Government language study released (fwd)

[MiaKalish@LFP]

Phil, dear? Innocence is not something I impute to people. . . especially in
this area of research. I think they are just as underhanded, sneaky and
nasty as they probably are. In a class, I once read a transcribed speech by
a women who was head of the school board, who wanted to make sure the
"little brown children" didn't do as well as their white children because
then the little brown children would be able to compete for (and probably
get) the jobs that the white kids wanted.

That really irritated me.

However, I just like to move on down the path. Basically, all my research is
showing that it doesn't have squat to do with race or color or even SES. It
has to do with MATERIALS. Heeeheee. Of course, this is not a new idea. It is
simply one that people haven't been able to test before. I am still kind of
a hardscrabble activist. I just do it differently these days because boy,
quantitative power will knock these people out of the box every time. See?
And you thought I was being sweet!

Thanks for the nice thoughts anyway. Hope you are having fun out there. I
think fondly of my days at AILDI and hope someday to make it back. Maybe
when I really famous, eh?

best ever,
Mia

----- Original Message -----
From: "phil cash cash" <pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET>
To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 3:28 PM
Subject: Re: Government language study released (fwd)


tá'c haláXp (good day),

it had to have been from Dances with Wolves!  ideas like this have to
come from somewhere  <;-p

it is unfortunate though that the research reported here is focused on
native peoples and not on the real issues of learning and cognition.
but i think that is the whole point of this kind of research and the
governmental entities noted here are not as innocent as Mia makes them
out to be.  Taiaiake Alfred and others are correct to protest such
research as it smacks of deficit theory (superior literate Western
minds vs inferior illiterate Indigenous minds).  and the protest is
appropriate i think due to the fact that governmental entities do
indeed base policy decisions on research of this kind and hence
under-represented populations see no benefits, have no say, etc..  but
we all know this already (No Child Left Behind, English-only
legislation) despite the abundance of important research and advocacy
to the contrary.

just a few thoughts in black and white...
phil