All posts by Haley Robertson

MVP #2

Observing to Learn and Learning to Observe, Urban Adolescents

Haley Robertson

“I came to the conclusion that Joaquin was trying desperately to figure out what it meant to be a young black man.  I realized that, like many black male adolescents, Joaquin was trapped by stereotypes, and they were pulling him down.”

As we read last week, adolescence is a pivotal juncture as we come into ourselves and struggle to find our own identities, where we fit in in society and what our futures hold.  As difficult as this is for all of young people, it is difficult to imagine the enormity of the identity crisis faced by African American youth, boys in particular.  Our society constantly projects negative images about this particular demographic, promulgating stereotypes, and waiting to catch them in the wrong.  How does one’s self-image suffer from the ongoing negative imagery?   While hardly comparable, as a young woman in business school, I was often stereotyped: demeaned that women are too weak for the business world, not smart enough, and told time and time again that women just don’t have a head for business.   I was often excluded from group projects and study sessions as it was assumed that I would have nothing to contribute.  These stereotypes infuriated me and pushed me to prove them wrong.   While I had internal motivation, there were several male professors who made it clear that they valued my opinions, respected my hard work and believed in my success.  These professors validated my presence in the classroom, as we as teachers must do with our minority students.   All people, but particularly young people, can feel tied to the stereotypes that people assign them.  For this reason, especially as a white educator, it is necessary that students of color see their presence as an asset to the classroom.  It is essential that we motivate our students to see themselves where they are not often pictured, through both examples that we provide in class and through encouragement.

Silencing and Nurturing –

Culturally, Linguistically, and Socioeconomically Diverse Adolescents in Urban Contexts: Framing the Conversation, Urban Adolescents

“…many saw the academic voice as the exclusively legitimate, if inaccessible mode of social discourse… By segregating the academic voice from students own voices, public school do not only linguistic violence…”

 

As a language teacher the idea of silencing is particularly relevant and ironic.  The very purpose of language learning is based upon communication and expression in one language or another.  In our sociolinguistics course last year, we learned that each person often speaks various dialects of the same language: the home dialect, the work dialect, and the academic dialect (which is mentioned within the article) amongst others.  We learned that all dialects are valid, because language is a working, alive mechanism, owned only by those that are implementing it in a given moment.   What happens when the dialects become so different that the differing parties no longer understand each other?  Are we speaking different languages?   We learned that most people favor dialects similar to their own.  Do we teach people to speak in a dialect so that all can be understood or do we as educators work to understand the variations and merely accept them as part of the culture that a student embodies?  Are we doing our students a disservice by not teaching them the academic dialect?  Or is it more important to preserve and appreciate their individual linguistic backgrounds?