as a whole, such as helping raise salaries and making sure female teachers were treated fairly in a time when sexism was rampant in the public and private sector.
     Other unions would emerge, strikes would take place, laws were passed to raise wages, and the educators across America benefited greatly. This emergence follows very closely the theme of challenging traditional systems that we would see come forth in the Digital Age, and in many instances mirrors some of the ideas about protest so common in the Reformation. Teachers were going on strike in states and areas where wages were not high enough in an active protest against unfair payment for their work. This new way of challenging the way things were done was prolific, and it's still going on today.
      Unions today have similar strategies as those of the 20th century: negotiate wages, organize strikes, and protect the rights of hard working teachers across America. However, contemporary unions also focus more on political movements and supporting political candidates that will help their interests more than before. Other developments such as tenure would make their way into unions as the time passed, and thus unions had changed to some degree from what their original ideas were.
     Some states today support unions wholeheartedly, while other states make laws that push against the power of the unions in an effort to retain some control over the ever changing field of education. States that allow more room for unions generally have better wages for teachers and less strikes occur because of this. It seems that unions and education might be better handled at a federal level, that way the quality of life for educators can be consistently better across the board.

Photo Source:
http://www.alternet.org/files/styles/story_image/public/story_images/shutterstock_80227045.jpg

Hot Spots in Education

• Prayer in School: Prayer in school has been a hot topic of debate for many decades now. Proponents of prayer in school of late have not been satisfied with voluntary prayer, and want to instead go back to the way things used to be with prayer as a classroom institution. Those against this idea refute this as a violation of freedom of religion. Through the media, news sources paint either side in a light that makes it hard to know what is really at stake. Most people, I think, would be okay with voluntary, private prayer in schools, and most I feel would not be okay with forced prayer, especially if it was to a deity or religion that was not favorable for their children, yet the media drives the two sides away from the large amount of common ground these two sides really have. 
• https://www.au.org/resources/publications/religion-in-public-schools

• Protest in School: Currently, there is a big debate over professional athletes standing for the national anthem. In public schools, that debate has been going on for some time as well, with students refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance that in many schools is a daily routine. In some cases where students do not stand school suspension has been instituted, begging the question, do students give up their first amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression when they walk into the classroom doors? 
• https://education.findlaw.com/student-rights/the-pledge-of-allegiance-and-legal-challenges-in-education.html
• Unions in Education: Unions add many benefits to the ever difficult lives of teachers, however, some believe that unions benefit special interest groups more than it really does the teachers. Certain benefits such as tenure and wage bargaining have dark sides to their gleaming face. In many instances, teachers who have committed heinous acts are still on tenure soaking up resources without actually teaching, and wage bargaining on behalf of the teachers can cause stalemates between the state governments and the union resulting in long, arduous strikes that leave children without proper teachers or class sizes. 
• https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-teachers%E2%80%99-unions-handcuff-schools-12102.html 

The first hot spot I mentioned is one that I feel is currently most compelling. Many of my friends and family argue vehemently on both sides of the argument. I feel as though the issue lies in getting past the rhetoric tools that each side uses to veil the reality of the situation.

Image Credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Andrew_Classroom_De_La_Salle_University.jpeg/220px-Andrew_Classroom_De_La_Salle_University.jpeg

Quality vs Equality in Education

Is it better for the wide public to have access to knowledge, even if it might inhibit the learning of the wealthy? We now see the printing press as an invention that was pivotal to humanity's progression. It allowed people from all classes and trades to obtain information for themselves for which they previously would have had to rely on an academic or a church leader. However, many of those who already had access to that knowledge thought the printing press was a terrible idea. One argument, noted in The Renaissance in Perspective, was that it "would impair learning by lowering it to the level of the multitude." Others scoffed at how unattractive printed books were compared to the traditional copied ones.

The upper class of the renaissance were hesitant to accept the printing press for fear that common people would impair their learning.

The printing press succeeded in expanding knowledge to the masses, but whether or not it tainted learning is not so certain. Regardless, I don't believe those who wanted to keep knowledge exclusive to the high classes were in the right. Societies and individuals thrive when knowledge is shared; that is worth the possibility that learning overall might be slower or less perfectly articulated. 

