Urban Prep (2005- ) is an all-male public high school in Chicago. Nearly all the students are black and poor and, when they entered, had poor reading scores. Yet for the past three years it has sent 100% of its graduating class to four-year colleges or universities.
That is both better and worse than it seems:
Urban Prep does not take the best students, it is not some kind of magnet school – it just pulls names out of a hat of those who apply.
Although 100% of those who make through all four years go on to further education, many drop out. Each freshman class has 150 students. Compare that its first three graduating classes:
- Class of 2012: 85 graduates (57%)
- Class of 2011: 71 graduates (47%)
- Class of 2010: 107 graduates (71%)
But compare that to black male high school graduation rates:
- 47% USA
- 44% Chicago
- 44% Washington, DC
- 28% New York
- 28% Philadelphia
Public education of blacks in America is so terrible that most lose IQ points during high school!
Generally speaking only half of black males graduate high school. Of those only half go onto further education. And of those only 35% make it to their second year.
Compare that to the Urban Prep class of 2010: 71% graduated high school, of those 100% went on to further education. And of those 85% made it to their second year.
- Even though when they came through the doors of Urban Prep in 2006, 96% had bad reading scores and 87% came from poor families.
- Even though the school stands in the middle of a violent, poor black neighbourhood with gangs.
Urban Prep spends $12,000 a year on each student. That is more than most Chicago public schools. They not only get money from the city like every other public school, they are also a charity. Oprah gave them $250,000. Someone unnamed gave them a million. The Renaissance School Fund, put together by Chicago business leaders, gave them a half million.
School days are two hours longer. You take English twice a day!
They are big on showing models of black success – it is easier to believe in something you can see with your own eyes.
Each student has a mentor who he can call at any hour.
You must wear a school uniform (pictured above). And every morning you must say the school creed:
We believe.
We are the young men of Urban Prep.
We are college bound.
We are exceptional-not because we say it, but because we work
hard at it.
We will not falter in the face of any obstacle placed before us.
We are dedicated, committed and focused.
We never succumb to mediocrity, uncertainty or fear.
We never fail because we never give up.
We make no excuses.
We choose to live honestly, nonviolently and honorably.
We respect ourselves and, in doing so, respect all people.
We have a future for which we are accountable.
We have a responsibility to our families, community and world.
We are our brothers’ keepers.
We believe in ourselves.
We believe in each other.
We believe in Urban Prep.
WE BELIEVE.
Two new Urban Preps were opened in 2009 and 2010.
See also:
This school is a real success in many ways, both academically and socially. It has been studied and many are working in various metros to replicate its success. I devote my own pro bono time in my town working with a remarkable man here who has found similar success at the K-8 level and is now building toward a high school. As noted, there’s no magic formula, just a long day, long year, hard work, focus, discipline. Which is exactly the same thing my wife and I do with our own kids at home.
The school is also a shining example of how the free market can use innovation can create success when educators are free of the bureaucratic shackles of a bloated urban school district and teacher’s union.
By the way, most charter schools are 501(c)(3) organizations — charities.
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We need more of these schools. Young, black, poverty-stricken boys are almost bound to fail in society. Most end up in jail. I’ve seen and observed some charter schools that are similar in Philly. ( They also have scholarships similar to the United Negro College Fund.)
The funny thing is, these kids are so eager to learn. They’re like sponges. And when they do make good grades and start to learn the material, they take off like rockets.
Abagond, these schools are needed in every black neighborhood, for young and old. Many older black folks never had the chance to finish college/high school due to family/economic circumstances, then comes babies, jobs, rent and soon…ten years go by, and you’re only making 12.00 an hour and struggling.
It’s nice to see this. The sad thing is, life prepares these kids for a massive failure. Without education, especially with black men, it’s hard to obtain a decent job. Add to the fact that the system is literally designed for them to end up in bars, It’ll be a challenge for them the entire way.
But at least, it’s nice that they are being given a chance…
One more thing…
I wonder if the reason why these boys do so well and emerse themselves into school, is because they’re around other black boys who are just like them. There’s noone whispering in their ear that they’ll never make it. No teacher to stick them in the back of the class and ignore them. No girls for distraction. Noone making them feel as if this is a waste of time, just give up and head to Sing Sing…
Just a thought…
We are, after all a mind-body.
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@ Bulanik
I had that whisper in primary school from my AP English teacher who was shocked that I was in his class. I reminded him that English, was in fact my first and true language.
He didn’t take kindly to my rebuttal.
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More schools such as this one are sorely needed…good education is crucial, for certain.
