As Victoria Purcell-Gates references her two-year ethnography of the white Appalachian family, she expounds on what we already have learned. This being poverty and social status strongly influences their speech and writing, and that their intelligence is how others interpret their intelligence.
Her main point that she pushes is that the children/students need experience the people around them using print, reading, and writing. Children who do not have this in their environment (with emphasis on their “pre-formal instruction years”) will naturally fall behind as it does not open their mind to understand the concepts and purposes of “print” that are essential and that are expected of our society. To me, if a child enters school without having these experiences, it will make learning to read and write as difficult as learning a new language.
She encourages that instead of looking at this problem as a cultural “deficit” is should be looked at as a cultural “difference”. Conceiving the problem in this manner is the difference between seeing a child as inexperienced rather than unintelligent.
The concept of experience does not have its problems only at this young age with this problem. We also see it in the work force. It is ironic how much emphasis and importance is placed on experience while in the field of acquiring jobs, a younger inexperienced but educated person will get the job of higher position before a current employee who is more knowledgeable and more experienced in the field. Would it not make logical sense in terms of the company’s success to have the employee with more experience in the higher position? Whereas the younger and new employee has to learn everything about the company, and gain this knowledge only through experience.
The challenge now is how do we as teachers catch up those students who are in need of these “experiences” in order for them to be able to understand the concepts that will come much more easily and naturally to the students that have had them?
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ReplyDeleteVeronica, I understand where the dilemma lies and it’s a foggy path. How do we as teachers catch up these students who are in need of the experiences you talk about? The only answer that I can think of is to explain the political power structure and its influences on dialects.
ReplyDeleteAs Joan Wynne explains in “We don’t talk right. You ask him,” educators are at fault for creating these environments where languages are wrong. We should reflect on her example of her students and how they were too afraid of speaking out for an award they had won. If society was not so “politically correct” then this may not have happened, but because there is this notion to be “politically correct,” we must explore this in order to teach it.
Wynne points out that the dominant language was not chosen for correctness, but politically chosen. Therefore, we should NOT emphasize right and wrong so harshly, because we do not know if something is right or wrong. Just because it is politically correct does that make it perfect? Wynne suggests that using a novel to explore diverse languages and dialects is key. As English teachers we need to use what we have. We teach language. Therefore, we should teach different styles, dialects and cultures to bring this issue to light to our students. We need to create a space that is accepting and is open to explore a deeper understanding of dialects and language differences. Focus on the space, because that is how you get kids not to fear to speak out.