Random Thoughts From Marybeth

Oppression or Education?

An article about Brooklyn College's School of Education discusses problems some students claim to have with one of the instructors.

The course, which instructs students on how to develop lesson plans that teach literacy, is built around themes of "social justice," according to the syllabus, which was obtained by The New York Sun. One such theme is the idea that standard English is the language of oppressors while Ebonics, a term educators use to denote a dialect used by African-Americans, is the language of the oppressed.

Opress: To keep down by severe and unjust use of force or authority. Cause to suffer.

She is wrong to say that a preference for standard English in U.S. schools is oppression, it's not, it's education. Advocating its use in school and at work isn't the same as requiring its use in all situations.

I like love English. Because of influences of other languages - from early invasions by Germanic tribes, the Romans, the Normans and later during the British colonial period - English has evolved and grown richer. Everywhere speakers of English have gone, they have adopted and adapted new words.

It's a packrat language. Some countries have banned the use of foreign (English) words, regardless of popularity, if they can find a native one that will substitute. English takes in new words...so what if there are already several English words that mean almost the same thing...it's that slight shade of difference that lets the speaker say exactly what he wants to say.

Teaching children to use standard English isn't much different from teaching math. It's a tool. How much you use it depends on what you do in life but isn't it better to have the choice than to remain ignorant of the possibilities?

Trivia section:

According to this there are 866,349 words in the English language. (There are 100,000 in French.)

Loanwords - a selection of words borrowed from other languages.