I tried hard to understand the socio-psychological dynamic that led up to
the development of this pseudo-language, Ebonyx, in the minds of the
west-coast (that's code for "californicated") education community's leaders.
The place I arrived was at the conclusion that since the west-coast
community was unable to teach the young Blacks to stay in their chairs on
the few occasions on which they did attend class, they certainly couldn't
teach them to read, speak, and write properly, so they were forced to
classify what they, the young Blacks, did instead was another language.
This was seriously muddled in the debate over whether the educators on the
west coast should also be required to read, write, and speak properly.
The notion of Ebonyx was their way to "throw-in-the-towel" (for those
unfamiliar with U.S. boxing industry practice, this is a signal of
surrender.) so they wouldn't themselves have to learn what they had shown
they couldn't teach. If you ever spend any time in today's U.S. public
schools, you'll be appalled at the low quality of speech which has become
the norm among today's educators. When I was a pupil in the public schools,
I always found my teachers able to speak better-than-average English.
Today, that's no longer the case. They've become so wrapped up in being
"friends" with the pupils, they've forgotten they need to set an example.
I think the reason our kids don't learn languages well is because the tools
that should have been taught with English, e.g. organization and structure
in sentences, to underscore basic grammar, and organization in writing,
which certainly appears to be a dying art, are lacking, so there's no point
of reference. Try asking a recent high school graduate what a gerund or an
infinitive is. Then ask what the different between a present participle and
a gerund is. Don't even bother to discuss sentence diagrams, since the
teacher themselves don't know how to apply such tools. Foreign languages
all have their own sentence structure and grammar. If a teacher can't make
reference to a model their pupils must know, there's nowhere for them to go
in order to teach those same characteristics in another language.
It's a sad situation.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: allisonp_at_world.std.com <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, March 09, 2000 7:44 AM
Subject: Re: languages
>
>
>On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Merle K. Peirce wrote:
>
>>
>> I think that trend to continue as long as social activists try to promote
>> gibberish as language, as the ebonics debacle.
>
>I'd be one to agree with that.
>
>> I have always done well with English, and that is my field, where I
earned
>> two degrees, and always regretted not getting another. I do recall,
>> though, that studying Latin did make things seem much easier to me, if
>> only because the language forced organised thought. I think German might
>> function that way also.
>
>Some may laugh but it was learning Pascal after years of assembler,
>focal and Basics that helped improve my english as it was the first time
>I got to see structure at work. Up to that point verbs and nouns were
>more of an abstraction needed to pass tests than working tools.
>
>Allison
>
>
>
Received on Thu Mar 09 2000 - 11:06:37 GMT