Pat’s Polemics

On flteach there was a thread on discussing race and ethnicity in the classroom. It was started by a teacher who was concerned that a P.R. girl had been singled out, not in a mean way but enough to make her uncomfortable.

Someone wrote in and asked a question, citing me specifically, so I responded with a description of the crude ethnic put-downs my dad's generation commonly engaged in. I added at the end that teenagers tend to do that sort of thing and if you let them fight it out, they wind up working out things and being friends.

I made reference to Deborah Tannen's books. A story I had in mind is about when a team's supporters arrived at the stadium for the football game and found a problem getting seats. They took some seats reserved for other people.

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I thought a while about writing this but I hope that by being so personal, I can get a discussion going among us about how to reach African-American students, get them involved in fl, and thus contribute to the Af-Am community. For those outside the U.S., I am sure there are similar communities in your countries where students are underserved due to the obstacles I describe below.

Last night I attended a b/d party for my wife’s cousin. While the ages of the 20 or so people ranged from 1 year to the late 60s and on, a slight majority of the people were in late middle age, 50s to 60s. The b/d girl turned 65, just a year or so under us.

What I wanted to convey in this blog entry/post was the overwhelming preponderance of over-weight people. There were fewer men but they, too, tended toward corpulence. The women were very over-weight, incl. most of the young women. There was a young couple who seemed of normal weight and one older lady who looked to be of reasonable girth. Several people had problems walking.

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I had hoped to continue this thread. A post from flteach member, Marilyn, with a link, decided me to try again.

First, I'll post Marilyn’s reference and you can read the article, and after Marilyn’s post, I'll post my response.

Then I'll add in something.

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At my current school, one kid stands out. Everyone knows him. He is doing AP Latin (with me). He does everything, incl sports. He’s very popular and academically and artistically gifted. His favorite author is Dante!

BUT, some teachers say he has gaps in his English. His home language is Tagalog. I'm pretty sure he speaks it. Yet his English betrays no trace of an accent. So the teachers are picking up on subtle lacunae in his handling of English.

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