Contemplating Being In Their Shoes

Reading Lisa Delpit’s article on Ebonics (Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 2) this week was a real eye-opener for me!  It forced me to step into the shoes of African-American children in a way that rocked my understanding of their educational reality.  I realized that I have completely taken for granted the “fact” that Standard English was the only true English and that regional and cultural “slang” were just relaxations of that standard.  I assumed that the slang users could slip back and forth between the standard and slang with ease.  It wasn’t until I read Delpit’s article that I realized that for some Americans, particular African-Americans who speak Ebonics in their homes and communities, Standard English is really akin to a foreign language.  I was particularly struck by her example of language researcher Robert Berdan who constructed an artificial alternative to English that he called the “language of Atlantis.”  He then proceeded to ask his graduate students to read aloud in that dialect, correcting them constantly as they made frequent mistakes.  This process basically shut them down.  They began to sound illiterate, to feel self-conscious and unconfident, to read in a monotone voice, and to lose sight of comprehending what they were reading as they concentrated on just trying to pronounce the words correctly.  In a short time they also began to fidget and show other outward signs of stress and anxiety.  Even though Delpit had described basically this same process happening in classrooms as African-American children were having their Ebonics corrected repeatedly by a well-meaning teacher, the devastating impact on the child’s learning and self-esteem did not fully sink in until I put myself in the shoes of Robert Berdan’s graduate students and felt anxious just reading the scenario knowing I would shut down in those circumstances as well.   Reading this article has significantly increased my sensitivity to this issue.  I appreciated Delpit’s suggestions on both incorporating other dialects into the classroom with stories, puppet shows, etc. and also using writing, rather than reading/speaking, as a more appropriate forum for correcting standard English mistakes as writing lends itself more easily to editing while also not putting the child on the spot.  I can see that it will be a very difficult thing to put in practice however.  I see that I will need to make a habit of continually putting myself in the shoes of my students in order to teach them effectively with respect to their individual backgrounds.