I think we see a similar problem in schooling now. The American government provides schooling for free so everyone in the country can be educated. It allows for a wide spread of knowledge, which as we saw with the printing press, benefits society. However, not everyone goes to public schools; those who can afford it go to private schools. This hurts public schools because they receive funding based on how many students they have. 

I see a problem of exclusivity here, similar to that with the printing press. Public schools educate children from all backgrounds, so students may receive more generalized education than if they went to a school exclusive to the wealthy. When this decreases the funding and therefore the quality of public schools, though, it becomes a problem of exclusivity. Of course this problem is more complicated than I can get into here, but we should look at the big picture: society benefits more overall when knowledge is shared among the classes than when elites have exclusive access.

Image credit: "The Gutenberg Bible" by Kevin Eng is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The Gift of Knowledge

Knowledge has shaped the world into what we know today. Obtaining knowledge has always been one of the biggest pursuits of mankind. Throughout history however, knowledge was often restricted to the upper class and those with power. Knowledge was used to control those without it. The Renaissance did wonders to break this cycle, especially with the advent of the printing press. Knowledge became more affordable and accessible. The majority of people could access what was once forbidden to them, and people feasted on it.

A man I was very impressed with from my readings on the Renaissance is Aldus Manutius because of his generosity and his desire to disseminate knowledge for the benefit of man. He was a book manufacturer who created with pride beautiful books, but sold them at an affordable price because he wanted others to receive the blessings of education. While this was his business, he made a living while being generous. Aldus' attitudes and actions, from what I read, towards mankind made him a very honorable man. His example should be followed today.

In thinking on this, I look at my own experiences and see how I have been gifted an education. Education has been generously given to me by my parents, the government, as well as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Church truly understands the importance of education, and like Aldus, wants to distribute knowledge at an affordable price so that everyone has an opportunity to rise above their current state in life. The Church blesses thousands with an education at an incredibly affordable price.

Knowledge allows people to live a more full life. It brings fulfillment and happiness to those who hold it. It also encourages more growth. Once people get knowledge they want more, and this leads to advancements in society. If we want a society that succeeds in all aspects of life, education should be easily accessible to the people. Education is vital for the betterment of mankind.

The Printing Press and the Intellectual Dark Web

cc

With the birth of the printing press came a new demand for information. The spread of humanism was a light to those in search of learning. This new opportunity for learning was not only a great equalizer but it was also the discovery of the individual's capacity for knowledge and the thirst for it. The information market quickly became the fastest growing market proof of our desire as human beings to better understand our purpose in the world.

I would argue that we are living through a similar revolution today on a smaller scale. When first introduced, Youtube was a platform where people watched funny cat videos and Charlie biting that one kid's finger. However, with it's unlimited bandwidth and accessibility to the masses the innate desire for knowledge has changed it into a platform of intellectual discourse.

With Television's limited bandwidth a debate about the ethics of abortion, or immigration laws is cut to a 20-minute news segment with "experts" shouting over each other with 3 commercial breaks in between. The introduction of these type of debates on Youtube opened the door for civil discourse on topics that need three to four hours of dialogue for there to be a progressing debate where everyone comes away enlightened.

These lengthy discussions are produced by intellects with a variety of political and philosophical views. These figures who are part of a group called the I.D.W. (Intellectual Dark Web) include Bret Weinstein (Evolutionary Biologist), Sam Harris (Neuroscientist), Ben Shapiro (Conservative Commentator), Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Feminist), Christina Hoff (Feminist), Jordan Peterson (Best Selling Author and Psychologist), and many more. If you type any of these names in a Youtube search bar, you will find thousands of hours of in-depth intellectual discourse that satisfies the human need for information and learning.

As with any other information it is vital to determine what is true. I am not saying what everyone who is part of the IDW speaks the truth. Most of them, however, are part of a movement that is searching for truth. Just like the humanists of the early Renaissance who sought to do everything they could to properly educate women, and "plowman". For anyone interested in captivating deep political and/or philosophical discussion I would encourage you to search these people out.