When a love of learning is instilled, it lasts for a lifetime. Knowledge is power…
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This proves what is wrong in USA. IF black schools in general would be as well funded and cared as are so many others, this is the level easily where the black students would be.
The question is Why the school system is so poor as it is in USA? Who benefits from this? Whose interest it is to have un educated poor people by millions?
Yes, follow the money once again.
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@ Sam
Spot on! Excellent point, as usual.
This does disprove many points indeed.
Black schools are poorly funded for a basic reason.
Instutionalized racism.
This evil system of oppression is cleverly designed to further the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots”.
That’s why when one of us poor inner city and rural farm ( me ) folks actually makes it to post secondary education, we weep with joy.
It’s a long, hard road.
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This strikes me as horrible, single sex education, school uniforms, a horrible school creed, though better than that nationalistic pledge, horrible drop out rates and worst of all, worse is easily found.
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Abagond:
As black people, we need an “All Of The Above” mindset when it comes to education. We can no longer apply one mode of learning to fix what’s broken in education. All of the ills that we discuss on this blog are “Actuality” because of a lack of knowledge first and foremost. It’s hard to exploit knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. “The World” can take all material things from you, but, they can’t take your mind…Ditto!
Tyrone
MindScape
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Segregation. It works.
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Per pupil spending at awful inner city schools in many cases exceeds their better suburban counterparts. The issues isn’t simply dollars, but rather smart dollars. Charter schools educate because they are free of the shackles of giant school districut bureaucracies that love to throw money at programs that fail to produce results and focus on actual hard work. In most cases, charter schools do it with fewer per pupil dollars than their traditional district school counterparts.
To those who decry “segregation”, I would suggest we already have educational apartheid in America. Charter schools aren’t accelerating this process. In fact, in cases such as Urban Prep, they’re solving the problem by creating successful black graduates who will return to the community, where they will have families and teach success to their children. The funadmental difference with charter schools is that they cannot compel attendance. Pupils choose to attend them. Clearly, the pupils who choose to attend Urban Prep (or their parents) do so because they find its culture and environment to be positive choices.
To those who criticize schools like Urban Prep for being competitive and results-oriented, thus resulting in drop-outs, I would suggest that you can’t make the weak strong by making the strong weak. In education, as in most things, there will be people who are smarter and get higher scores than others. Anybody who dreams of a world where every student has a 100% average in every subject is ignorant of reality. Urban Prep is the right answer — offer opportunity to those willing and able to grasp it. Don’t punish high acheivers by warehousing them in decrepit hellholes where their talents and abilities stagnate and rot.
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The one thing I haven’t seen anybody say here is these students have something way too many children of whatever ethnicity don’t—-parents who care enough about them to enroll them in a place like Urban Prep. Even those who drop out are probably still smarter and better educated than the socially promoted morons coming out of the neighborhood public schools.
Now the big question is how long before Becky Vanderkellen, the Women’s Studies Professor from some female-only college in the WASPy burbs starts making a big stink about Urban Prep being a male-only school and how long before the castrated politicians cave to the Becky Vanderkellens on this matter.
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Hey, competive OK, results-orientated-OK, falsifying the competition by excluding the superior sex? No way Jose, that’s not fair and no fun.
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Female only??? The only thing worse than male-only. (OK, if you ask me, the best environment for study for both sexes is formed by making groups with a male minority, and I am talking about under 25%). Problem is that you are stuck with surplus boys in that case.
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@ Sam,
I agree. This disproves the age old justification (used from segregation onward) that black people don’t want to be education.
Giving any student something to reach for and aspire towards makes a huge difference, and so does making them feel like someone finds their success worth investing in. You’ll notice that any poor school lacks those because there are just too many people invested in an under-class. Couple that with the schools being predominantly non-white and you’ll see that no one planned on watching them succeed. Care goes a long way.
@ Jay,
Don’t ever be fooled into thinking that a woman from the burbs is going to instantly see the value in a all-male school, even if it helps people who would usually be ignored (and their situation be justified) by the typical private schools and well-funded public schools. They’ll likely complain about the “boys only” part without admitting they themselves would balk at letting in women of color. Its hypocrisy at it’s best.
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I meant to say “want an education”. I apologize.
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@ Jay
Vanderkellen fails to realize than for centuries, the education system only catered to white, Anglo males. When money was introduced, then daddy would pave the way for junior to attend all-boy prep schools.
No matter how many charter schools are put into place, they will and can’t ever match the wealthy, ” Don’t worry son, after graduation, you’ll be vice-president of your own company” nepotism.
