Reply to Does your preschool/pre-K teacher speak using correct grammar?

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[quote=Anonymous]I hear phrases like "I don't have no..." from both black and white people, and fundamentally I think your grammar choices reflect your level of education and not your race, but I agree that a white parent in DC raising this about a black teacher could/would come off as classist or racist.  For no good reason other than that it reflects the sensitivities of the world we live in, especially in DC.  As to whether it is ok for a teacher to speak to students in a different dialect, I don't get it. Shouldn't teachers model the behavior (whether it is grammar or something else) we expect to see in our children?   And when your kids take English tests in 3rd grade, "I don't have no . . ." is going to be marked incorrect, whereas "I don't have any..." is going to be marked correct.  Why should it be ok for a teacher to speak in a form of English that would be marked incorrect on a test?   It's sort of like saying it would be ok for a teacher to casually mention during class that 2+2=5, while expecting students to understand that the REAL answer is 4, if they are every asked about it on a math test. Sure, kids can figure it out, but I think those kids who are consistently exposed to correct grammar in the first place are going to have an easier time understanding grammar rules when they start learning them formally in Language Arts class.  That's part of the reason that we speak correctly to children at home, right?  And, from personal experience, I grew up in a very middle class midwestern town where the schools weren't necessarily great, but I don't remember hearing any poor grammar from my teachers and I remember my parents being horrified when I used "snuck" rather than "sneaked," much less double negatives, etc.  I don't remember being exposed to much AA vernacular as a child.  That said, I have no problems understanding AA dialect as an adult.  I don't buy the argument that hearing "different" (ie, incorrect) grammar is helpful in any way.  And if you are hearing your AA teachers speak in a way that is different from what you learn in your grammar books, isn't that reinforcing a notion that the AA community is less educated?[/quote]

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