MS> PUBLIC SCHOOLS FEAR "EBONICS" WILL DESTROY PUBLIC SUPPORT.
 MS>      The reaction of public school administrators and the media
 MS> frenzy prompted by the Oakland, California school board's
...looks like a quote to me Matt.  Is it?  Your message ended out 
here abruptly and w/o trailing punctuation, attribution or your 
signature.  ...dunno.
[...]
 MS>                "'We teach standard English,' said
 MS>           Finger, Guilford's curriculum specialist for
 MS>           communications skills.  'We simply believe in
 MS>           and ask teachers to respect the language that
 MS>           the students bring to school."
 MS>      The school bureaucrat's remarks show how the public schools
 MS> are desperately walking a fine line between seeking to avoid losing
 MS> credibility and public support while still staying politically
 MS> correct and not offending groups claiming "victim" status
 MS> --- Simplex BBS (v1.07.00Beta [DOS])
(that's how you ended, btw.)
"school bureaucrat"; "desperately walking"; "politically correct";
"groups claiming "victim" status".  ...a bit loaded, don't you think?
I wouldn't have given attribution either now that I think of it; if I 
learn that someone I've just met reads "checkstand tabloids" like that 
it's a pretty good clue they don't have the depth or bredth worth 
spending much time in conversation with. :) :)
Personally, I think Pat Finger is probably a very fine teacher and 
a sensitive human being striving for what's best for the students.
...I also think that (like most American teachers) she's been caught 
a bit off guard and could have made an even better response reflecting 
the district's position.  "... respect the language the students bring 
to school" is probably not as accurate as she would have liked it to be.
"... respect the cultures represented by the languages children bring 
to school" would probably have fit more closely.  ...at a minimum but 
less desirable would be something like: "We caution teachers not to 
demean the cultures...".  That seems to lack an invitation to the 
educator to empathize with and learn of the cultures.
Hitler had the model you seem to espouse down pat.  I imagine 
that Gengis Kahn did too.  Don't you think an improvement in 
societies and civilization is represented by appreciating where 
all facets of it derived from?
As an aside I'd just like to make the observation that no one seems 
to have stepped forward to point out that this is a mirror image of 
the issues represented when some math teacher circulated a "test" 
based on supposed ghetto values a few years ago -- about the same 
time (and flavor) of the disbanded California State Capitol Police' 
"Running Nigger Target".  (...'course they wouldn't say that being 
morally defunct was the reason for disolving them into the CHP :) )
Circulating "the test" was an intentional debase of the culture, 
it's roots, language and everything possibly associated with it.
I think that the desire expressed by the Oakland School Board was 
for just the opposite.  Effective education from a basis of love 
and understanding, that's all.  ...I happen to believe this is 
reflective of the mainstream of America's teachers whereas the 
type of the attitude that would circulate something like "the test" 
is representative of a very few with poor attitudes toward life, 
their profession, fellow human beings and their relationship to 
any of these.
It's a changing world, Matt.
A whole lot of Americans think it's for the better.
I think they're getting close to being right on target!
Please have a happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
-frank:)
--- Maximus 2.01wb
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