By Jeremy Pepper

January 16, 1997

The Scourge of a Nation or Just Reality?

Now, a similar issue involves Ebonics. With the recent resolution adopted by the Oakland, Calif. Board of Education to have Ebonics used in classrooms, a non-issue has become one based on emotions rather than logic. Is that because people fail to understand the issue or could it be a deeper reason, perhaps prejudice?

The term Ebonics began to emerge in socio-linguistics literature in the late 1960s, being the two words "ebony" and "phonics" conjoined to express the new meaning of a dialect, or language spoken by the majority of African-Americans in the United States. The Oakland Board of Education, realizing that their current system of education was failing, decided to recognize Ebonics as a dialect being spoken by the majority of students and the need to be able to communicate with those aforementioned students.

The resolution passed, the board resolved that they recognize the existence of Ebonics and that the district would "devise and implement the best possible academic program for imparting instruction to African-American students in their primary language." The problem that the Board of Education ran into was that the news media decided to make the resolution a news item, when all that the board was trying to do was to reach out to the students in a language that the students already speak. Therefore, the teachers at the schools would recognize and be able to speak Ebonics, and therefore communicate and teach the students standard English. As Dr. Jesse Hargrove, assistant dean of African American Student Affairs, put it "the schools don't need to teach Ebonics to the students - they know it. The teachers aren't aware of how to use Ebonics to teach standard English."

Adrienne Lehrer, professor of linguistics, posited that the controversy with Ebonics is based on either people misunderstanding or newspapers incorrectly reporting the issue. Ebonics is a legitimate dialect of English , which has been studied extensively by socio-linguistics and dialecticians; there are unique rules which differ from standard English. But, just as it would be odd for a person to speak standard, formal English at a bar, it is just as awkward for an African-American to not speak Ebonics in an informal situation.

Lehrer said that the purpose of the Oakland Board of Education was to develop a more successful method to teach English, in what would be the best way. Obviously, the current teaching methods were not working and something else needed to be tried. As Lehrer stated the problem was that there are "negative views by teachers of Black English" and that the best way to reach the goal of education is to improve the "dynamics of the teacher/student relation by using Ebonics."

Hargrove agrees that the controversy with Ebonics is the misreading of what it is and a mischaracterization by the media. He said there is a need to have teachers recognize Ebonics because it is the language spoken by a large segment of African-American Students and once there is an understanding of the language, the problems of student control should diminish.

Ebonics, as Hargrove explains, is a language which has historically been used by African-Americans. When Hargrove was in a segregated school, there was no problem of explaining from Ebonics to standard English, because all of his teachers were African-Americans who spoke the same language. When the language barrier came about due to differing socio-economic classes of Whites and African-Americans, the difficulties between students and teachers increased. For instance, due to Ebonic inversion, 'bad' actually means 'good'. Also, the superlatives of 'good' are not 'better' and 'best', as they are in standard English. The superlatives of 'bad' in Ebonics are 'tuff', 'gangsta', 'dope' and 'da bomb'. When a student speaks to a teacher, there is a breakdown because of the teacher's lack of understanding.

Having the teachers in Oakland learn Ebonics to better teach the students may not be the solution. However, the current system is failing the students. Right now, Ebonics needs to be embraced by the school board and used as a teaching tool. If the system of Ebonics to standard English helps African-American students "mainstream" then use the system. Dr. Hargrove concluded that most African-American families want their children to learn standard English and recognize it as the "language of opportunity".

Professor Lehrer summed it up best: whatever works works, so go with it.

Jeremy Pepper is a philosophy Senior. His column, "A Dash of Pepper" appears every other Thursday.