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I agree that more of these schools are needed. Only half of black boys graduate high school? That is a national SHAME. I will make sure to funnel some money to this school. Thank you, Abagond, for this post.
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Hey Jay from Philly,
Do you think you might be able to get away from your self-appointed “neighborhood watch” lookouts/patrols and go visit Ms.Becky from the “WASPy burbs” in time to voice your sincere allegiance to the young brothers in the hood and head off Ms. Becy’s impending disasterous interference???
Who can do this assignment better than you, seeing how you’re literally on top of all things “hood” related?
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Just happy to see good news out of Chicago. I hope that this school maintains its standard of excellence in helping young men become successful in their future endeavors.
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With the state of the educational system the way it is today especially in regards to black men, Urban prep is sorely needed to uplift the minds and spirits of the disenfranchised males left out of the mainstream.
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Matari,
By the time those kids got to me it was too late for a place like Urban Prep. When you’re going upstate for the first time because you got 2-4 minimum and your sentence is too long for the county to hold you, we’re past whether or not you should enroll in Urban Prep.
Odds are you (“you” being the young man in my custody) had no father (that’s a given) and increasingly had no mother either. You were raised (or not) by an elder sibling or harried great grandmother where you didn’t get trained what the names of colors are, how to count, or your ABCs. How being kind to others or waiting your turn is for suckers. Where by the time you got to school the teachers shrugged and said “We can’t help them, we don’t get them ’til they’re five.” Where you could disrupt class, assault other students, assault the teacher and nothing would be done because it would be racist to hold you to any kind of standard. Where you got socially-promoted because it would be racist to hold you back.
By the time you were 12 or 13 you had stopped going to school to suck down weed on the corner. Your big role model is the guy riding the ATV the wrong way down the street. You make money the only way you know how, being a runner or lookout for less than you’d get at McDonalds. You get pinched a few times, and by 19 or 20 you’ve got a felony on your hands. Then you come up to see me. And you’re pretty much a failure and your life is over. How did you think I knew about the Black underclass? Urban Prep doesn’t figure into that story.
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@ Jay,
Wow. Just reading that has told me all I need to know about you and your views. You clearly need a reality check, your self righteous add in of the “racist” part was the most telling.
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Jay from Philly, you are riduculous but hilarious at the same time! Hahahahaha!!!!
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@ Jay
I can’t believe what I just read. You have a lot to learn. Life is not always either/or.
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@JayfromPhilly
Inregards to passing kids or “just lower the standards”, if its anything like college if enough people fail schools have to answer for why thats happening and face the possibility of not getting tax cuts, etc…..so I suspect a lot of thats more economically focused than PC-focused.
Basically its all about the money. Thats capitalism for you.
Its kind of ironic, in a sense its because they are being upheld to a higher standard of sorts that they are producing inferior students because they can’t afford to fail them in the numbers they need to do so.
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It mentions 85% go on to return to college a second year but how many manage to actually graduate college?
And how well do the graduation rates compare to public schools?
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The impact that this school is making is wonderful. As someone who has worked in a similar setting, many of the children that come in are on a 2-5th grade level. It seems that the academy is not only able to get them into college but correct the wrongs of many years of failed education. All this at an age where many children are already disillusioned and those formative years of pre-k and kindergarten education have passed; they have managed to engage these young men.
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From the US Department of Education
30.7 percent of all first-time college students in 2003 earned a bachelor’s degree by 2009, 9.3 earned an associate’s degree, and 9.4 percent earned a certificate. 15 percent were still enrolled somewhere and 35.5 percent had dropped out.
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There is increasing enthusiasm for single-gender education as people learn more about the different ways, and different rhythms, in which boys and girls learn. In middle school years, girls in all-girl schools tend to excel in math and science, whereas they tend to fall behind with boys around. In high school, boys tend to excel in all-boy schools whereas, with girls around, they act like knuckleheads.
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Is that all first time college students period?
First time college stubents from Urban Prep or just first time college students from public schools?
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Congradulations to these kids from Chicago.All people need is a little hope and it can go a long way. If there is any first place to start , if America is really going to even start making up for obsticles thrown in black Americans past, the school system is one of the key places to start. Of course, all poor people should have some kind of shot in life , with a good education available, if a societey really wants to be a healthy one
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I want my little broher to go here and learn how to interact with boys his age and in his race.
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Jay from Philly,
Are you a racist, race realist, or a conservative?
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African Americans need to teach African Americans, that’s clear. Before so-called integration Black schools, even with inferior facilities and books etc., did an excellent job of educating African Americans. Once White teachers began en mass to teach Black children those students began to decline and that decline continues today.
