It’s important for Iowa State junior Kimberly Davis to know how to teach her future elementary-age students proper English.

And depending on where she teaches, that may mean she’ll have to incorporate the much-talked-about Ebonics, or “black English,” into her lesson plans. If Davis teaches in a school district with a significant African-American population — like the Oakland school district, which consists of 90 percent black students — chances are good she’ll have to face the Ebonics controversy.

Last month, the local Oakland school board unanimously passed a resolution to recognize Ebonics as a second language to use as a tool to help students improve their proper English skills. The goal is to take what’s evolved into black English and translate, instead of correcting a child’s grammar.

The verdict’s still out on the effectiveness of Ebonics, but regardless of whether the program succeeds, Ebonics has touched off a national education debate. Some say educators are throwing in the towel, giving up on teaching mainstream English. Others praise Ebonics as the first real attempt to reach out to inner-city youths.

Not a new issue

Ebonics, a term first coined in 1973 and derived from the words “ebony” and “phonics,” is defined as a rich black-speech pattern with west African roots.

The Oakland school board’s decision has fostered opposition from the NAACP, California Gov. Pete Wilson and some federal leaders.

Many of those who oppose Ebonics say it isn’t a second language and using it represents a move toward lower educational standards.

“I would call it a dialect, but it’s a systematic language,” said Dan Douglas, an associate professor of English who specializes in applied linguistics. “Anything you can say in Ebonics you can say in English. It has rules such as standard English does. People have done that for 20 to 30 years.”

Douglas said the debate Oakland has triggered isn’t anything new.

He said the school board in Ann Arbor, Mich., faced a similar case in the 1960s.

The debate then was sparked when a group of black parents sued the school board because they felt their children were being discriminated against for using black English.

The parents won the lawsuit.

However, more important, Douglas said, was that the parents stated in the lawsuit the need for the district’s teachers to know more about black English so they could better communicate with students.

Population’s impact

A 90-percent black student population has much to do with why Oakland decided to consider Ebonics to help students learn standard English.

Richard Zbaracki, ISU’s interim chairman of the curriculum and instruction department, said given the particular population in Oakland, he’s supportive of Ebonics in that case.

However, he said it is only a tool, not an absolute solution, to help students learn English.

“There, I don’t think it will have a general impact, but would have a general impact on how we perceive languages,” Zbaracki said. “I think [Ebonics] relates to the work in linguists in how one learns language.”

Although Oakland wants to use Ebonics as a resource to help students better learn standard English, he said, it isn’t something that will need to be addressed in all school districts.

“Each district has to adapt to their own needs,” Zbaracki said.

Davis, an elementary education major, agrees.

“I may have to use it [Ebonics] depending on where I am,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to apply everywhere. I don’t think too many school districts would adopt this.”

Emily Jurovich, a sophomore in elementary education, concurred.

“I don’t see the need to have it in every school district in America,” she said. “I’m from Chicago. The kids I went to school with talk like that in their own groups. But I didn’t see it as a big problem in school.”

A guide for teachers

Nkosi Poole, a senior in elementary education, is a black student from Chicago. She said it’s about time a school district appreciates using Ebonics to teach students standard English.

“Personally, I think it’s a good idea because I’ve held that black English isn’t just slang,” he said. “There are things too stable to be slang. Professionally, since the academic community hasn’t accepted it as a language, I think teachers should use it as a guide, not as rule, because all students don’t need it.”

But Poole said Ebonics shouldn’t just be limited to populations with heavy concentrations of black students. He said there are many small towns with a majority black population.

“It can be used across the border,” he said. “Some teachers are now beginning to integrate Spanish to understand English where there are more students who speak the language. Any effective teacher will do what they can to reach students.

“Sometimes that comes into meaning when they have a lot of Latino students. If they have a lot of African-American students, Ebonics may help. Teaching according to students’ needs is what education is all about.”

Douglas said the alternative is to tell kids that black English is simply wrong.

“We white, middle-class Americans decide we don’t like it [black English], but it is not a bad language,” he said. “[Learning English with another language is] very common to do. Spanish and French are more acceptable than Ebonics and that’s an area of bias because of ethnicity.”