Arizona

[asterroc]

In case you missed it the first time, Arizona education is going down the drain, and now there's a second reason. I worry for the baby of a couple friends of mine who live in Arizona.

1) K-12 teachers with "accents" will be "removed" from the classroom. This is based on a misinterpretation of federal law requiring teachers to be "fluent" in English.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2365

2) A new law bans ethnic studies classes, claiming they "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, [and] promote resentment of a particular race or class of people".
http://www.cyberdrumm.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26:welcomeunderachieving-schools&catid=6&Itemid=40

I'm looking forward to visiting Arizona in the future, where I'm sure the children will be learning proper British English due to removing all teachers with American accents, and where their minds will not have been sullied by all those White Studies classes. </bitter>

Comments

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

It's so weird to actually live in this state...

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I'm constantly shocked by the dichotomy between the fact that you and blue102 and her husband all live there, and them doing stuff like this.

At least this only applies to K-12, so you'll just be getting ignorant students in your classes, not worrying about your own job - yet. Considering how so many conservatives want to pull higher ed into national exit testing and such, I wouldn't rest easy just yet if I were you.

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

Not resting easy, nope.

You forget I grew up in a country under martial law. Political decisions can make for wacky, wacky worlds.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Anywhere you pick, there will be reasonable people that you'll like and agree with that live there.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

My parents do, too. (And are strong opponents of the recent law, although they're cognizant of some of the problems that it's trying to solve. According to my father the pediatrician, illegal border crossings and other false representations of residency are causing a significant drain on the resources of hospitals in Tucson and in the state in general.)

I lived in Tucson for one summer. It's not for me, but then I like rain. :)

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I lived in Tucson for one summer.

As did I. I really liked the lack of allergies, but now that I've finally found a good allergy medication regimen, that's less of a draw now. I got more tanned than I've ever been in my life just from walking 5 minutes to and from work every day.

According to my father the pediatrician, illegal border crossings and other false representations of residency are causing a significant drain on the resources of hospitals in Tucson and in the state in general.

Thanks for this info - I don't hear any of these sorts of stories, just people saying "they're a drain" and not backing it up with any statistics or even anecdotes. Do you happen to know anything about what percent of hospital patients are illegal immigrants, or how that rate compares in AZ to in other states? My state recently debated (and perhaps passed, I'm not sure) a law that all public services have to check residency before they provide services, and many opposing lawmakers were saying that it would cost more than just providing those services would cost.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I don't have statistics, just anecdata, really, but if it weren't really a problem in practice I'm sure that Dad would have said so, especially because he and Mom have been active supporters of immigrants and refugees in the past. (A church that our family once attended--not in Arizona--helped to shelter some refugees from El Salvador, a couple of decades back.) Dad told a story of one family residing in Mexico City--but claiming to be penniless Tucson citizens--that called in to reschedule a clinic appointment for their expensive-to-treat daughter because their flight on their private jet from Mexico City had been delayed. He also said that there were many incidents of mothers
crossing the border to give birth in Arizona so that (a) they'd get better medical care and (b) their children would be US citizens.

It seems plausible that Arizona gets much more than its 'share' (whatever that means) of illegal immigrants and other misrepresentations, simply because of its location. That said, I don't know how much we spend on border patrol officers and on identity checks.

[q10.livejournal.com]

can you cite the point in the text of the law in question where it bans ethnic studies courses generally? i looked it over and i can't find anywhere where it goes that far.

also, why would British speakers be exempt? is a British accent less accent-y than an American accent?

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

can you cite the point in the text of the law in question where it bans ethnic studies courses generally?

You are right that it does not explicitly state "ethnic studies", however it is one potential outcome of the law, depending upon how it is interpreted - much like racial profiling is not part of the Arizona immigration law. When reading the text of the law, it seems to me like banning ethnic studies is the intent of the law, but I am no lawyer.

Edit: There are sections explicitly allowing the teaching of assorted subjects (Holocaust, history of an ethnic group, oppression of a particular race) within other courses. To me this implies that courses entirely about such topics (a course on the Holocaust alone, a course on slavery of black in America alone) are NOT allowed.

also, why would British speakers be exempt? is a British accent less accent-y than an American accent?

My last part was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, as I thought was evident by my implications that (1) English is from England and therefore an English (British) accent is the only acceptable accent, and (2) all courses are White Studies and thus would have to be eliminated from their curriculum.

Regarding British vs. American accent, since this the practice of removing "accented" speakers is not actually based upon any law, there isn't even anything saying that it has to be an American accent, or that all American accents are acceptable. Is only "broadcaster's English" acceptable? What about an AAVE accent? Or Italian-American or Chinese-American? Or Southern, Boston, or New York accents?

