It cannot be denied that NCLB largely tests students on standardized measures that value verbal fluency above all else (interestingly, competency in a foreign language is not required in NCLB) bilingual students are shown in a poor light, and guidance towards specific prescriptive techniques to suit the individual student's cultural needs, level of fluency, and family situation is not provided by NCLB. NCLB encourages teaching students how to pass a test rather than fosters the type of skills they need to truly 'own' their learning at worst, or at best, by excludes students from school performance results, which may result in a lack of funding for ESL programs, as opposed to programs that really 'count' towards the magic numbers required to meet district standards.
The anthology questions the fundamental assumption that cultural assimilation is a necessary marker of progress in the American school system. The one potential advantage, albeit a small one, that NCLB might convey to students is the fact that failing school districts improperly serving bilingual children might be flagged early on, but the measures instated by schools to meet its requirements, such as teaching to a uniformly graded test, are unlikely to address the bicultural and bilingual student's identity crisis, which can be such a factor in language acquisition, the authors' works suggest time and time again. In fact, as the presence of essayist bell hooks suggests within the anthology, such a cultural and linguistic crisis of dialect can plague even non-ESL students who 'speak' a different dialect and who come from a vastly different culture than their teachers, such as African-American students.
One of the skills of the work is how it uses such disparately authored and styled essays to drive home the same unified thesis and theme,...
Bell hooks' "Seeing and Making Culture" bell hooks successfully challenges stereotypes specific to poverty by writing to two separate audiences using ethos, pathos and vocabulary common enough for most people, yet elegant enough for academics. In her essay, "Seeing and Making Culture," hooks uses an ethos way of writing when she uses quotes throughout the text. In addition, hooks also uses pathos by appealing to our emotions with the interactions between
Bell Hooks In "The Oppositional Gaze," Bell Hooks frames gender in terms of power. Gender is one aspect of social hierarchy, and represents the social construction of power. The act of gazing, looking someone in the eye, or staring, likewise carries important connotations of power. Culturally specific, the norms regarding gazing determine norms related to relational power. Looking intently at someone is construed as brash, confident, and assertive. Therefore, persons with
(pp.45-58) Hooks also recognized that when integration occurred these change agents were alienated from black children and alienation and discrimination ensued, associated with being taught white history and democratic ideals, rather than reformation of education, which was the intention. (p. 3) Both perspective childhood stories imply implicit as well as environmental (explicit) characteristics of wisdom, as Hooks acknowledges that she may have been singled out, as a child of a
Another provocative element of hooks' text is the way that she renders whiteness problematic and alien, while the dominant culture has always done this with blackness. The quest to know what is not 'us' and to know the 'other' she implies, is endemic to all societies (hooks 32). Yet the academy has shown scant interest in how blacks perceive whiteness, only how whites perceive blackness. This renders white people and
Bell Hooks Argues There Must be no Split Between Theory and Practice Hooks also argues quite compellingly about not splitting theory and practice when it comes to feminism. In other words, practice what you preach. The best theory in the world cannot help anyone if it is not put into common practice. As Hooks notes, "I have come to see that silence is an act of complicity, one that helps
bell hooks, the celebrated Black feminist writer and thinker, recently penned a book called Feminism is for Everybody. It is a provocative title to be sure, but hooks is not the first writer to tackle the subject of how so-called "women's issues" can often have profound consequences on men. Literary works of fiction have long struggled with this central theme. In particular, Jean Toomer's Cane includes some powerful vignettes
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