This American Life on Harper High School in Chicago

How about "proper grammar, usage and pronunciation" ?

 

I guess the real question is if the principle is getting results. Do we have any metrics for Harper HS? What are graduation rates? Standardized test scores? % of students that go on to 4 year colleges? Property values?

This reminds me a bit of when the Oakland school board added ebonics to their curriculum. The thinking was that using African American dialect was a bridge to teaching English.

What happens in schools that are predominantly Spanish speaking. Do the teachers speak in Spanish?

 

Grammar changes and evolves. A few years ago, folks would have had a fit if you used "party" as a verb. Now it's a verb more often than a noun.

 

If you are going to cut and paste off Newsmax, you should credit them, Boom.

 

And in a few years, maybe the principal will be correct if he speaks that way.

Doesn't give him license to be wrong, today, however.

Just an extension of the "nothing is ever incorrect --- it's just alternate" world we've come to embrace.

 

People who speak in a Boston accent sound stupid to me. Does that make them wrong?

 

Completely irrelevant to the discussion.

 

Depends on the district I suppose but around here, yes. Teachers teach in both English and Spanish. Or English and Mandarin.

 

WTF is wrong with expecting our educators to use proper English? They are supposed to be teaching their students the proper way to speak, write, add, subtract, etc.

This is an insane discussion. If the principal wants to be "down with the homies," maybe she should quit and get a job more suitable to her patterns of speech.

 

Whitest post ever.

 

I can go whiter...just try me!

 

Define "proper English." Standard English?

Do white Southern principals ever greet an assembly of students using the phrase "y'all?"

Is that "standard English?" If not, why not?