Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 336

 

 

Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "How You Say It: Why We Judge Others by the Way They Talk—and the Costs of This Hidden Bias," by Katherine Kinzler.

 

 

DeGraff describes how people mistakenly think of a Creole language as a simplified version of a “real” language, and thus not worthy of respect. This belief about Creole languages is false—all languages are indeed real languages. Haitian Creole is a language like any other, capable of describing all the content of life and the world. 

It must be terribly disheartening to grow up while being discouraged from speaking your native language and being told that your language isn’t as real or as good as others: not suitable for a classroom environment. As children are taught that their language is subpar, they come to see themselves as subpar too. DeGraff speaks of visiting Haiti now, as an adult linguist, and watching children light up when they are allowed to learn in their native tongue. He recalls how a local teacher summed up the experience: “When we teach in Creole, the students ask more questions.”

The broad permissibility and routinization of accent bias makes students feel comfortable, and even obligated, to think about and comment on teachers’ accents. Imagine students writing “She may be of [XX race], but . . .” or “She may have a disability, but . . .” Such statements would be seen as a horrific demonstration of bias. Yet “She may have an accent, but . . .” remains a typical, everyday feature of teacher assessments. Such comments are considered fine, even when the foreign accent does not affect comprehension and when the accent may not even be real, but imagined.

Adding second-language instruction to elementary school curriculum would require resources—particularly for increasing the number of language teachers and making it possible for them to move to underserved areas. This budgetary necessity might be more palatable, and fit within a broader structure of educational planning, if we viewed language learning as a critical goal of education. Children do not need to learn only math and reading; they should also learn languages. Being proficient in more than one language should not just be icing on the cake—a rare treat for an occasional monolingual parent who invests in after-school language classes or for kids whose parents can afford private school. It should instead be seen as a basic right, and a life-broadening experience, for any child. American children should be prepared to interact with other peoples and cultures, to enjoy increased opportunities for employment in different sectors, and to strengthen their skills in executive control, perspective-taking, and communication by means of this relatively simple shift in educational priorities. Our society as a whole would benefit.