How Languages are Lost and How They Are Important

On February 18th I looked at how out-of-school literacy is important for in-school literacy. I looked at how students school material can be related to the things they find important to them, such as comic books, low riders and rap music. By looking at these out-of-school literacies we can see that students are not simply passive about their lives, but rather engaged in a medium that does not fit the school curriculum.

In a similar way a student’s culture or language may not fit the way that the “standards” of the curriculum. Not only have non-English languages not fit the curriculum but they have been forbidden from being spoken. In the essay titled, “Indigenous Bilingual/Bicultural Education”, by Lowaima and McCarty, we can see how Native American languages have been considered “unquestionably ‘unsafe’” (114). As a consequence for speaking their own native language at school there were accounts of “students being beaten, placed in solitary confinement, having their mouths ‘washed’ with bar soap, or being forced to stand for hours holding stacks of books on their heads” (115). (See Movie) The question then becomes, why were they forced to not speak their native language?



Back on February 1st, I posted a blog about what is the culture of power. When I see a culture being controlled by another I think about the culture of power and those in the culture of power trying to stay in power. Also as a general rule we know that those who are more literate, have a larger body of knowledge, tend to me more successful. Therefore if the US government can limit the literacy of Native Americans they can in effect control there ability to advance in society. Lowaima and McCarty confirms this reasoning by saying that the education system for Native Americans can be the “key to ‘movement for tribal or community [education] control’” (119). For Native Americans bilingual/bicultural education was set up to assimilate them to the new culture. In most cases they have been a form of control.

In schools were native language and culture was taught appropriately, there was a dramatic increase in students tests scores. This was realized by immersion students that learned the Navajo language. It was noted, in another essay by Lowaima and McCarty titled “‘The New American Revolution’ Indigenous Language Survival and Linguistic Human Rights”, that “immersion students performed better on local assessments” in both English and Mathematics (143). Bringing us back to the beginning of this blog, I can conclude that the reason behind the increase in performance is that students saw the culture relevance in there school work. Similar to how students out-of-school interests help students see the relevance of in-school subjects, we can see how culture relevance can also dramatically help students see perhaps a greater relevance.

This connection between student, school and culture was also noted by Mari Hanenda in her essay, “Becoming Literate in a Second Language: Connecting Home, Community, and School Literacy Practices”. Since students come from a large diversity of backgrounds, Mari states:

An important question to consider, given this diversity, is in what ways teachers can make connections among their students’ literacy practices in different contexts, so as to make school learning meaningful for them.

I feel that this is everything for the child. Often students ask, “Why is this important”? By making the material culturally relevant students then can answer this question by themselves. As a result students don’t have to feel like strangers in school, nor do they have to grow resistant to the educational system. The boundary between school and home becomes blurred and the result will become a greater appreciation and desire to learn.

In addition to making the curriculum more culturally relevant, educators must be accepting of multiple languages and diverse forms of assessment. In addition, it must be recognized that some students are better at vocalizing their meaning rather than writing it. Therefore these students should be given the ability express themselves in this manner. This was the bases to Soraya Sablo Sutton’s essay, “Spoken Word: Performance Poetry in the Black Community”.

Personally though I am very conflicted on letting students be given complete freedom on their form of assessment. If educations goal is to prepare students for the real world than assessments need to be similar. At the same time there is the contradiction that we are hoping to bring greater awareness and diversity to society. When a student goes in for their first job interview they will be judged on the way they speak and write. This is just the reality of the world. This is my dilemma and if anyone has a suggestion please let me know.