Making Sense of Relationships
How are you making sense of the relationship between
language, identity, race, and power?
When
activity is driven by one dominant language, then the activity is no longer
shared and voices are silenced (Jones, 2006). Power exists within the US through the use of
language from a figurative world of being “American” and hasn’t seemed to
change over time. If examining language as the foundation which identity is
embodied, how do we examine what it means to be American?
Jones (2006) connects
language to our identity as the building block from those we love. I attended
a local conference and listened to a Kindergarten teacher talk about this from
a five year olds perspective-when she corrects the way her students talk, she
is devastating the student who hears this form of talk from the person they
love the most. I am reminded of this when working with young children and the vulnerability
they may feel when bridging their identity from the home to the school. Not
until we allow ourselves discomfort that children may feel walking into a
school where “proper” English is the only accepted language can we begin to
show empathy.
The power
lies within the walls of school to conform, even our youngest students, to use proper
English. Anzaldua (1987) provided a glimpse of when language is used negatively
against someone by a dominant culture. That negativity is internalized and creates
a cycle of othering, which creates further power of the dominant culture. “But
for a language to remain alive it must be used. By the end of this century
English, and not Spanish, will be the mother tongue of most Chinanos and
Latinos.” (Anzaldua 1987, Pg. 39) This quote is strong and courageous to
identify how one’s power is situated to stay above. By hurting identities to
believe their language is wrong in school, then pride in
oneself cannot be honored.
The
identities negotiated throughout A Search
Past Silence was the positioning of themselves as literate in their own
social worlds. Derricks journal represented his identity as literate in an
environment where he was not supposed to be seen as literate. Their makeshift
circle-their cypha-created a space to have unity. “But no matter how loudly
they screamed, how forcefully they rapped, how blissfully they laughed, the
promise of silence was always there-a specter that loomed in the background of
their everydays, haunting their living words and arranging itself as a taunt to
their very existences.” (Kirkland, 2013, pg. 25). They shattered silence with
words, but those words are repeatedly examined as negative as people are scared
of changes. This furthers the use of tools where practices of oppressing the
oppressed still maintain existence even when schools work on equality.
I am left
with questions surrounding the gap from home to school and school to home. How
we can break the cycle and raise awareness of the impacts teacher’s identity has
among young children? The below visual helps me synthesis the relationships
between power, language, race, and identity. Our race and language help build
the foundation of our identity, but there is always an overarching power
pushing down based on the systems in place. Until the systems change, power cannot
be situated in a joint activity still leaving one culture with the power.
You are grappling with some of the same thought I had from the readings. To answer your question, "How we can break the cycle and raise awareness of the impacts teacher’s identity has among young children?" I listened to a webinar today organized by the Migration Policy Institute on supporting learners and teachers in "superdiverse" classroom. They share some thoughts from their research I told would be helpful. A teacher for instance might have 6 different languages in their classroom. Let's say the teacher is familiar with only one of these other languages and has probably not even heard of some of these language before. The researchers emphasized that teaching in all these languages is impossible but during activities, students can be allowed to bring in their own language practices. Posters in the classroom should reflect the various languages represented in the classroom, whether it is greetings or alphabets or days of week (it can be in all the languages). They found that students were more engaged in lessons, other language speakers were also interested in learning more from their peers, and overall there was a positive learning environment. My take away was that it does not matter who the teacher is, the matters whether the create the learning environment that allows students to navigate their identities.
ReplyDeleteEdwin, do you have a link to the webinar? I am so interested.
DeleteBeth-
ReplyDeleteYou raise a number of really important questions that I, too, am considering as I think about the relationship between language, literacy, identity and power. I specifically appreciated the way you raised the teacher's identity as an important aspect of the languaging in the classroom. Something I've been considering more and more is this idea that "home language" and "school language" are really just abstractions that have been socially constructed. I'm beginning to consider how a child's repertoire of languages exists in both places. It is the teacher, and in turn, the larger Discourses and power structures you refer to in your post that ultimately marginalize specific aspects of a child's language repertoire that create this illusion that there is one way to "do language" and "do English" in schools.
Beth,
ReplyDeleteI was glad to read your blog post because it was similar to thoughts and ideas I also had after reading the articles. (But didn't include because it was already long! :0 ) Your thought about the kindergarten teacher correcting students' speech, reminded me of my own experiences as a teacher in my classroom. In addition to trying to recognize and value their primary Discourse, which differed from the expectations of Standard English at school, in my classroom, I also distressed about what to do about the Discourse that related to their educational diagnosis. Many of my students had unique ways of speaking and being. I often felt I was asking them to change their identity when I asked them to speak and be in different ways. As I reflect upon my classroom, I also wonder how many students who were given an educational diagnosis of Emotionally Disturbed or Behavior Disorder were categorized because they were being asked to adopt a white identity and values. I am also wonder about how to help bridge home and school and what will it take for schools to recognize and value the many different languages students bring with them.
~Sarah
Beth, thank you for talking about kindergarten. As I read Anzaldúa, I kept wondering, when does an awareness of linguistic shaming begin. When is it internalized?
ReplyDeleteHow long does the shame persist? When I asked my dad why he didn't teach us Tagalog, he said we laughed at him. Was it shaming to him? He was already trying to assimilate into a culture with a dominant language. So many of our readings indicate that it isn't enough to know the right languages. It's also key to know the pragmatics, the social norms, the powers at play... Anzaldúa very much had me thinking back to figured worlds and the messiness of holding identity still. It raises questions for me about what quantifiable data is important when researching raciolinguistic ideologies.