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This story is amazing. I wish more schools were like that.
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@commentarybyvalentina – You’re exactly right!! During segregation even with the poor resources, Black educators believed that Black children could learn and taught them. Unfortunately, when White teachers began teaching Black children many (not all) brought the mindset that Black students were inferior to the schools. They had lowered expectations for the students and the students began living up to those expectations. Even for those Black students that displayed great intelligence, they didn’t hesitate to put them in their place. Remember young Malcolm Little(X)!
Many times today, you also have Black educators who believe that Black children or poor Black children can’t or don’t want to learn. So there’s no guarantee that sending your child into the care of Black educators will mean that have teachers/administrators that care or believe in them.
I was raised in Detroit and there are a number of terrible charter schools that are operating there. They perform worse than the public schools and are run by administrators who make good salaries and bring in spouses or friends for high paying jobs or contracts. They are not qualified or incompetent and the kids are suffering.
On the other hand Detroit has some magnet public schools whose standardized test scores are among the best in the state. They have extremely high graduation and college attendance rates too. My alma mater is one of them. The school is almost 100% Black and the standardized test scores for those Black students are better than the scores for Black students in some of the other top districts in the state. If you have a dedicated and qualified staff with a mission to educate the students, it doesn’t matter if it’s public or charter. That’s the magic bullet.
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@saadiyah
“They had lowered expectations for the students and the students began living up to those expectations.”
That says it all.
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Come on, Abagond, you’re better than this!
Don’t believe the hype and it is important to look at things holistically. Urban Prep is not the solution at all–and we should be very afraid.
Learn more:
http://pureparents.org/?p=16835
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@ Saadiyah,
You’ve hit the nail on the head! I’ve seen it in the schools I have gone to. If the students are black, there seems to be this unwritten rule that black children are a lower priority.
The ones who exceed the standard are often punished by this unwritten rule due to having their success questioned or diminished (i.e. arguing against a black valedictorian, accusing black students of cheating), so it becomes a question of “why try when either no one cares or they’ll just take it away from me?”
I remember being a apart of a class that was split into “gifted students” and “normal students”. I remember that the regular students were performing as well as the gifted ones at first, but when they started noticing the difference in treatment and how they were dismissed they started to lag. There was a “standard” that the teacher wasn’t interested in helping them fit, the teacher was too busy trying to teach the “gifted students” and had decided they weren’t as important. I think it’s sort of the same case in terms of race.
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And here’s more:
http://www.examiner.com/public-education-in-chicago/the-urban-prep-charter-school-myth-is-yet-another-chicago-public-schools-deception
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2011/03/06/same-kids-same-building-same-lies/
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@teddy
Why do you think having single sex schools is such a bad idea coupled with uniform? It works here in Africa as most countries here have single sex schools especially in high school. Uniform is mandatory.
I think some European countries and Australia also have this system and you know what, i think it works.
I think in a country like America black teachers are more equipped and motivated to teach young black students especially young men as someone said upthread.
Positive post and i do wish the best to this young men. One of the boys there in the picture looks exactly like my younger brother
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CommentarybyValentina
I agree with you. Blacks should educate Black kids like me about how the racist society operates and about Black History too. Urban Prep works for Black boys, I believe and it seems ike a good school. They should build more schools like that for Black teens of both genders.
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Teacher’s unions and traditional district education establishment have been for several years throwing big dollars into the task of ginning up “studies” and “reports” about why charter schools are a bad idea. Parents aren’t stupid. Why do you think the wait list at Urban Prep is longer than the actual enrollment list?
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@ Ace
Your aboved comment is spot on! Even when black students make excellent B+ and above grades, they’re questioned, singled-out and made to feel as if they don’t know as much as the others.
It’s an exhausting process; one designed to make you fail.
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And even more:
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I know that they can look to lots of examples about same sex educational situations, and, I say great, great for Urban Prep, I just personaly would never want to do that. As a matter of fact, at this stage in my life, I hate any situation that is all male…seriously…
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@ brothawolf
Calling a white person a racist is the black equivalent of a n****r.
That’s why “race realist” was invented.
Jay will deny til the cows come home he is either.
He’ll say that he just calls ’em as he sees ’em.
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@ Abagond
Funny isn’t it?
Whites will say that if this school catered to whites only, it would be racist.
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I think this school is a very good idea. I think it addresses a giant epistemological question that lingers in contemporary public schools: how does the knowledge represented through the mainstream education system reflect a specific socio-cultural, ideological slant.
