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Wednesday, June 1

What's Happening In Our Schools?

Ala. Teacher Gives Test to 8th-Graders Asking 

How Many Tricks Would a ‘Ho’ Have to Turn to Support Pimp’s Crack Habit?

     In a way, I understand how we got to the place where a teacher would think it's okay to pass out a test like this; isn't it almost a natural progression from Ebonics? Someone decided that black children could not learn at the same rate as other children because they didn't understand the way they were spoken to, and the way they were being taught. So, they came up with Ebonics which, according to the Linguistic Society of America is "black speech". It was 'culturally sensitive' to give them questions which were phrased  so that black children could identify with and understand them. There was a rerun of an episode of Good Times on recently which touched on this subject; Michael didn't complete an IQ test the class was given because he said it was prejudiced against minorities. Minorities would not be able to understand the questions, so their scores would be low. This test that the teacher gave out, while appearing to be totally insensitive and racist, is IMO merely a continuation of the type of thinking that brought us Ebonics and that episode of Good Times! Not saying that it WAS the case ( I wasn't there so I don't know) but perhaps this teacher felt that the 8th graders would be better able to understand the questions if they were in a context the children could relate to. And I don't mean relate to as in their home lives or anything like that, I mean look at what our children see on television and in the movies nowadays! There are gangs and prostitutes and cocaine and stolen cars in so many of the programs they watch, why is it wrong to assume that they might be able to relate to these questions??

8th grade test

 Actually, I'm still trying to figure out how they can call this test 'racist'; I see nothing racist at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't racism mean believing that one side is better then the other? As in blacks are better than whites or vice versa? The test doesn't mention race at all, so how is it racist??? Personally, I feel that this country was making great strides at closing the racial gap until the media and social networking began to highlight and broadcast every little thing that happened, sometimes finding 'news' to print where there actually wasn't anything racist at all.  With the media to tell them what to look for, people became sensitive to the least little thing, and suddenly the racist divide was bigger than the Grand Canyon. 

 If you want to read the whole article about the teacher and the test, here is the link.

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