Wednesday, April 10, 2002
Ebonics Scholar Dies
Today's New York Times carries an obituary for William Alexander Stewart, "a professor of linguistics" and "an early scholar of what has come to be known as ebonics, the nonstandard English many African-American children hear and learn at home."
The first time many people heard of ebonics was in 1996, when the Oakland School Board announced it would seek federal bilingual education funds for ebonics speakers. The Center for Applied Linguistics has published a raft of papers arguing Oakland's ebonics resolution was (a) misunderstood and (b) completely justified. English First has a different view.
Perhaps one day schools will return to the notion that teaching people what they don't know is what education is supposed to be all about.
|posted by Jim on 11:07 PM|
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