RES 5530: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (Spring 2009)

I learned at an early age that your tone of voice and your body language overpowers the words that flow from your mouth. My parents and my grandmother made sure that I knew that. "It's not what you say, it's how you say it" was the difference between me getting grounded or not. I am glad that they taught me that lesson. It is a lesson that I carry with me everyday of my life and it has saved me a lot of heartache in my teaching career. Students are sensitive and parents are sensitive about their children.

One thing that struck me about my own teaching while reading chapter 9, is that I "talk" with my white students differently than I do with my black and hispanic students. Although I use standard english when conversing with both groups, I wonder if my white students think that I am "sincere". If you know anything about the two minority cultures, it's that we believe and hold on to our extended family. A lot of times this "privilege" extends to close friends and people that we spend a lot of time around. Being that I am the latter, because of my position, I often become extended family to many of the minority students in my classroom. I talk to them like I would my own children and they'll even make comments like, "I know you love me, because you sound just like my momma." When I have a conference with their parents it's like sitting down to a cup of tea with one of my cousins. It is not the same when I am engaging in talk with my white students. It's not that I care about them or love them any less, but I do not talk to my white students like they are a part of my family. I am very careful about how I say things around them. Funny enough I am NOT cautious like that around any of my white friends or their children. If they are close friends they get "adopted" into my family too, and from there anything goes.

The 11th chapter intrigued me for Tanya and I have much in common. I remember being one of four black students in my 11th grade AP Literature class and my teacher telling my parents that "she was surprised at how eloquent I was and that my writing was so impressive". I also remember my mom asking her if she was surprised with all "eloquent, impressive writers" in her class or just me, and if my skin color had anything to do with her impression. I have yet to find a tomato as red as her face turned that day. I went on to attend UNCG where I in my education classes I became the "spokesman" for the Black culture (please note that I did not apply for this job). Pretty soon I was "fired" from my position because I was outspoken and did not let ignorant comments like the one made by my 11th grade english teacher go unchallenged. Unlike Tanya I was not insecure nor ashamed of my people's language. I am proud of my black sisters and brothers whether they choose Standard English or not. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I know my history and my heritage. I know that my descendants discovered, invented, and founded a lot of stuff. Harriet Tubman in her genius was able to sneak countless slaves to the north without getting caught and I am willing to bet that she didn't speak proper english. When we as a (black) people realize who we are, where we came from, and the significance of our history on American history, will we not let language be the tool that builds the feeling of inferiority.

As educators we can destroy that inferiority tool. I am definitely not saying teach Ebonics in the classroom, but expose all children to black poems and literature. Teach children that words are powerful and the context that the words are used in can take away or add to the power. I will never forget an exercise that my AP Language teacher (he was awesome) did with my 12th grade class (where again I was one of four black students in the class). He gave us a poem written in Black English.After we discussed the poem and it's literary elements, we were to translate the poem into Proper English. What we learned from the assigment was that when the poem was translated it lost it's power. The strong feelings were diminished, the tone different, and the images very altered. His goal was not to teach us Black English, but to view it as a language that should be valued in it's own right.

Cherrita Hayden-McMillan