[sildra.livejournal.com]

It's a stupid thing to legislate, but I don't think it really is appropriate to, at the high school level, have a course on the history of an ethnic group, or the Holocaust, or oppression of a particular race. I think at that level education really ought to be a whole lot more general than that. Of course, it also wouldn't be appropriate to teach a course on say American history and not discuss the oppression of the Native Americans or slavery or Jim Crow laws. But a single one of those things should not be a whole high school level course.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I don't think it really is appropriate to, at the high school level, have a course on the history of an ethnic group, or the Holocaust, or oppression of a particular race. I think at that level education really ought to be a whole lot more general than that.

I disagree. One way to get general is to cover many races or geographic regions in each and every semester, as you propose. Another way is to have each semester focus on a different race or geographic region, and then since you have a different one every semester you do cover everything. I had a semester of history in high school that focused on India, and it was one of my favorites. I also had a semester of history that focused on the Roman empire. I don't see either of these as inappropriate, despite the fact that they each focused on the history of one ethnic group.

My mother teaches a course on Asian literature from the classics through modern Asian-American authors, in a high school with a high Asian population. This is content NOT taught in other English classes at her school, which is why she developed it originally. Maybe if this content were integrated into the other classes it would be appropriate to do away with her course, but it isn't taught in the others so without this "ethnic studies" class, it's content the students will never learn. And it's not just Asian students taking her class; while there are more Asians than in other English electives, there's lots of blacks, whites, and Hispanics in the class as well.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

My best history class in high school covered Indian independence and the Pakistani split, South African independence and Apartheid, Israel, Japan from WWII on, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution and the founding of Taiwan, and the Cold War, including the Vietnam war, but mostly focusing on the interactions between the US and the Soviet Union. We spent a few weeks on each of those things. More than that would have meant excluding some of the others. Yeah, we didn't cover them in depth, but we covered them in as much depth as, say, European history, where we had to cover from 1450-1990 in one year, or American history which was from the neolithic to 1990 (yeah, we barely covered the neolithic or anything after Ford became president). Because depth is really just not the point of high school.

Here's the thing. You were probably a good student and took four years of social studies. So was I. But, at least in California where I grew up, that was not required, so the only people who did it were the honors kids--that's not even all of the college-bound, who were themselves a small fraction of the student body. In fact, my high school didn't offer 10th grade (European) history as a non-honors/AP class, so most kids couldn't have taken four years even if they'd wanted to. If each semester is too specialized, you're going to get big gaps in things that people expect you to know.

And if people do want to learn these things in depth, most colleges offer a whole variety of semester-long courses in the history of all sorts of regions and demographics. I took a couple of those, too.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Both statewide and nationwide education standards always say that topics X, Y, and Z should be taught within the grades A-D. Usual grade breakdowns are K-5, 6-8, 9-12. They do not specify whether students should get X-Z mixed together for each year, or if they should get separate units or Semesters of each, so it is at the discretion of the teachers or school systems, much like math teachers can choose to put all of say literal equations into one semester, or can intersperse it with reading graphs.

I'm not talking about special students here, I'm talking about different interpretations of existing national and state mandated education standards. Where do some random lawmakers get off thinking they knw better then the educators and historians who developed those standards to deliberately allow flexibility in how to present or group the material?

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Well, I did start out by saying I thought it was a stupid thing to legislate. I was just pointing out that I could see a clear justification for the policy beyond merely that the legislators were racist.

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Personally, I love the idea of forcing the teachers to be fluent in English...so long as we make sure this applies to Arizona legislators and government officials, too. Ever notice how the same people who scream the loudest about "English Only" initiatives only seem to speak Conversational Ichthyostegid?

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Fluent, yes. The Federal law does say that teachers have to be fluent in English, and I strongly agree with that. But "unaccented," no. Who defines what's an acceptable accent?

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

That's why I find it so funny. I've been to schools where a standard Midwest accent was the anomaly, and I had a teacher with such a thick Southern accent that she pronounced "cell" as "sail". That made my biology class interesting when she asked for us to define our impression of a "cell" on the second day of class.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

And one of my earliest science teachers in high school had such a thick Eastern European accent I couldn't tell "molality" from "molarity" from "morality".

[oh-chris.livejournal.com]

that teacher is why i'm not a chemical engineer, for exactly the reason you mentioned.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Heh. For me it's probably Doc. ;) Fun guy, didn't teach me crap. I did better on the part of the regents I taught myself than the parts he supposedly taught me.

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

Frightening. Did you see the article about the mural where the artists were asked to "lighten" the depicted people?

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Yep that's a more recent post, I didn't want people missing it.