Kristen Billings
What Kohl says about school performance and expectations is very true. Almost all students worry about what they will look like when answering questions and especially what would happen if you were wrong. Julia in this story acted as many students do because they don’t want to be humiliated in front of the class so she doesn’t participate and ends up cheating herself out of the education she deserves and benefits from. That innate fear is instilled inside all of us very early in life and the preoccupation with how others see us is a tremendous part of what controls many students lives. As teachers I wish we all could live by what Kohl says after his female students refused to answer the “mop” question, “Knowledge and intelligence is more important than conformity to the norms of testing.” Wow! What a powerful statement! I just wish all the teachers that teach EOC or EOG classes had the nerve to live by it.
The statement Kohl makes about understanding both teacher talk and student talk is very true. “This has nothing to do with language differences. It has everything to do with the way in which language is heard and interpreted, with tone, presentation, attitude, implication, and an understanding of how to convey complex meaning in a way that is understood by the spoken-to.” We, as teachers, need to understand out students just as much as they need to understand us. One statement Kohl made about loving the students in your classroom made me think, and I came to the conclusion that I disagree with him a little. Yes, it is trust and respect that make the classroom work but without the love factor, especially in the younger grades, some of these kids will never know that feeling. I believe you need to add that emotion into the equation. The nutshell statement for chapter 9 is that you need to know or learn the correct teacher talk in order to communicate with the class and the parents in an acceptable way.
Smitherman has a great plan laid out that would be beneficial for all educational settings. Too many often times the reason these things don’t happen is because of budget cuts or money issues of some sort. I wish this language policy could get up and going because it would be advantageous for all students to at least be bilingual and then perhaps they would understand the language barriers many people from Third World countries face. This policy, I believe, covers all the bases, so the question is, why aren’t we doing it?
We need to start uplifting students for what they do and who they are! Not how they look and speak. The question keeps coming up why?? I don’t understand why we do this. How can we as teachers tell these students that because of a language barrier they are inferior to the white population? How can we call ourselves teachers when we do that? I do not think I will ever understand how some people can be so ignorant. I hope and pray that I am not like this. I know one thing that has happened from me reading this particular book and this is I will definitely be critiquing my own teaching language that I use from now on.
Comments (4)
Kristen,
I'm glad you raised the issue of conformity. While not everyone has to be as nervy as Kohl, teachers can resist all sorts of models of conformity and to help their students do the same when it might help them in their identity work.
It is also, as you put it, important for teachers to examine how they might be complicit in ways that demean students' language "play."
Alecia Jackson
Posted by Prof. Alecia Jackson | June 3, 2007 7:57 PM
Posted on June 3, 2007 19:57
Kristen,
You made many good points. You have the same questions I do on many issues. Last night while I as watching the Democratic Debates, a very important question was raised that pertains to we are discussing right now. The question was, should English be made the official language of the United States. Almost everyone agreed that it should be and that is very dangerous. Hillary Clinton explained the difference between official and national. She stated that English should not be made the offical English because it is already the national language. (My guess is that most people do not know the difference.) She further explained the difference, When you make a language official there are many legal implications. First legal documents will no longer be required to be translatead into other languages. Translation services in hospitals will not be made available. Basically the only language we will see in print will be English. I don't know what would happen to Bilingual Education in educational settings. It is imperative that people understand the difference between "offical" and "national" when speaking about English. There are many people who would like to see English only. I don't understand this. Perhaps it is fear.
Laura Wollpert
Posted by Laura Wollpert | June 4, 2007 9:28 AM
Posted on June 4, 2007 09:28
Kristen, I can completely relate to your discussion of students feeling too uncomfortable to participate in class discussions. I often feel, especially at staff meetings or things like that, that I am not knowledgeable enough and do not have enough experience for others to believe that I know what I am talking about. This fear often persuades me to keep quiet about issues I sometimes have lines of reasoning. The problem I think, at least for me, is that there is no step by step process to ensure that this does not happen in our classrooms. I have found myself often asking how to successfully implement what we are learning through this course, but my problem is that there is no recipe to follow to create the perfect classroom environment. This has been a very difficult concept for me to put my head around because I have an extremely Type A personality and thrive on knowing exactly what is expected of me and then working until I meet that goal. I, like you, have also realized through this course how vital it is to point the finger at myself and my own language and how to make it more understandable for my students, rather than the other way around. This in itself, I believe, would make a world of difference in a classroom environment. ~Allison Reese
Posted by Allison Reese | June 4, 2007 8:37 PM
Posted on June 4, 2007 20:37
Kristen,
I agree that there are many Julia's out there who cheat themselves out of learning because of that innate fear of being humilated. I wish there was a way to keep this from happening but being a Julia myself, I realize it takes time and a very caring and supportive teacher. I agree with you that the love factor is an important issue that needs to be in the classroom especially in the low economic schools whose students don't always get the attention they deserve. When you know someone loves you then you do trust and respect them more.
You are so right about budget cuts. It seems that a good thing gets going and they cut your money. In our school county, the money for the ESOL translator got cut. We have such a high population of ESOL students at our school that we are going to have to pay for it through our school budget.
It is sad that students are made to feel inferior because of their language. I too am going to be much more careful with how I sound in front of my students.
Posted by Linda Younts | June 4, 2007 9:49 PM
Posted on June 4, 2007 21:49