Reflections on Teaching, pt.1

This whole teacher thing isn’t going how I planned…

 I think I’ve done a pretty good job of building rapport with most of my students, but I don’t feel like they are actually learning anything specific to English content. Teaching grammar and writing and reading to someone just eludes me.  There are some rules of the English language that you just know. It just sounds right.  But the challenge is taking this implicit knowledge of how to “properly” speak and write and presenting it in an explicit and tangible way that makes sense. Then comes the fact that I don’t actually care that much about whether a student can write using impeccable grammar.  Its not that I don’t want them to be able to function in the professional world.  Its actually the opposite.  Their opportunity to survive and thrive in this world, in my opinion, will depend on their ability to think critically, to question the status quo, and to make decisions that will empower and liberate them— not on their ability to avoid double negatives and conjugate irregular verbs. And this is not to downplay the importance of literacy, because I am well aware that one’s ability to codeswitch is a valuable tool of survival.  However, there are people who can read and write perfectly, but have oppressed minds which greatly limit their ability to achieve self-actualization.

Currently, my 9^th grade class is doing a unit called: Standard English, Ebonics, and Spanglish: The Effects of linguistic Supremacy.

Sounds great right? I had no idea the amount of resistance I would receive from the students by asking them to complete their assignments using Ebonics or Spanglish. “Incorrect,” “ghetto,” and flat out “stupid” were some adjectives used by my students to describe the languages that all of them admitted to using amongst friends and family members.  This deeply saddened me because it was proof that the American educational system had served its purpose: subordinating the language practices and essentially the identities of individuals that do not fit neatly into the dominant group.  My students, like millions of others, have come to value mainstream white culture as “good” and “proper,” while believing their own  to be “bad” and “ghetto.” And understandably so. Nine plus years of schooling, as well as preparation to become impressive candidates in job interviews have sent them the message that Standard English is the language of power. In their final project, my students will be creating and Urban Dictionary of their own language practices in which they must be able to identify parts of speech and give detailed definitions on Ebonics/Slang/Spanish/Spanglish terms and phrases using Standard English.  Hopefully by the end of this unit, they will have come to embrace their culture/language alongside the culture/language of the mainstream. Keep your fingers crossed!