STROL Ch. 1: "Cross Currents in Language
Policy and Pedagogical Practices"--Scott, Straker, Katz
Summary:
In the opening chapter to their edited
collection, Scott, Straker, and Katz both provide a chapter outline for their
collection, and more importantly provide historical, linguistic, and
policy background that informs chapters
that follow. Breaking history down into 5 periods (1740-1845, 1845-1905,
1905-1954, 1964-1980, 1980-to the present), they briefly analyze the linguistic
concerns and trends of the period, as well as key legal cases that dramatically
impacted language policy, education, and racial/ethnic rights in the US. The authors
characterize our present conditions as marked by "intolerance for language
diversity" as evidenced by the English Only Movement, and which is only
reinforced by policies like NCLB (6).
The authors describe three major sources of
present language diversity in the US: the dialects of African descendants, the
languages of indigenous people, and the languages spoken by past and present immigrants
to the US. The authors then explain the challenges created by polices like NCLB
for speakers of these dialects and non-English languages.
Finally, before outlining the work of the books
chapters, the authors briefly explain the intentions of STROL and a few of the
ways in which it has been taken up. They also comment briefly on the five other
resolutions which have extended and expanded the work of the original 1972
statement on STROL: the 1974 position statement on STROL, the 1986 Position
Statement on English Only legislation, the 1988 Language Policy Resolution, and
CCC and NCTE 2003 resolutions reaffirming STROL.
“The Hidden Linguistic Legacies of Brown v.
Board and No Child Left Behind” –John Baugh and Aaron Welborn
Summary:
By examining NCLB alongside the 1954 decision
of the Supreme Court, in Brown v. the Board of Education, to desegregate American
schools, Baugh and Welborn suggest that just as Brown v. Board, on its surface,
promised equality to African American students but did not deliver, so too does
NCLB perhaps further disadvantage African American students based on linguistic
differences. Unlike other immigrants to the US, argue the authors, African
slaves who were brought against their will to the country, did not have the
same opportunities (socially and educationally) to be exposed to and acquire
standard English, and as a result passed this limited access to Standard
English onto the following generations of African Americans. Furthermore, they argue
that the negative associations tied to AAVE only serve to further disadvantage
contemporary speakers of the dialect.
Bough
and Welborn, continue on to explain the well-intentioned but inevitably detrimental
educational policies that have resulted from NCLB. By linking school funding to
student achievement on standardized tests (in spite of the “accommodations”
made for several sub-populations), argue the authors, students with Limited
English Proficiency and/or speakers of non-standard dialects of English do proportionally
poorer on such tests and as a result attend schools that often receive harsh
and unhelpful federal sanctions. In the end, Bough and Welborn argue that “because
the native dialect of AAVE speakers represents a language barrier to full
participation in school,” NCLB—with its focus on standardized assessment as a
measure of school success--functions only to further widen the achievement gap.
LESSON LEARNED: Don’t read incendiary things
before going to bed! RAAHHR!
RANT: I’m wondering if reading or hearing about
the details of NCLB will ever fail to infuriate me and cause me to periodically
have to stomp away from my reading in disgust. Why on Earth did anyone ever
think it was a good idea to take money AWAY
from schools that preform less well. “Why,
yes,” they thought, “if a schools students are struggling, I bet giving them
fewer resources will solve the problem!”
NCLB is precisely the reason I am so skeptical
of federally mandated education policy, because, as Bough and Welborn point
out, it is nearly impossible for a federal policy to account for all of the
local conditions (student populations, learning needs, community expectations,
etc.) of every school (let alone student) in the country. Clearly those who
decided LEP students should be able to learn English in three years, have never
tried to learn a second language. And moreover, while it may be unrealistic to
expect that every school could provide long-term (or even short-term)
first-language instruction for all of its various LEP students, to ask these
students to perform on a standardized test is absurd. I had the advantage of leisurely
learning German over the course of a decade, free of any emergent pressures to
become proficient or fluent, and after having lived in Germany for a year and a
half, I still doubt I could pass the German equivalent of a State assessment!
Bough and Welborn are right, of course NCLB is disadvantaging students with
different language proficiencies and backgrounds—just as its disadvantaging most
of the nation’s students!!
…OK.. Rant over…
More to the point…
While I agree fully with Bough and Welborn’s critique
of NCLB—particularly their assertion that the biggest problem with NCLB is that
it “mistakes measuring schools with fixing them”—I cannot help but disagree
with their more specific argument about the speakers of AAVE. I begin to take
issue with Bough and Welborn’s claim at the very root of their argument: their
premise that “AAVE students need instructional methods that will enable them to
acquire Standard English literacy” (51). Though I’ve long struggled with the
issue of Standard English, I remain unconvinced that our goal as educators
should be to further propagate it. By making Standard English our educational
goal, we are only further reinforcing its embedded power and consequently devaluing
other, equally legitimate, dialects of English.
Bough and Welborn argue that valuing dialect
differences, “can help [students] not only explore their heritage and associate
more deeply with fellow speakers of the same dialect, but also to overcome
value judgment about “standard” language usage with a sense of pride in their
community” (51). The trouble, however, is that this argument makes no blessed
sense! If Bough and Welborn are still suggesting that, though educators should acknowledge
and respect students linguistic differences, the goal of literacy education
should still be Standard English, than the educational process itself will only
reinforce to students that while their dialect might be “nice” and “cultural,”
the language of academics and of power is not theirs! To explicitly teach the
Standard, is to reify it!
Furthermore, Bough and Welborn argue that “the
native dialect of AAVE speakers represents a language barrier to full
participation in school” because Standard English is the dialect of academics
(49). While they may be correct in asserting that the Standard is the dialect of academics (a
reality, which incidentally they are only further promoting), I am not sure I
buy that being a speaker of AAVE inhibits students from participation in
academics. Much of what I’ve read suggests that speakers of non-standard
dialects have little trouble understanding spoken or printed Standard English.
If educators, however, do devalue non-standard speech and writing, that would
of course put these students at a disadvantage. But again, insisting on
teaching them to speak and write in the Standard, only perpetuates the
devaluing of a fully functional and eloquent dialect.
No comments:
Post a Comment