Blog Post 4

With this in mind, respond to the follow quote from this week’s reading, also from Lisa Delpit:

[Teachers] should recognize that the linguistic form a student brings to school is intimately connected with loved one’s community, and personal identity. To suggest that this form is “wrong” or, even worse, ignorant, is to suggest that something is wrong with the student and his or her family. (p.33)

I completely agree with what Lisa Delpit is saying. I do not think it is right to tell the child that what they grew up around, and the way their family speaks is wrong. But, I do think that there is a time and a place to speak in certain ways. The language, in which Lisa is talking about, is Ebonics. I do not think it is racist to say that that form of language is just an informal dialect of English. Many people in a formal workplace would not hire one who speaks in Ebonics, and I believe that to be factual. Sadly, it is looked down upon and people who speak that way are looked at as incapable to hold a higher level job. That is why I believe we need to teach children to code speak. It is one thing to speak that way at home, and another to speak it at school or at a job. If we teach children to code switch, it is the best of both worlds. They can communicate with everyone in the way that best fits the situation they are in. They will never feel out of place, or undermined in any way, if they can speak Ebonics as well as formal English.