In other words – white racism present in both the choice of what we learn but also in what is not taught. For example, the emphasis of “English” as a prerequisite course throughout grades K-12 – and oftenly taught through very British & caucasian american literatures ( and perspectives).
Also i would add that I think that the over emphasis on White American perspectives in history; W.european events etc. is to the deficit for everyone except white people who it supports through creating narratives, focusing on white agency/accomplishments, while minimizing white crime.
I think it is all very nefarious.
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We used to have single sex schools too but advanced beyond that, at my school girls were allowed in around the start of the 20th century and the last single sex schools stopped being when I was iin the High school equivalent. If boys cannot learn to deal with the presence of girls during high school, you are releasing men who have not learnt to deal with the presence of women, and that seems to me a very dangerous practice.
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@ JT
Co-signed.
The white American/ British emphasis only reinforces white supremacy whilst downplaying any flaws they have.
When I was in the South, Georgia and Alabama, I read that some schools are now teaching their youth that the American Civil War was not about slavery!
And that they really didn’t “lose” the war. It’s being spun like I’ve never seen.
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@ Truthbetold,
It’s because they have everything to lose by the truth being told (no pun intended =) ). And Blacks have nothing to fear from the truth. They don’t need mythologies, delusions and outright lies to exist freely. They are born freely and die freely.
Remember that georgian math teacher that had problems posed with slaves picking oranges, cotton, and being beat. In an elementary school. I only bring this up because at the very least this teacher is being forthright about their gruesome nature. Then you have the rest of the education system that subtly and silently brews justifications for white brutality. Afterall whites have contributed so much!!!! Whats millions of Black lives relative to the wonders they have brought to the world.
*rollseyes*
As you can tell i am incredibly jaded at the premises of today’s N. American education system. Here is the link of that at least honest elementary racist teacher.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/teacher-who-assigned-math-homework-with-slavery-questions-resigns/
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^ the system logged out and i signed back in as personinmotion.
Also, can i ask:
What cause are they supplying for the civil war, if not the American slavery institution.
Do you think that it has been a grave mistake of the north to forego de-confederize the confederate states following the civil war (or at anypoint thereafter)?
I would posit that it has been and continues to be as the confederate flag seems to still invoke a lot of support and enthusiasm in many parts of the US.
But i would like to hear what you think. =)
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JT:
English being taught as a prerequisite in an English speaking country is “nefarious”?
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Yep, I thought that weird too, the languague in which the other subjects are taught is of course important.
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Up to to your usual dishonest tricks again I see Randy. The point is about “perspectives”…multiple perspectives not singular ones. Many different cultures and colonized peoples have contributed to English literature besides British and American. Something you with your singular Eurocentric perspective would’nt readily appreciate.
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@ Randy,
When English is the official language, who decides on standards of correctness? Grammaticality? Acceptable uses?
Who deems what types of meaning are made with the linguistic tool?
Why do Ghana and the USA share the same language, continents apart?
Is English a biological phenomenon?
Have you ever heard of linguistic relativity?
If not, here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
Also a link on just some of the implications of English linguistic hegemony:
Click to access Chap3_2008.pdf
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@JT
Excellent point !
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Up to to your usual dishonest tricks again I see Randy. The point is about “perspectives”…multiple perspectives not singular ones. Many different cultures and colonized peoples have contributed to English literature besides British and American. Something you with your singular Eurocentric perspective would’nt readily appreciate.
“”
Well stated! Hope to hear Randy’s response.
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@ JT
They’re saying it was fought over “state rights” but wouldn’t elaborate further. Of course, I pointed out, that the “right” they speak of, was the right to have slaves!!!
Poor things…
And yes, I’m in agreement with you about the northern states.
Perhaps the backlash of such actions is the Confederacy “living on in glorious memory” throughout the U.S.
The sad thing is, their children are being raised to believe this is right and just.
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In fact the decision about what is or is not the “standard” with respect to a language is random. Normally, it’s controlled by whatever group is in power. McWhorter discusses this at length in “Word On The Street”. There’s nothing inherently better about standard English than any of the dozens of vernacular versions of English spoken around the US. In fact, many of the vernaculars offer better tools for expressing certain concepts than standard English. Standard English became “standard” because it was the version spoken by the larges, wealthiest, most powerful group.
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The way this is set up, High school will be among the best years of their lives- like mine were. I have to admit, I am jealous ! High school is the foundation of knowledge, college just opens up new avenues to explore.
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@ SW6
Good Stuff is generated by WordPress. Those are the posts with the most hits over the past 48 hours or something like that.
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